I've been
thinking about the protests since George Floyd
was murdered. The protests, the reactions to them, and time. I was
fourteen, my middle sister was four when JFK was assassinated. My little sister
wasn't even born yet. Frankly the urban riots of the civil rights and anti war
era were almost off the radar in rural and almost small city Oregon. The most
we knew about Watts was from my uncle, an LA cop. And he was driving to Oregon
on vacation his family the day before the ghetto blew up.
By the time the Viet Nam war sort of ended one
sister was finish high school and the other was heading for junior high. In
spite of the watching of the news, the two papers we took, and the magazines
neither one was very political and both were far more religious than I will
ever be.
Jump forward the fifty or so years. We all look at
the protests in a different way. For me, it's we have been down this road
before. In a way the protests are trying to change beliefs and actions from the
top down. It didn't work then and it doesn't work now.
Barack Obama was elected and suddenly the US was a
post racial society. Just ask the talking heads. Many of whom were terribly
shocked when the election of the current occupant was like getting hit in the
face with a bucket of ice water.
Damn this entry is taking over. The progressives
hopped up and down with glee when AOC was elected from a traditionally
democratic precinct. And that changed what in the bigger scheme of things. Not
much. I got a ton of e mails this spring from progressive dems in Oregon trying
to drum up opposition to senator Merkley. A fairly liberal Oregon Democrat. He
wasn't "progressive" enough.
Yo! A senator represents the whole state, or should.
And here in thinly populated Oregon east of the Cascades? That song doesn't
play very well. Although there is a fairly large Hispanic population and
several Native American reservations this is the part of the country coveted by
some of the really far right militia groups who would like to set up a whites
only enclave.
This could go on for pages or I can pause for a bit.
How I react to the protests is colored by the ones I've seen before. It's as if
we remodeled part of house, looked at the whole thing and said the job was
done. But didn't touch the foundations.
The internet makes it far too easy to only communicate with those who agree
with us. Back in the day there was no internet but a lot of good old fashioned
shoe leather, knocking on doors, and talking to people.
All I can do is write. I don't even comment on FB
very much anymore unless I can add to the discussion and half the time what I
say gets twisted into something I never meant in the first place. A reply may
not be acknowledged or it starts and endless thread. You've probably been
there.
All I can suggest is that the progressives stop
talking to each other all the time and get out and listen to other folks. Not
everyone who voted for the current occupant is a blithering idiot. Many of them
are watching their small towns dry up and blow away. Too many jobs pay too
little and in some parts of the country it costs almost as much to keep a job
as the job pays.
There's a lot bouncing around in the old brain box
and this entry is miles from what I was thinking about when I started.
Hopefully some of this makes sense.
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