The unique and wonderful designs of Tiffiany Gilstrap-Scott break out of the raw setting of the Hannah House attic [2011]
We are entering the Season of G. With the completion of this semester’s study, G has completed all the credits required for his sophomore year and is now a high school junior. How could we tell? The out-of-state colleges are starting to court him. Two pieces arrived in yesterday’s mail. He immediately discarded one because of its religious leanings. “If your religious beliefs are one of your primary benefits, your academics can’t be all that great,” he said. And how did he spend the rest of the day? Cleaning his room, “because I’m bored.” Whatever this kid ends up doing, it’s going to be great.
But then, I’m fairly certain that my parents had similar expectations of me when I was 16 and we see how that turned out. I never became the conductor or pianist they thought I would be. I never saw the success I wanted and when I finally get around to dying in 20 years or so, my obituary won’t make the New York Times. We can enter adulthood with incredible privilege yet most of us fail to rise above a level of mediocrity. History may confirm that we exist, but no one outside our family and closest friends is likely to care.
I can’t speak for G’s generation, of course, but I can speak for mine. There’s a word for what we experienced: disillusionment. We are the generation that went through school with a post-war attitude that we could do anything. We sat in classrooms and watched Neil Armstrong take that first step on the moon. At that moment, it felt as though the stars were within our grasp. I remember sitting in fifth grade and my teacher confidently telling us that the US was the best country because “we, the people” could stop bad government at the ballot box. By the time we graduated from High School, women such as Gloria Vanderbilt, Diane Von Furstenberg, Vivienne Westwood, and Miuccia Prada had taken over the fashion scene putting women in jeans and t-shirts, emphasizing comfort and their view of practicality. New businesses were everywhere, it seemed. There was nothing that couldn’t be done.
What the fuck happened? We failed to stop bad government. Not only did we vote for Ronald Reagan’s “trickle-down” theories twice, but we allowed him to cut funding for the arts by 50%, eliminate regulations for banking, and make it possible for a small handful of people to own 90% of the world’s wealth. The definitions of both “Democracy” and “Capitalism” changed dramatically during the 1980s, leading to one financial crisis after another, and we did nothing to stop it.
As a nation, we came out of WWII with the view that we were all good people. We had stopped fascism over there before it had a chance to take hold in the US, we thought. We were sure that a majority of people could be trusted. Cars and appliances could run forever with just a little maintenance. Vaccinations were improving our mortality rate. Technology and innovations created in the US were fueling global advancements. By the time I graduated from high school, we had a device in our kitchen that could make day-old bread taste fresh in just ten seconds! Sure, there were some glitches, such as the Iran hostage situation, but at the same time, cracks were showing in the “iron curtain” of communism. We could still be proud of being Americans.
By the 1990s, all of that positivity was gone. The 1991 financial crisis showed how vulnerable we were to the natural fluctuations in the economy. Our president had sex with an intern in the Oval Office. Limits on lobbying were lifted. Corporations shifted from being innovative to “increasing shareholder value.” “Planned obsolescence” became a viable business model. People happily embraced Gordon Gecko’s mantra that ‘greed is good.’ We learned that no one, not even the Church, could be trusted. We all started going to therapy.
I remember that same fifth-grade teacher being certain that if there were ever a political crisis not immediately solvable at the ballot box, the aggrieved citizens of the US would rise up together and physically overthrow the tyrant. Instead, we did exactly the opposite on January 6, 2021. The majority of voting Americans now support the same fascism we thought was eliminated in the 1940s.
We stand here now a mere four days away from a year in which we seemed to be determined to let the oligarchs take over because we continue to believe that greed is good. We refuse to support universal healthcare because we are afraid that someone might get some advantage over us. We refuse to reign in corporate misbehavior because it might negatively impact our 401K. We have stopped being a United set of states and are now a nation torn by individual desires competing for who can hoard the most wealth, no matter how much it hurts someone else.
Given the number of years that have passed and the number of cigarettes he consumed (sometimes while still in the classroom), I’m going to assume that my fifth-grade teacher has probably been dead for a while. I hope he did not see his vision of the United States implode to this horrible degree. Instead of being a world leader, we are now a second-rate country (at best) not only repeating the sins of Nazi Germany but lumping in the Apartheid of South Africa (with a bastard of a South African at the helm). As a country, we no longer care about the survival of our citizens. If we did, we’d have universal healthcare. If we gave a shit, we’d address homelessness head-on. If we had any inclination toward compassion, we’d embrace the immigrant population. If we had an ounce of humanity, we would have long-ago buoyed up the systems designed to secure our old age rather than gutting them.
I’m looking around, wondering when the protests are going to start, and I’m discouraged. I don’t see the will to force a turn-around. Instead, all I see is a reluctant acceptance of ‘this is just the way things are.’
No, it isn’t. We can do better. We do not have to accept one damn thing the incoming administration proposes. DOGE is NOT a government agency. We have feet we need to stand upon. Some asses need to be kicked. We need to defend our country and our government just as vigilantly now as we did at its birth.
Interestingly enough, it was on this date in 1814 that the Treaty of Ghent ended the War of 1812 and finally sent the British packing, securing the independence of the United States. We need to get back that resolve of fighting for what’s right, eliminating the oligarchs, addressing the needs of our citizens, and “ensuring the blessings of liberty.”
Unfortunately, I’m not sure we have what it takes.
