It's been more than a year since I posted to this blog. For a very long time this was my sole outlet for writing my most personal of musings and insights. It was where I felt there were no barriers for me to make comments, lash out or to release in cathartic fashion whatever it was that was foremost on my mind.
The fact is I have many more outlets to write these days and the time to delve into my inner psyche has become limited in more ways than I can readily admit. My writing has brought me awards in journalism I could never have envisioned three years ago. I have seen my stock rise high despite the fact that my value as a writer is still under appreciated and barely compensated.
Of course, writing a blog rarely leads to untold wealth or riches. What has been essential in these postings is that I write the truth as I see it, unfiltered or unaffected by the opinions of others.
In these days of highly charged politics and ultra sensitive social media trolls, it has become increasingly difficult to feel comfortable to speak my own mind.
And yet, I must.
If there ever was a time when I should be speaking out about the climate under which America lives these days, it is now.
We have become so intolerant of each other that an errant phrase on social media can bring about immediate doom to celebrities and politicians alike. Of course, there are some politicians who are Teflon-coated, who it seems escape scrutiny and condemnation despite egregious rantings. Again, these are the times under which we live.
But Tweets and viral posts notwithstanding, I am finding myself discomfited in the lack of a sense of humor in America today. I am afraid that few can recall Will Rogers and his simple take on what made our country and our people great. Even the affable and kindly Fred Rogers would take exception as to how hardened our nation has become and how we have passed the innocence of our most precious resource – our children – into the flames of fear and mistrust and tempered them with credos of greed and self-absorption.
Perhaps it is the knowledge that our government has separated innocent children from their parents and imprisoned them without the benefit of trial and a sense of fair play. Maybe it is the senseless loss of life at places like night clubs, supermarkets, movie theaters, outdoor concerts, shopping malls, workplaces or any place where gatherings of people enjoying life or going about their business become soft targets and part of an ever spiraling list of mass shootings by assault rifles.
The rise of organized hate by small-minded men and women who blame the ills of the world on religions or people whose skins are a different hue is something I could never have fathomed as a child. We had fought two world wars stamping out the designs and encroachment of foreign powers on faraway shores in the first and halting the spread of governments that fostered genocide and glorified killing in direct conflict with our ideals of freedom and liberty in the second.
During the Cold War, I believed that the good of humanity promoted within a system of capitalism where individuals could better themselves would eventually defeat the premise of Communism that men had to share what they earned or wait for the government to parcel it out. That belief turned into reality in the 1990s and America seemed to be a beacon for the world again.
I would never have considered that the America of my youth could fall from its pedestal of being the leader of the Free World and a moral nation that others would want to emulate and morph into a nation led by the super rich and super greedy with corruption and amorality as its most prominent features.
We have become a litigious society where juries are awarding incredible sums of money to victims of corporate greed which have addicted thousands in order to fatten their wallets or who have looked the other way when putting products on the market. There is little chance that tort reform will reign in the rampant filings by hungry attorneys hoping to find their pot of gold at the end of the judicial rainbow.
Doctors are also under siege by self-appointed financial wizards who have managed to administer health organizations on their behalf and perpetuated a system wherein they realize greater profit by denying benefits to those in dire need. Medical malpractice costs have forced many physicians who might have established solo practices in the past into forming corporate partnerships as a measure of self-preservation and protection. The days of a kindly Marcus Welby, M.D., who makes house calls is sadly over. Instead, new concepts like urgent care centers have sprung up and patients are paying visits to emergency rooms in droves due to the demands of insurance policies.
Health care has become a major determinant in keeping a job or seeking employment elsewhere and programs like Medicare are having to raise the age levels of those seeking benefits. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that my child will have to wait until 70 years of age or higher to qualify for Medicare.
As a boy, I was a Cub Scout and Boy Scout. Even the simple nature of Scouting for boys and girls has become shrouded in controversy. For decades, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) was vilified for its standards for adult leaders and youth which prevented gays from entry into its membership. After protracted legal challenges and a historic plebiscite by its members, those policies were eliminated and membership extended to those who had formerly been shunned.
Today, the BSA and the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. (GSUSA) are embroiled in a new legal battle over which gender belongs with what organization. Facing historic lows in membership, the BSA announced plans two years ago to open its entire ranks to girls, notably in the Cub Scouts and the newly-renamed Scouts BSA (formerly the Boy Scouts). Even though co-ed units are the standard around the world, including in England, where Scouting was founded, the GSUSA has challenged the BSA in court.
Due to that battle and the inordinately burdensome task of paying out millions to victims of alleged child abuse, the BSA has already announced its own plans to declare bankruptcy should they need to protect their assets. Many alleged victims of abuse have recently been given a second chance to charge individuals and organizations by legislation passed on a state level such as in California, New York and New Jersey. Victims need to be compensated, of course, but in many cases the problems arose within religious organizations who partnered with the BSA and the alleged incidents occurred as far back as four decades ago. Sadly, many of the offending adults were often sheltered by those who wished to not visit scandal or shame upon their religion and the BSA was never informed of these crimes at the time they occurred.
Throughout the course of writing these words, I feel the same outrage as when our nation was shaken to its core through assassinations and divided by waging a war on many fronts in Southeast Asia and against each other at home.
Those were certainly not the good old days, but even then I knew we would get better as a nation and move past the division and derision. These days I am not so sure.
We have never become more connected through devices and the media that update us as to our world in ways we could only have imagined two decades ago. Yet, despite this connectivity, we are a nation of lonely people, seeking to live out life vicariously through these devices while hardly lifting up our heads to acknowledge one another at the dinner table.
Thus I find myself sitting at a computer adding more words to the blogosphere while mulling all of this over.
Am I being authentic and genuine? Yes.
Will these musings convey my angst and disdain for where we are as a nation? Probably.
Do I feel better? Maybe.
Does any of this make sense? Doubtful.
