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H2O Man

(73,333 posts)
Fri Jul 3, 2020, 09:56 AM Jul 2020

A Daze in the Life

"It's getting better all the time." -- Paul McCartney
"Can't get much worse." -- John Lennon

Isn't this such a strange and dangerous time? Strange for all of us, and more dangerous for some than others. I know what many people of my generation think about 2020, but I wonder about the impact it has on the life-experiences of younger generations. I can say that the actions and responses of many young adults has me hopeful.

At the same time, there are things that catch me by surprise. Nothing Trump does, for I know he is a diseased bag of hot air that blows no good. In psychological terms, he is a sociopath. In theological terms, he is "evil" in the literal sense that he creates mental stumbling blocks that prevent him from being a conscious human being. He inhabits the lowest pool.

I have a friend -- a casual friend -- that I've known since The Beatles released the album with the song quoted above. He is a red neck. I get along good with a lot of the red necks from my childhood, though I do not have close friendships with them. This friend has always lived on farms, and I remember he always missed school on the first day of deer-hunting season.

He believes that the members of Congress from both parties want to take his guns. So he is a Trump supporter. Yet, yesterday he shared a facebook post from my wall, honoring black soldiers. The post has a 1913 photograph of the 10th regiment of the US Cavalry camping in our home town ( the 10th was all black). That got me thinking: in the 50+ years I've known him, I've never heard him say anything racist. Of course, that doesn't mean that he is free from some of the baggage that my generation still has.

I've asked him if he thinks he could have been friends with Trump if we attended the same school? Hung out afternoons, and visit each other's homes on weekends? He knows better. He likes Trump, because he hates Washington, sees that Trump does, and that DC hates Trump. Even the republicans in the House and Senate hate him -- they just fear him.

On the other hand, another friend -- a very close friend of over 30 years -- has always been aggressively anti-racist. I've seen it many, many times. But he has a paranoid fear of Black Lives Matter. His fear is rooted in reports that one of the founders said she is trained in Marxism.

For half of the time that I've known him, he has been a liberal Democrat. But as he has aged, he's become more conservative. Thus, his primary source of information is Fox News. And lately, most of what he posts on FB is a direct result of the Tucker Carlson show an hour earlier.

His liberal daughter and progressive son-in-law try to discourage this. My son says that they are the internet version of "All in the Family." Our old co-workers find his rants troubling, and ask if we need to do an intervention. When he stopped in here a week ago, my son conducted that intervention, focusing on the difference between monuments and memorials. My friend isn't in favor of monuments to the Confederacy, but is worried about "Marxists." (Lions and tigers and bears! Oh my!)

Thus, when he posted a meme about the BLM leaders being "trained Marxists," I felt it would be tedious to explain they are schooled in the arts of community organizing and confrontational tactics advocated by Saul Alinsky. I'm old enough to remember the divide between Alinsky and the "New Left." And we all remember when the republicans attacked candidate Obama for using Alinsky's community organizing strategies -- but not confrontation tactics -- as a young man in Chicago.

Instead, I posted a "heart," as did his daughter a few minutes later. This led to a rant about Marxists. So I wrote, "Ah, now you are attacking Groucho!" He hasn't spoke to me since.

Strange days, indeed!

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A Daze in the Life (Original Post) H2O Man Jul 2020 OP
Good One Me. Jul 2020 #1
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