Jean-Luc Picard would probably be disappointed in me these days.
I pretty much refuse to engage any more.
Or, at least, for the time being.
And by engage, I mean reply, respond or, more often than not, even acknowledge remarks made in the comment threads of the various social media pages I either publish, or just frequent, when said remarks come from the disagreeing side of the dialogue demarcation line.
And not just because those remarks are almost always, and let's just get the overused, not so funny anymore hardy har har out of the way, not just disagreeing but disagreeable.
But,mostly, because, for mostly most of my life to date, I haven't tugged on Superman's cape, I haven't spit into the wind, I haven't pulled the mask off the ol' Lone Ranger....and I haven't spent any time banging my head against brick walls that have no intention of budging.
Even when the disagreeable disagreeing is, by any reasonable measure, ridiculous and my instinct is to keep insisting that the disagree-er could see that , if only they would see their way clear to hearing, honestly listening and giving it a reasonable amount of consideration.
As a variety of authority figures throughout my life have admonished me, I should know better by now.
Or as the aforementioned disappointed Admiral Picard would remind me.....
Insistence is futile.
Still, as with chocolate, Dwayne Johnson movies and that "last golf club you'll ever need to buy", temptation is always alive and well..... ever urging an indulgence of the urge to volley back the debate birdie, the ever present hope also alive and well that this time, this back and forth, this push and pull will result in common sense winning the discussion, not to mention the day.
Props to our home girl, Emily Dickinson, "hope is", meanwhile, still "a thing with feathers...that perches in the soul."
All of that said, never let it be said that I'm any more than mere mortal. And, accordingly, inclined to spit out, rather than bite, the bullet and give that birdie a bitchin bash.
Game point coming up.
Donald went to London recently for a NATO meeting. Between snarky tweets, foot in mouth commentary and the garden variety white trash in an expensive, tailored suit approach to global leadership, it was business as usual for America's leader-in-waiting (as in, he was elected to be a leader, the lion's share of us are still waiting).
Oh...and there was that zany video of several of the other world leaders having a private chit chat prior to an official meeting in which they were, without naming names, naming one other leader as the resident buffoon in the bunch.
By the way, not for nothin', but "accidentally overheard mocking and ridiculing...". These are intelligent, savvy young men. In this little ongoing situation comedy, there is no such thing as "accidentally". Score one for a well executed play from the Aaron Sorkin playbook. (check out the "the red light on the camera was on" episode of "The West Wing").
Meanwhile, after Trump's return to the land of Washington State apples, Georgia peaches and House impeachment, Joe Biden posted some pointed put downs, pointedly proffering that Donald being a laughing stock wasn't exactly raising America's stock in the eyes of the world.
Motivated by Joe's point of view, I offered my own, via the ol Facebook.
".....Biden is carpe diem-ing the "global ridicule" angle in the latest ad(s).....
theoretically, the ridicule of the other world leaders is damaging to Trump, but....
....it's important to keep in mind that the key votes in the Midwest, et al, that gave Trump the Electoral College came, in large measure, from people who don't really care about (or, for that matter, even understand) "global issues".....
their "world" is the three to five feet in front of their faces at any given time......
and while we all, in fact, "inhabit the planet", there is a sizable population of America that could give a shit less about what France or Germany or even Canada thinks......and will, in a heartbeat, vote for Trump again if they think he will keep (get) them safely back to the America of 1955......
even if that "getting back" is all nothing more, absolutely nothing more, than a sad illusion......."
The comment thread responses to my response consisted of the reasonably predictable. My friends, colleagues and/or like minded acquaintances weighed in with a yay thee. And there was one amusing oldie but goodie from someone I don't know.
"Get over it, snoflake"
While I appreciate his taking the time to frame his ignorance in a holiday theme, I was a little off put by, not so much the predictability of that mindset, but the complete and total lack of originality involved.
Dude, the whole "snoflake" thing is, like, so, like ,2017.
Bet you still say things like "groovy" and "far out", too, right?
One comment caught eye and mental ear, though. From a lifelong friend who, we both acknowledge, says tomato when I say tomahto on just about every issue that exists from religion to politics, from Boulder to Birmingham.
And though we don't connect much, all that much, anymore, it was a rare occasion on his part to respond to one of my observations.
Especially one of the political observations.
And it went like this.
"...I think you should form a “Let’s persuade Michelle to run” election committee. Better yet, make it the “Clinton & Osama-Bama retry election forum. Whatever works. I wonder if you’ll ever understand that the WH winner is not in the hands of mere mortals. I would’ve thought someone as insightful as yourself would‘ve figured that out after 2016..."
For the first time in a while, I was more than tempted to reply right there in the ol' FB comment-o-matic. But I realized that what he had inspired me to offer required a little more. If only just a little more space.
This is that space.
And here is a little more in the way of reply.
Season's greetings, brother from a different mother....the first, always challenging, bump in the road when it comes to online sharing is that "tone" is, often, impossible to gauge. So while it's entirely possible that your entire offering here was articulately performed with a tongue planted firmly in cheek, it's also possible that you were seriously soap boxing me.
I'm gonna go with the tongue and cheek thing. And take, on faith, that you accept that 99% of my say is equally sardonic. Which isn't to say I'm not serious about the what. It's just that it's more fun to be impish with the how.
Your first few words, there, reminded me of the psychology I've researched through the years, in particular, the notion that the first thing we instinctively go with when commenting or responding is our "first responder" mode, a verbal version of running straight on into the fire without hesitation. The calmer, more measured (read:self censored/edited) stuff follows shortly or even later.