We are entering the Season of G. With the completion of this semester’s study, G has completed all the credits required for his sophomore year and is now a high school junior. How could we tell? The out-of-state colleges are starting to court him. Two pieces arrived in yesterday’s mail. He immediately discarded one because of its religious leanings. “If your religious beliefs are one of your primary benefits, your academics can’t be all that great,” he said. And how did he spend the rest of the day? Cleaning his room, “because I’m bored.” Whatever this kid ends up doing, it’s going to be great.
But then, I’m fairly certain that my parents had similar expectations of me when I was 16 and we see how that turned out. I never became the conductor or pianist they thought I would be. I never saw the success I wanted and when I finally get around to dying in 20 years or so, my obituary won’t make the New York Times. We can enter adulthood with incredible privilege yet most of us fail to rise above a level of mediocrity. History may confirm that we exist, but no one outside our family and closest friends is likely to care.
I can’t speak for G’s generation, of course, but I can speak for mine. There’s a word for what we experienced: disillusionment. We are the generation that went through school with a post-war attitude that we could do anything. We sat in classrooms and watched Neil Armstrong take that first step on the moon. At that moment, it felt as though the stars were within our grasp. I remember sitting in fifth grade and my teacher confidently telling us that the US was the best country because “we, the people” could stop bad government at the ballot box. By the time we graduated from High School, women such as Gloria Vanderbilt, Diane Von Furstenberg, Vivienne Westwood, and Miuccia Prada had taken over the fashion scene putting women in jeans and t-shirts, emphasizing comfort and their view of practicality. New businesses were everywhere, it seemed. There was nothing that couldn’t be done.
What the fuck happened? We failed to stop bad government. Not only did we vote for Ronald Reagan’s “trickle-down” theories twice, but we allowed him to cut funding for the arts by 50%, eliminate regulations for banking, and make it possible for a small handful of people to own 90% of the world’s wealth. The definitions of both “Democracy” and “Capitalism” changed dramatically during the 1980s, leading to one financial crisis after another, and we did nothing to stop it.
As a nation, we came out of WWII with the view that we were all good people. We had stopped fascism over there before it had a chance to take hold in the US, we thought. We were sure that a majority of people could be trusted. Cars and appliances could run forever with just a little maintenance. Vaccinations were improving our mortality rate. Technology and innovations created in the US were fueling global advancements. By the time I graduated from high school, we had a device in our kitchen that could make day-old bread taste fresh in just ten seconds! Sure, there were some glitches, such as the Iran hostage situation, but at the same time, cracks were showing in the “iron curtain” of communism. We could still be proud of being Americans.
By the 1990s, all of that positivity was gone. The 1991 financial crisis showed how vulnerable we were to the natural fluctuations in the economy. Our president had sex with an intern in the Oval Office. Limits on lobbying were lifted. Corporations shifted from being innovative to “increasing shareholder value.” “Planned obsolescence” became a viable business model. People happily embraced Gordon Gecko’s mantra that ‘greed is good.’ We learned that no one, not even the Church, could be trusted. We all started going to therapy.
I remember that same fifth-grade teacher being certain that if there were ever a political crisis not immediately solvable at the ballot box, the aggrieved citizens of the US would rise up together and physically overthrow the tyrant. Instead, we did exactly the opposite on January 6, 2021. The majority of voting Americans now support the same fascism we thought was eliminated in the 1940s.
We stand here now a mere four days away from a year in which we seemed to be determined to let the oligarchs take over because we continue to believe that greed is good. We refuse to support universal healthcare because we are afraid that someone might get some advantage over us. We refuse to reign in corporate misbehavior because it might negatively impact our 401K. We have stopped being a United set of states and are now a nation torn by individual desires competing for who can hoard the most wealth, no matter how much it hurts someone else.
One of the headlines grabbing my attention this morning warns that human-made detritus, most of which is concrete and asphalt, now outweighs all the living matter on earth. Click the link. There are graphics to help you understand just how immense the problem is. We have taken a once-pristine planet, turned it into a giant garbage heap, and called it home.
Given the number of years that have passed and the number of cigarettes he consumed (sometimes while still in the classroom), I’m going to assume that my fifth-grade teacher has probably been dead for a while. I hope he did not see his vision of the United States implode to this horrible degree. Instead of being a world leader, we are now a second-rate country (at best) not only repeating the sins of Nazi Germany but lumping in the Apartheid of South Africa (with a bastard of a South African at the helm). As a country, we no longer care about the survival of our citizens. If we did, we’d have universal healthcare. If we gave a shit, we’d address homelessness head-on. If we had any inclination toward compassion, we’d embrace the immigrant population. If we had an ounce of humanity, we would have long-ago buoyed up the systems designed to secure our old age rather than gutting them.
I’m looking around, wondering when the protests are going to start, and I’m discouraged. I don’t see the will to force a turn-around. Instead, all I see is a reluctant acceptance of ‘this is just the way things are.’
No, it isn’t. We can do better. We do not have to accept one damn thing the incoming administration proposes. DOGE is NOT a government agency. We have feet we need to stand upon. Some asses need to be kicked. We need to defend our country and our government just as vigilantly now as we did at its birth.
Interestingly enough, it was on this date in 1814 that the Treaty of Ghent ended the War of 1812 and finally sent the British packing, securing the independence of the United States. We need to get back that resolve of fighting for what’s right, eliminating the oligarchs, addressing the needs of our citizens, and “ensuring the blessings of liberty.”
Unfortunately, I’m not sure we have what it takes.
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