Reply #57: Living long enough to see time is the great equalizer

[insanad]

Hello Nance,
I've been enjoying your posts ever since I started browsing this site and I copy them and send them to my friends and family. The photo of Molly Ivins initially caught my eye and I love that you continue in the tradition of writing so clearly, so cleverly, so charming and funny and yet prick at the heels of those needing chastizement. In my fantasies I'd write in that realm but so far most of my words are like singing into a well and the only voice that comes back is my own echo.

I wrote a lovely response but it got lost. Here's my attempt to re-create it.

I'm only 45 but have lived long enough to see that as we get older we tend to long for the "olden days" when things SEEMED simpler. I hear even older people say, "The world is going to hell in a handbasket". This has been common as long as I can remember. I sometimes find myself longing for the 80's or 90's when it seemed simpler than now. The Reagan era was my experience as a young adult and new mommy. I remember watching the events of the cold war and worrying all the time about a nuclear threat. Even a mere 10 years ago during the Clinton Era I remember worrying that the foolish shennanigans of our powerful leaders would be the undoing of the nation. Now, in comparison the scandals of that era seem like childs play compared to the corruption and evil tactics of the Bush Administration. Perhaps it's like having a really obese friend stand next to you to detract from your own chubbiness.

My mother's generation longed for the 50's and 60's. It SEEMED like an ideal time where women were women, men were men, black was black, white was white, and good and evil always had distinctive music to announce their entrance into a story. We all know what folly those illusions were and the frustration and hypocracy of the culture of the 50's led to the dissention and revolts of the 60's and 70's.

I grew up in that dissention. I grew up fearing that my brother would be drafted and sent to die in Viet Nam. I feared racial tensions would bring about anarchy. I feared pollution would create such toxic air and rain and soil that we'd all die of cancer and lung infections. I feared that gas shortages would cause riots and violence across the nation.

When Nixon was forced to resign I remember watching my mother weep at the humiliation and shame and uncertainty of our nation and it's leaders. Mistrust of government and big business and authority were the meat of my formative years.

Now, many of those fears are realized in the present administration and like so many other Americans, I feel a constant fear and gnawing anxiety at the circumstances our nation and the world faces.

Reading your article reminded me that I am a GOOD American. Most of the people on this site are GOOD Americans. We do good things every day. We work, we help our neighbors, we raise our families, we innovate and create and respond to the many things that need our compassion and energy. George Bush and Dick Cheney do not represent America. They do not represent the GOOD that is in the rest of us. They and the companies they are in bed with represent all that is evil and corrupt.

WE THE PEOPLE have expelled corrupt dictators in the past. WE THE PEOPLE have fought against tyranny and oppression and won. WE THE PEOPLE have found good and just leaders and supported them and WE THE PEOPLE can do it again. We are innovators, creators, leaders, inventors, producers, and dreamers. We sent men to the moon, ended wars, created vaccinations for some of the worlds worst diseases, fed nations, and connected all of us here on this site with the internet. WE THE PEOPLE can change the course of this nation and make a difference in the world.