And if that theory is legit, then you help prove a point I've made from time to time (and others, too, I'm insightful, not all knowing and seeing). The implied assumption, on your part, that because I am firmly, oh, hell, passionately, against pretty much everything Donald Trump is, was, stands for and/or ever will be, that I am automatically yearning for the days of Obama and Clinton (and bears, oh, my).
Frankly, I was never all that enamored of Obama's performance. I was, truth in advertising, not happy with a lot of what he did and/or did not accomplish. In a final report card world, I would have given him a B-, maybe a C+.
But all of that assessment, on my part as a citizen, is based on policy agreement or disagreement. And, in my case, a "filter", as it were, that allows for knowing, through years of self motivated study and self education, reflection, etc, on political and presidential history, that the job of President of the United States is, while certainly more dramatic, no different than any job in which he or she holding the job is evaluated.
Cue Danny O' Keefe.
Some gotta win / some gotta lose.
Put more visually....place five people in a room. Ask each of them what they think about (anything..fill in the blank)....
Two will love it. Two will hate it. And one can take it or leave it.
Paul Stookey had it right, I think, when he wrote "whenever two or more of you / are gathered in His name / there is love".
His lyric, wisely, says absolutely nothing about any agreement in the room.
Again, Obama was no better...and no worse.....than any other president in contemporary times, when his tenure is graded on a curve.
And being that the whole of America is made up of aptitudes ranging from Rhodes Scholar to "we need to talk about little Benjy", the need to grade on a curve is a given.
Meanwhile, none of my "that's a big negatory, good buddy" when it came to the Obama period had anything to do with his personality, his presentation and/or his general character.
My take then, as now, is that he was an intelligent, educated, decent guy. But, more importantly, in hindsight, I realize he was, again, within the acceptable and inevitable parameters we have to include when judging our fellow mere mortals, a class act, respectful of the system as it was created by the, these days, much mentioned Founders and supportive of the foundational institutions that make America what it was designed to be.
Again, and only because of what's coming next, no less....nor more.....than the Bush or the Clinton or the Bush or the Reagan or the Ford or the Johnson , ad nauseum, E pluribus unum........that preceded him in the gig.
And I never, for a single second, felt a flick of fear that I was going to wake up one morning to find that the whole nation had been converted to Islam over night and we were all going to have to do an off off off Broadway production of "The Diary Of Anne Frank-The Muslim Years"
So, I never felt, nor feel, the need to play witty word games using words like "Hussein"...and...wait for it..."Osama".
PS....at this writing, still got all my guns, too.
Meanwhile...Maude?
Yeah, put a pin in that.
And then there's Donald.
I'll spare the recitation here. If curious or unclear on my general posture as regards the host of NBC's hit "reality" show, "The Apprentice", just find one of my blogs, podcasts or vidcasts on the matter.
Pick a blog, podcast, vidcast. Any blog, podcast, vidcast.
As far as the White House not being in the hand of mere mortals......
There's two paths to traverse here.
One involves finding any credibility whatsoever in anything that comes out of Rick Perry's mouth. Either Rick or his partner in prophetic predilection, Michele Bachmann.
That, of course, brings us face first into this Franklin Graham meets Monty Python theatre of the absurd presentation, "He Is The Chosen One"
When every one with a smidge of synaptic function knows damn well that Neo is the chosen one.
Geez.
Path two?
Well, if that's your play, you may be on to something, there, mi compadre'.
That's where we start talkin' bout one of them gods that God takes exception to us having before Him.
Scripturally speaking, of course.
And the twin brother Megatrons of a nation in the chaos of being "transformed".
"Oligarchy" and "Plutocracy".
With each passing day, "Hail To The Chief" gets closer and closer to being excised from the Marine Corps Band playlist, in favor of several more suitable and applicable candidates for the theme song-in chief.
Cyndi Lauper. "Money Changes Everything."
Barrett Strong. "Money (That's What I Want)".
My personal fave?
Randy Newman. "It's Money That Matters."
My favorite because Randy always brings a bit of whimsy and weary cynicism to his artistic interpretations of the human condition.
And what could be more whimsical, not to mention, wearily cynical, than for America to have elected a president who not only represents, but outright champions, the very gaudy, gold plated pillars on which ol' Oli and Pluto are founded?
See, bud, it turns out that, either way, I did, in fact, figure it out after 2016.
Sooner, actually. If you go back and find video/audio of my radio talk show appearances, podcasts, et al, pretty much starting from the moment that Donald descended the gaudy escalator and announced that he was going to show Obama what happens when you make fun of Donald at White House Correspondent Dinners.
Well, shit, he shore did show him, din't he?
Not to mention the rest of us.
That pretty much sums it up, my friend.
Oh....and the very last thing I want to see is Michele running.
She, too, struck, and strikes, me as a decent and classy person.
And the last thing in the world she deserves is to be put in charge of a country where four out of ten people, at any given moment, think a slick, real estate hustling, snake oil peddlin' sociopathic narcissist comes with ten kabillion miles of what the, these days, much mentioned Founders had in mind when they gave birth to Article II.
It's one of those Groucho Marx "be in any club that would have me as a member" kind of thing.
Love and best to the family.
And thanks be to Donald John, of course, for the freedom with which he has blessed me, after so many years of oppression, to wish you all.....
Merry Christmas.
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