Many people are having a difficult time these days, and it is really sad. They feel that America is falling apart. But this is nothing new. America is a sad country, always has been. The happy face we put on hides the sorrow that is our lot. I'm not trying to be funny here. I think it's the way we are. Read Hawthorne and Melville. Reflect on the Puritans. Recall the enslavement of African Americans and their continued scapegoating. Contemplate the displacement and extermination of Native Americans. Recall the carnage of the Civil War.
And yet: We have an African-American President who was just re-elected, and after only 200+ years of struggle, significant numbers of women have arrived in Congress.
Of course it's taken too long, and the job is not finished. We really are at the beginning of something, not the end. It's very exciting. What I wouldn't give to be young now. I'd get a law degree and go into politics! Or maybe become a journalist!
As it is, I am looking forward to real change for the better in this battered land of ours.
"They feel that America is falling apart. But this is nothing new. America is a sad country, always has been. The happy face we put on hides the sorrow that is our lot. ... I think it's the way we are."
But you sound hopeful that things are improving.
Posted by: Brandon | January 04, 2013 at 01:16 AM
Americans are all displaced people. But that means we are free to change. And I do think things can get better. I am not very nostalgic about the good old days.
Posted by: Hattie | January 04, 2013 at 01:28 AM
I wish we could get Congress to operate in better ways. When I read all the pork that got put into this latest bill that they held up to scare people and then pass just past the last moment, it irked me. I don't care if these things (electric motorcycle tax breaks from our senator, NASCAR breaks, etc etc.) are good or not. I just wish they'd put them in bills intended to be say just about pork or green energy or whatever it would be. Instead they sneak them in as rewards and we as people have to read pages and pages (which we don't do) to find out all they really did.
The last episode of The Untold Story dealt with Reagan and finally I am to where most of what he's showing, I knew and felt concern at the time, still do for the way Americans were duped into not understanding what was done (still don't as the right and left lionize that man).
I really hope all Americans get to see the full set of episodes of The Untold Story as using news clips, movie bits, it has a power that it would not with just words or interpretation. Once in awhile they say something there which I think goes too far but it's rare.
An example of what I thought was overreach was claiming that if Reagan had signed the treaty that Gorbachev wanted, it would have taken nukes out of the picture. That genii was out of the bottle and once it had been created, nukes weren't going away. Like China would have quit looking for their own? Or North Korea? Only in an idyllic world would one think that. I've heard from those in the military at the time, that despite the missile advantage for the US back then, that the Soviet Union, which it still was, had the best military force back then.
The real answer to bombs or wars seems beyond the grasp of human nature. We'd like to think it would be otherwise but even on small levels, we see how humans operate and it's not pretty. In fact some of the time, it's totally horrifying. What creates those kind of humans? That's the question for education to figure out-- and it's not remotely just Americans. It's something in human nature that can do the most noble acts imaginable and also the most detestable :(
If I come back, reincarnation dontchaknow, lol I'd like to be a wildlife biologist. I look at those doing that work and think it's outdoors and working with understanding our natural world, making it better. My granddaughter talks of doing that now and it's not because I talked about it to her. The problem, of course, with such work is there aren't many who are paid to do it-- and if they are paid, it's not much. I guess writing along with it would be the ticket ;)
Posted by: Rain Trueax | January 04, 2013 at 06:19 AM
last episode should have been most recent. It's not over. I think maybe at 7 or 8.
Posted by: Rain Trueax | January 04, 2013 at 06:21 AM
I admire your optimism, which is not blind to the problems. Unlike some people I know (not just Americans) who refuse to see anything is wrong anywhere and will always say how wonderful everything is, it's always sunny, etc etc., escapists that they are. I guess I'm too much of a realist for them.
Posted by: marja-leena | January 04, 2013 at 07:11 AM
Hattie -- I feel that our country as well as the world lives within yin and yang -- and given our history always will -- good and evil not standing alone but as an indivisible whole. Change from this philosophy will not be seen during my lifetime. -- barbara
Posted by: barbara | January 04, 2013 at 08:13 AM
I am just grateful I lived to see the internet, which is in the top two or three most revolutionary things to ever happen to humankind.
Re being young now, think how scary it would be to be dating with all the rife STDs, including AIDS. At least we didn't have to contend with AIDS.
I'm always pretty hopeful. If you go back and read the newspapers from any period in American history, we have always thought the country was going to hell in a handbasket.
Posted by: Maria | January 04, 2013 at 09:08 AM
What fascinating comments! Repeating what I say so often, this may not be the best blog, but I have the best commenters!
Posted by: Hattie | January 04, 2013 at 09:45 AM
How wonderful to have such an optimistic outlook at the start of the new year. I like that you're not looking at our country through rose colored glasses, but seeing it for what it is, a work in progress.
Posted by: Musings | January 05, 2013 at 12:01 AM