Light/Breezes

Light/Breezes
SUNRISE AT DEATH VALLEY-Photo by Tom Cochrun

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

SHIFTING SANDS and WHAT AMERICA DO YOU SEE?

    Just another day at the office for the Curlews, not mindful of the seasonal shift of sand.
    Where are the steps? "Like sands through the hour glass, so are the days of our lives...." Remember that old soap opera opening line?
    It will take seasonal tides to reveal the missing steps, but of no consequence to our Curlews.


   Here we see a gull considering grand larceny. Slowly it tracks toward a fisherman's rigs and kit.

united we stand
...don't think so...
    Campaigns have always been divisive, after all a choice is rendered, deciding for one and against another. But it's a new world and rifts under gird everything.
    Trump and Clinton present two vastly different visions of America and thus paths forward. Who do you believe?
    Media has become entirely too parochial or partisan to ideology or party. What happened to non-partisan or at least bi-partisan?
     We've crossed the Rubicon. This election, like so much else in daily living has devolved to "feeling" "emotion" "personal belief" and attitude. Where is critical analysis  intellectual work, truly weighing pros and cons, or thinking about it?
     Do facts matter? To whom? For what reason?
     Why are so many Americans fed up? Why is there so much anger?
      I fear this election will settle nothing. The rifts will continue to run beneath our feet. Old democracies and republics have problems, some are lethal.
      This is the Boomers last stand. In another 4 years most of our parents, the greatest generation, will be gone. Boomers are now dropping off the actuarial tables increasingly and in 4 years the once large "census bubble" will be faded and diminished. 
      Gen X and or Y or whatever will be aging and the largest group that matters will be the millennials. They will inherit a government and electoral system that is presently bought and sold where all too many who labor in it are in it for themselves.
      Some men and women who work as prostitutes are forced into it. All too many of our "electoral industry" and "government business" workers are in it because they want to be. They do it for the money and they like it.  How does that square with the historical intent of elections and governance?
      How will the millennials change things? Watch how they vote, or do not. Some things are a given. Race, gender, sexual identity will be passe to all but a few cretins, sons and daughters of skin heads. 
     Millennials have grown up where disruption is the norm and where the old norms of family, career, attitude are as out of date as the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and early 90's. We will be a relevant as the Civil War, WWI, the telegraph, or horse and buggies were to us.
      Grouse and belly ache, worry and shout all you want.
Our relevance, our attitudes, our way of doing is getting wrapped with the garbage in the newspapers and headed for the trash. I wonder how much of our ways are even worth recycling.
       A democratic republic is by nature a messy business but the point is to find a center, a meeting in the middle. That seems to have disappeared as a skill or goal. Maybe a new generation's take on our noble experiment of a United States will do what we have failed.

    See you down the trail.
     
     

11 comments:

  1. Those missing steps could be a result of that hoax: global warming.

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  2. Took most of the summer off when it came to politics. Got into some interesting conversations with a few Brits and some Irishmen during our travels but otherwise involved myself in other stuff. Interestingly, not much had changed. What I knew about Hillary and the Donald before my "dropping out" was pretty much where it was at when I tuned in again. How could that be? Three major corporate cable news stations cranking 24/7 and really, not much changed... Hmmm...

    I'm pinning my hopes on the millennials. Those that came out of the woodwork for Bernie "seem" to possess the values that "could" propel our republic forward in a positive direction. They seemed motivated and energetic! They got a sad dose of reality when perhaps the last of the old guard got the nomination. Discouraged? Sure BUT, they're still out there and their turn is coming. It will be interesting to see what they do with it and who they bring forward to represent them.

    As for the media, I would be interested to see just how much of the audience corporate FOX, MSNBC and CNN is composed of this newer generation. Seems that the ones I'm exposed to really don't pay that much attention to the Big 3. That said, I don't live in Sarah Palin's real America!
    Corporate media sucks. Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and the next ap whatever that is, is where it's all headed and in many cases it's already there. Social media IS the source of information preferred by many of the younger generation and it will be interesting to see how the established media handles it. After all, it's already responsible for a revolution!

    Just one man's opinion!!! Damn I rambled!

    Ok, iPhone down and out comes the guitar!!!

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  3. I always appreciate your insightful political observations. They're always well written and thought provoking.

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    1. Stephen-
      Thanks. Kind of you to say so. There's just a lot of old political journalist still kicking around in my head.

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  4. Jim-
    Always good to hear from you. Glad you are plugging back into the political scene.
    Aside from your guitar, I suggest a nice central coast red. Or if it is has hot in PV as it is here, a cold white!

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  5. We're pinning a lot of hope on millenials whose 3rd Party vote might tilt the election toward Trump. But maybe that's ultimately a good thing if we can weather 4 years of disgusting and harmful Trumpiness, then get real Progressiveness rolling.

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    1. The idea of 4 years of Trumpiness is not good for my blood pressure. Those who use clear eyes and who study this man and then who decide to give him their support to be the President are indeed deplorable people. If a majority of voters give him that power we have cursed ourselves and probably deserve the outcome.

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  6. A country that can produce self-driving cars and trucks that have no concept of the unexpected or sense of intuition can certainly be relied upon to dehumanize government. I have measureless faith in this new generation, but they will face problems we've barely glimpsed in our most dystopian times.

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    Replies
    1. Geo.,
      You are indeed correct. It is my hope this new generation will be inventive, innovative and creative enough to steer around and through the shoals. They have lived in a time of immense explosion in the power of data, information management, technological instrumentation and unlimited potential. I hope they are hard wired to be more adaptive and responsive than we have been.

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