Winners and Losers

       I’ve been obsessed with the news for the past year. The political mess that my country is in has snowballed into a fireball of meteoric potential. I’ve read the papers, the blogs, the articles, the websites and watched Tik Toks, YouTubes, Instagrams, and Truth Socials until my brain has melted like an ice cube dropped on a hot skillet. I’ve written about freedoms, liberty, the Constitution, freedom of the press, tyranny, racism, and just plain ole stupid statements made by our leaders and congress people until my fingers are from typing. I’m done. I’m done with the negativity that it has placed in my heart and on my brain. I’m laying down the burden I’ve carried inside of me these past twelve months. I won’t be a voice in the hurricane, screaming silently into the noise of the storm of chaos. I choose peace.  

It’s addictive, this thing called liberty. You get used to thinking, believing and speaking your own valid thoughts and, before you know you’re doing it, you’re channeling all of that into telling other people what to think, believe, and speak. I don’t think we, as a nation, are very far from turning ourselves into an Orwellian nightmare, where the system will become much like the methods “the Party” used to control the population in George Orwell’s book “1984”. Slogans like “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past” and “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength” are kind of beginning to make sense to me. I don’t agree with them, but I see how people could be manipulated into believing such rubbish. He also wrote “Power is not a means; it is an end” and in order to get to that end “the Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears”. I read all this back in the actual year-1984-and it made a lasting impact on me. If you haven’t read it, I truly recommend it. Don’t expect it to give you any solutions to fixing the mess we’re in today, however. It’s not that kind of book. It will show you the direction that less liberty and freedom will get you as a country. It’s not going to show you how to fix a fascist totalitarian state once it’s imbedded like an Alabama tick, however. You’ll need to read up on the American Revolution and Civil War if you want tips about that stuff. It would be a good idea to re-read the United States Constitution and its companion piece, the Bill of Rights as well. It couldn’t hurt.  

I’ve noticed also that our whole political system has gone from representing the needs of its citizens and has devolved into Team Sport. Kurt Vonnegut, the famous author of “Slaughterhouse Five”, once said this of American political parties:  

“The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don’t acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead.”  

Wow. That pretty much summed up our current state of political affairs, didn’t it? Now we the people are stuck watching this game between idiots and morons, which we will never really win.  

As for me, I’m going to pray. I’ll read the news once a week to understand the talking points, but I’m going to make a pest of myself to the Big Guy Upstairs and ask Him to let me know if I can do anything to make my country more like “One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”. Unless He lays any new ideas on me, I’ll just keep praying. And I’ll vote. I’d suggest y’all do the same.  

God Bless Y’all.