It’s been one of those mornings when my posts rang hollow, even to me. I’ve already trashed three because they ranged from pedantic to polemic to petty. Nothing worth your time to read.*
There has been a nagging concern about what’s left after Trump, as our institutions are condemned and hated by both right and left. Like it or not, Trump will eventually go away, maybe sooner rather than later, and we will be faced with the question of whether to return to normality, a nation with deep problems but, on the whole, pretty damn good, or a burned out shell of a society at war with itself and each other.
Are we in a death spiral from which there’s no return, or can we pull ourselves out of this pervasive anger and outrage, and find our way back to a society where, flawed though it may be, beats the hell out of the alternative?
Consider this an open thread, but try not to be a dick about it.
*Fortunately, Chris’ Friday Funny will follow, so all is not lost at SJ today.
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Anyone bitching about life right now fails to properly comprehend where we are as a species.
Last night I decided I wanted to have a really good breakfast from this place about a mile from here. I used an app on my phone to make sure said breakfast was ready by the time I dropped off the kids at school. I was in and out of the breakfast place in under five minutes and I’ve been enjoying a chicken biscuit toped with goat cheese, bacon and hot pepper jelly while I watch first-run TV on my day off.
Looks to me like we’ve got it pretty damn good if I can have a morning like this, but I guess life’s a matter of perspective
I googled your sandwich and now I’m hungry, damn you. I’m also pissed that there are apparently two of them in town and some sadist put them both on the west side two miles apart.
Make the trip. It’s worth it. But save it for one of those days when you’re determined to have a really good day.
Hope springs eternal.
This to shall pass. And still, I got this feeling that wherever we end up, its gonna be a…
Don’t politicians invent some war to make everyone pull together against a common enemy and forget their differences? Isn’t China/North Korea/Iran good enough these days?
Maybe the internet means America is completely broken. The power to organise together privately, to see things that bypass the mainstream media or to find fellow-travellers in strangers means the old bonds between people no longer work. You might be the Yugoslavia of the 2020s.
..and you probably won’t be the last.
I have no idea what to think about this country anymore. I look around where I’m living now, and things are pretty good, but I look at the news sites I visit, and the blogs I read, and everyone seems tensed for TEOTWAWKI – the cognitive dissonance/friction is enormous.
I was sure that the debate was only going to raise my blood pressure, so I didn’t tune in, and I was proven correct.
So, I drive my 10 minutes to the office, don’t wear a mask at my desk, but put one on to walk the halls and poke my head into a co-worker’s cubicle or office, and continue my day, then come home to my two kids, who walk to school, wear masks and distance while there, then walk back home, and life is good.
But we live in a small-ish and fairly rural town, and it all seems so close to normal, until I pick up the local rag, and the day-late WSJ, and read aforementioned web sites, and my blood pressure starts to rise again, with the added flavor of having moved out of a major metropolitan area last year.
Free-floating anxiety permeates the lives of me and my wife, and I’m sure so many others, but we go on.
So, today, I’m just going to turn the page, and see what CLS has to say, and hope for a smile.
The Real Kurt
Unifying the tribes of this nation will be quite challenging. William Barr has done all he could to undermine the rule of law. Everyone seems to believe that power alone rules in America, and power doesn’t come from having the most votes but best knowing how to stack the deck. Those out of power decry this, those in power applaud. Those out of power don’t seem to realize how fractured they are, how driven by hate. Those in power know full well they’re driven by hate, but similarly don’t seem to realize that once they take over completely by enshrining some form of Christianity they will start attacking each other because of course there are too many forms of the religion for it to provide cohesion.
Common enemy is the only thing that seems to work in this country. Russia or china or both would be my vote for our salvation. At least until things are going well enough again that people are too distracted by screens to engage in protest.
I can’t even imagine how much your head must hurt from constantly bumping into brick walls as a result of your astounding blindness.
Does anyone ever take a look at a map of the Russian Republic (currently minus Ukraine and Belarus) as it actually is? Russia is not a world threatening power anymore. It’s the Bogey Man of our politics these days.
We will always be at war with each other, because that is how you raise the money. Anger.
The rapid advance of mass telecommunications in the 60s-90s, and subsequent advance of the internet, all but insures the non-stop outrage will continue. Over something. It’s just too easy to do.
So it continues, unless you turn if off.
It’s still a democracy and we can rebuild. We’ve done it before as a nation and we can do it again. And, heck, we criminal defense lawyers do that whenever our clients are wrongfully convicted or convicted of more than they’ve actually done. True, it’s a lot of work, it can be exhausting, and it can be disheartening if you focus on the little distance we’ve come, but we can do it — maybe even better this time — if we are willing to concentrate on what unites us, rather than what divides us.
I’m with you. We have been here before
[Ed. Note: Link deleted per rules.]
Right, we can always do it again. Until we can’t.
The very election of Trump in 2016 was a signal that our “normalcy” has become a society at war with itself. Wishful thinking aside, the departure of Trump will not resolve any of the issues created by the increasing shift of influence to the extremist fringes in this country. The speech and thought police will pick up where they left off and we will go on down the slippery slopes of fanaticism.
So, a comprehensive and cogent grand jury post must be “impossible” afterall…
Or is it just to damn hard?
That is a bummer because I really wanna know if what I hear is true?
That being you can get both coffee AND koolaid in most grand jury rooms, but I guess they still check backpacks for beer…
“return to normality, a nation with deep problems but, on the whole, pretty damn good”
Did you mean to leave out the option of learning from this experience and growing as a nation? Far too close to “burned out shell of a society at war with itself and each other” then.
“Growing as a nation”? Yeah, it’s that simple.
Change yourself before you set out to change the world. Every act of kindness, integrity, or carrying out responsibility is like a ripple in a pond that changes for the better the world, whether large or small, yearning for your gifts. Believe in yourself. Your Life Matters.
As I read through the comments yesterday I found myself believing similar to Kathryn Kasey. So when I read her comment this a.m. I was glad to see at least one person here thinks similarly _
Somehow it seems to me when external doings are overwhelming, frightening, angering, then I should try to manage my life in whatever small way that makes things smoother for others. I’m not always successful, that’s a good reason to keep trying. The serenity prayer is useful