Anger In Middle America
Good gawd, we’re certainly an angry lot, we Americans. Consider this lunatic in Austin who set his house on fire, then flew an airplane into the local IRS offices. Despite the overwhelming vilification among the general populous, there are bound to be thousands of malcontents, as misguided as he was, who consider him a hero. (I refuse to use his name here, because that would only add to any glorification of the guy’s act.)
Good gawd, we’re certainly an angry lot, we Americans.
Consider this lunatic in Austin who set his house on fire, then flew an airplane into the local IRS offices. Despite the overwhelming vilification among the general populous, there are bound to be thousands of malcontents, as misguided as he was, who consider him a hero. (I refuse to use his name here, because that would only add to any glorification of the guy’s act.)
Progressives and Liberals got good and angry in December of 2000 when the addled Rehnquist-controlled Federalist Supremes became ultra-activists and facilitated the coronation of Bush the Lesser as King George XLIV – thus legitimizing voter nullification in direct negation of the most basic and sacred tenets of Constitution of the United States.
Our anger increased exponentially when the 2004 election was stolen by the same usurpers through detestably archaic voter suppression tactics reminiscent of elitist Jim Crow laws, along with strategically employed unverifiable voting machines.
Oh, but since the legally-conducted 2008 election didn’t go their way, Righties who embraced the RoveCheneyBush Regime, replete with all its tyrannical destructiveness, have entered into a new stratum of indignation based wholly upon hate, racial bias, fear, and conjecture.
So, now they’re angry at the majority of their fellow Americans – human beings they consider inferior because of differences in skin tone or ethnicity or ideological makeup.
You know, I’m pretty damned angry myself.
I’m angry that…
Democrats, with a commanding majority in both the Senate and House, have allowed the corporate-friendly Republican minority to bring the most important issues regarding America’s business to a standstill.
My fellow Social Security recipients and I won’t receive a cost of living (COL) increase this year.
The Chicago Cubs were outpaced in free agent acquisitions and between season trades by the St. Louis Cardinals.
I can no longer afford to attend a live Major League baseball game (hell, I’ll be lucky if I can squeeze out enough to go to a Class A game in Peoria).
Thousands upon thousands of good Americans are languishing in prisons, tossed in among hardened career criminals, just for having a little marijuana in their possession.
A recent study in California that proved numerous positive aspects (viable curative properties) of pot has received little to no recognition in the mainstream media.
People putt along in the middle or left lane on an Interstate highway, remaining completely oblivious and refusing to move over while numerous vehicles are forced to pass on the right.
The guy who just passed me doing about 90 still has a McCain/Palin bumper sticker (more often than not, drivers who show the least regard for traffic laws and safety display Conservative stickers – many as behind the times as Bush/Cheney).
The mainstream media continues to suckle the Dick Cheney and his wholly unaccomplished daughter Liz, providing them with free airtime to spew their family’s unique brand of bile-filled hatred, fear and divisiveness.
The service drainpipe in my basement is clogged, requiring constant monitoring of washing machine cycles to prevent overflows, and I can’t afford to pay a plumber to clear it out (see previous anger issue regarding no Social Security COL increase).
The primary care physician provided me by the Veterans Administration is at best inept, a schmegege who’d rather stick up for his nurse than attend to needs of his patients.
The aforementioned VA nurse is incapable of empathetic human interaction, rewords everything I tell her, behaves like an adversary rather than an adherent of the tenets of Florence Nightingale, and acts as though it’s the patient’s responsibility to make her life easier.
I haven’t had steak in months, and there isn’t a good restaurant to get a proper steak dinner within 120 miles of Normal, Illinois.
Life in Normal can easily be described as slow death, but I can’t move because I’m tied to a mortgage (again, refer to the previous comment regarding no COL increase).
Tundra-like conditions have kept the entire region blanketed in snow for weeks now, and the forecast for the next five days is more frigging snow.
I can’t afford to go somewhere southerly even for a few days respite (again, refer to the previous comment regarding no COL increase).
Some of the most devastated sections of New Orleans remain untouched disaster sites.
I have to wait until March 6 for the first televised Spring Training game.
The Beatles can never reunite.
My good friend Veto died of cancer last September at the age of 52.
We drifted apart in his final years, as Veto had become an angry misinformed white conservative.
There are so many among us who are blinded by hate, completely intolerant of anyone who doesn’t subscribe to his or her own personal views.
Sarah Palin is considered by so many as the voice of reason.
Corporate entities have now been awarded free rein to take over the American democratic process.
The current activist Federalist Supremes will conceivably have decades to rewrite longstanding laws and dismantle the Constitution with extreme prejudice.
While we’re supposed to live in an age of enlightenment, there are more guns in the hands of Right-thinking citizens and criminals than any time in American history.
Right-wing zealots, such as Justice Samuel Alito and Rep. Joe Wilson, get away with refusing to afford proper courtesy and respect to Barack Obama due his high office as the duly elected President of the United States.
Civility has left our great Nation and headed off into the netherworld.
Most armed conflicts result from a “my god is better than your god” mentality, and it’s entirely possible that there is no god.
Although my son graduated from university more than a year ago, he’s been unable to make any headway regarding gainful full time employment.
As much as I’d like to be positive and cheery, I can’t shake off my own pissoffedness.
Shalom.
Go, Team U.S.A!
(Jerry Tenuto is an erstwhile Philosopher and sometime Educator. A veteran with seven years of service in the U.S. Army, he holds a BS and MA in Communications from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Depending upon your taste in political stew, you can either blame or thank Jerry for his weekly “Out Of The Blue” feature in The Lone Star Iconoclast. Visit his blog Blue State View at illinoiscentral.blogspot.com)
