The Long View

I feel badly that I don’t want to really think much about Current Events. The proposed federal laws that would redefine rape and shut down a national organization that provides a wide variety of health care services to low-income women. The protests in Wisconsin. The assault on the EPA and the shelter given to polluters. Citizens United.

Really, I get sick to my stomach thinking about it.

Where did rationality go? What are they all afraid of? Or is it that it’s all about greed? Why is it not possible to talk things through in a reasonable fashion without having someone start screaming?

Here’s what I wish:

A realistic dream. The kind that scares the hell out of the dreamer. This is the path you are on, this is where it will take you. Kind of like The Devil’s Advocate, where the protagonist “wakes up” at the end of the movie, having just had a vision about where his life could be going if he continues down his current path. I want everyone who rants about needing tax cuts, spending cuts (but no cuts to the Pentagon!), less restrictions on business, less of a social safety net, to see where this path is going. I want them all to see that it’s going to affect everyone, not just that Poor Family Over There. The odds of the fewer business restrictions making enough of these folks rich enough to be unaffected by collapsing roads and bridges, crumbling schools, rampant crime, a toxic natural environment, rising ocean levels, and unavailable health care are too slim to gamble on.

This is the America we’re creating: a starving, polluted land covered by jails.

Please, can we wake up now?

2 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *