Thursday, June 27, 2019

If You Think About It, Gravestones Are Little Walls, Too



America loves a winner.

And that's why what you're about to be told is going to come as bad news.

Hey, America.

You lose.

You've been defeated, vanquished, knocked out of the race, banished to the cellar, pick the sports metaphor that hits a home run for you and run with it.

You are number one no more.

And here's the dun-dun-dun surprise plot twist that makes life's little melodramas so much more entertaining.

You don't even know that you are number one no more.    


Even worse, you think you're still king of the hill, top of the list, a-number one, head of the heap.

Start spreading this news.

It wasn't a foreign foe or an enemy army that conquered you. It wasn't a virus or bacteria or plague, locusts or otherwise, that did  you in.

It wasn't even the illusory and imaginary hoardes of raping, pillaging, drug crazed brown skins that came pouring over the border like a tidal wave in any given movie most likely starring Dwayne Johnson.

No, what ended your reign as the undefeated champion of, literally, the world, was a simple pebble in your red, white and blue shoe.

A wall.

Even worse, a wall that does not now, nor will it ever, actually exist.

And, pun disguised as metaphor notwithstanding, a wall that sealed your fate as losers.

Stone truth.

Right here and now.

Fifty years ago this year, on July 20th, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings to set foot on the surface of the moon.

These days, anyone under the age of, say, 55 most likely relates to that momentous historic day in much the same way those of, say, my generation related to the Wright Brothers' little moment of winging it, circa 1903.

It was of some interest as the tale crossed their radar via dry pages of a dusty history book, but there was no particular emotional connection.

Historic events are mostly comprised of facts and figures, who, what, where, when and, if applicable to the context, why.

Feeling the feelings and emotions that come with the event requires a personal presence either at the event itself or, at the very least, being alive and aware at the time the event takes place.

I know that John Wilkes Booth shot and killed Abraham Lincoln. I can honestly tell you that I haven't got a clue of a sliver of a memory as to when I first heard or just read about that killing.

Meanwhile, it was fifty three years ago this November, but I can still tell you exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard the radio broadcaster announce that John F. Kennedy had been shot to death on a Dallas street.

And those twenty or thirty years younger certainly join me in remembering just where they were and what they were feeling as they watched the Twin Towers come crashing down.

Bottom line, history is about reflection. Historic events and any emotional connection to them, themselves, are largely a matter of "you had to be there".

At this point, it's expected, and reasonable, that a lot of folks reading this piece are likely asking "what does all of this have to do with this "America has been defeated" business?

Fair point. Fair question.

And here's the answer.

America simply hasn't got what it takes to get the job done anymore.

And the proof? Well, the proof comes in the attitudes of millions of people who, like a dog with a bone, can't see any other solution, actual or imagined, to the challenges of maximizing the safety of this nation and securing this nation's borders except a solution that was considered high tech, state of the art....

...375 years ago.

1644 for those History Channel types who are also sticklers for exact calendar notation.

Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a wacky, fun area of Asia, circa 200 BC, got his border security on by working on protecting his newly minted dynasty from, as the dry and dusty pages inform us, "incursions by nomads from Inner Asia."

The structure went through this emperor and that emperor until 1644 when it became the border securing/landmark/tourist attraction we all know today.

Courtesy of that era's area supreme leader and/or leaders, the always amusing Mings.

Come for the vases.

Stay for the Great Wall.

One suspects that had bumper stickers and ball caps been around in 1644, they would have been sold out of the very popular "Make China Great Again" edition.

Fast forward to America 2019.

And the perceived solution to what ails U.S. when it comes to legitimate issues of immigration and border security.

And proof positive that America has been defeated, vanquished, knocked out of the race, banished to the cellar, pick the sports metaphor that hits a home run for you and run with it.

Clearly, America has given up.

And, following the inevitable path of logic involved when giving up occurs, the obvious conclusion to be drawn is that America simply doesn't have what it takes anymore.

Because fifty years after John F. Kennedy surprised everyone, especially those whose job it would be to make it happen, by publicly committing the United States to putting a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth by the end of the year 1969.....600 months after America put its best brains to the staggering goal of putting a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth...18,250 days after those best and brightest answered the call, put their brains to work on the goal and, fifty years ...600 months.....18,250 days ago, this July, ... accomplished that goal in the America of 1969....

...the America of 2019, the America that considers a failed real estate hustling, pathological liar, pussy grabbing narcissistic sociopath worthy of occupancy in the office that has seen the likes of George Washington.....Abraham Lincoln......Franklin Roosevelt......John F. Kennedy...come and go.....the America that has witnessed the advent of nuclear power, the discovery and distribution of antibiotics, the eradication of polio....the creation of, and common ownership of, a small chip, in that computer on your desk, that computer in your lap, that cigarette pack sized phone in your hand that affords you access to a wealth of information that makes traditional libraries seems like a circular stuck under the windshield wiper of your car in a grocery store parking lot.....

...the America of 2019 believes the venomous, pandering, fear mongering, self serving spew of a failed real estate hustling, pathological liar, pussy grabbing narcissistic sociopath.....not suggesting that the only thing to fear is fear itself....or "throwing our cap over the wall of space travel and having no choice" but to scale that wall and retrieve it.......

instead.....that the best answer to the legitimate issues of immigration and border security.....is not any one of a thousand things that America's best and brightest minds could most surely conceive and create if only encouraged.....or inspired.....or just asked.......

....no......the answer is a wall.

No brain storming, no think tanking, no drawing boards, no limitless 21st century technology being birthed by the most brilliant of the very best and the very brightest in the tradition of those who harnessed nuclear power, discovered penicillin, eradicated polio....created a small chip.......

...put two men on the surface of the moon and returned them, and their equally brave fellow explorer, to the Earth.

Fifty years ago.

This July.

All there is....is a wall.

A tired re-hash....of a 375 year old idea.

Clearly, America simply doesn't have what it takes anymore.

That's indescribably sad.

Given the power and energy and creativity and innovation and brilliance of the America that was.

An America that reached for the stars.

And achieved it.

An America that now has nothing to offer but a wall.

An America that can't even get that off the ground.



 











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