Kati and Me (10)

Kati, my sweet girl, I find it almost impossible to blog anymore. The truth is I think I have pretty much given up. No, I haven’t given up on life, I still marvel at the mountains, the scenery, the sunrise and sunset, the remarkable diversity of life all around me, the deer and coyotes, the magnificent elk and moose, the birds, and even the weather, although it has been, for me, too cold. Basically I am at peace with the natural world.

It is the human world that has turned me into a rather cynical and unhappy person. Aside from a small number of friends I have become increasingly isolated from society, even American culture itself. Everything has changed during my lifetime, changes that do not seem to me to be in any way either useful or pleasant. It’s true we don’t have as many flat tires as we once did, and refrigerators and technological stuff work better. But of late it seems to me my life has come under attack from the forces of, I guess, capitalism. The profit motive is destroying my everyday life in ways that may strike you as trivial.

Even simple things that once gave me pleasure have changed. For example, I once enjoyed watching MSNBC. I like Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes. But I rarely watch them anymore because there are too many commercials. There are so many commercials  I no longer  have the patience to sit through them for the programming. I just turn it off. Similarly, the ads for movies are so overwhelmingly violent (and stupid) I no longer care even to see them. Much of the other advertising is so embarrassingly awful I find myself having to avert my eyes rather than watch it. When you realize that MSNBC is perhaps the least offensive of channels you have little choice but to simply abandon TV entirely.

But my experience with TV is merely symptomatic of the problems with contemporary American life that have completely turned me off. Ever since my childhood I have considered myself to be a Democrat, as was my father. I no longer consider myself a Democrat, but, rather, a Socialist, not that it matters to anyone but me. This is not simply a matter of claiming the Democratic Party has moved away from me, it is far more serious than that. The Government of the United States itself has abandoned me and the rest of the 99%. There is no longer any connection between the wishes of the 99% of people and their government. The vast majority of U.S. citizens want sensible gun control, their desires apparently fall on deaf ears in Congress. The vast majority of U.S. citizens were opposed to war with Iraq, they were ignored, a majority want us out of Afghanistan, they are ignored, a majority want diplomatic relations with Iran, they may well be ignored, a majority want the rich to pay more in taxes, and so it goes. What is supposed to be a government of the people, by the people, for the people, has become a government for the wealthy, for the corporations, and for profit over people, in short, a Fascist country pretending to be a democracy.

This would be bad enough if it were not for the unutterably stupid “news” we are being fed on a daily basis. The most trivial matters are blown up entirely out of proportion by the corporate owned newspapers and television stations. Obama’s handshake with Raul Castro proves he is a communist, the Obama’s black dog’s attack on a 3 year-old White girl suggests they are racists, Obamacare is socialism, as are unemployment  insurance, Social Security, Medicare, and anything else that might improve the lives of the 99%. Now even the somewhat covert racism that affected Obama’s election has become overt, blatant, and dysfunctional.

I now believe I have become completely divorced from our supposed government. I wish to live my remaining years without having to concern myself with what I believe to be the absolute idiocy that now constitutes our politics. I believe a majority of our elected officials are either  incompetent, dishonest, hypocritical, and greedy, or perhaps all of those things at once.

The greatest disappointment of my life comes from the realization that my (perhaps naïve) faith in our government has been shattered. World War II was our proudest moment, it’s been all downhill ever since.

Remember Kati, “Pride goeth before a fall.”