Thinking On It

Room With A View

Sitting in the coldest room in the house (besides the root cellar), a little ante room off of the attic room. It’s a small room above the side porch and, as such, no heat to speak of. Thinking about it, I’m drawn to this room hot or cold, any condition. Years ago, I ran a sturdy extension cord through the eaves and hooked up a lamp. The wood paneling and slanted ceiling bring everything in close and a creative blanket hangs in the air. At times, you can set the stage.

Allowing for familiarity, I can affirm this is a magical space. Spent the first three years of my life in this very room. Not claiming any rattling chains or ghostly appearances. The otherworldly and myself focus on other things. Knowledge and respect of what has come before is a lifelong commitment and I intend to keep it. What lies ahead, I will learn to embrace it.

Facing west, a busy dentist office below opens to a grey, cold town. Other times, an open window brings in a healthy, cool breeze with a quiet street. Casting its spell, the sunset will freeze the moment, take your breath away. Best to savor the moments when they come these days. Well beyond three-quarters there and time has become a precious commodity. In truth, always was. Learned from books, from others, figured out things as I went along. My thoughts remain open to virtuous points of view.

Sitting at the window in this quiet space, I watch the traffic navigate the intersection. Everyone has their own priorities, their own agendas. Makes you wonder how we can even make it down the road together. A lot like where this country is these days. Forces of change are afoot, that’s for sure.

Uncharted Territory

Remember classmates, change is a constant. People come along and want to change things. That’s the part that should be embraced. The country can’t stand still. We must adapt to the changing times and recognize that it is changing fast. Our direction as a country should reflect that.

Enter the Donald. Along comes this showman, a self-publicist with an agenda to clean up America. The man is celebrity more than anything else. He’s been part of our footprint for a number of years now, living the lifestyle of a modern-day carpetbagger. The spoils of war are his and his ego has been stroked. We’ve now paved the way to accommodate his desires. Prepare yourselves. Emboldened by his conquests, he’s running the show and there may be fire this time.

Our new president filled a political void created by the splintering in the Republican party and grave missteps on the Democrats’ side. Not a return to Reagan-era conservatism, Trump’s agenda is to redefine America with hard-right nationalism. The peace through strength he talks about is an iron fist.

Prior to Tump’s ascension into politics, Republicans couldn’t reshape their conservative agenda. From center to cliff-side right, infighting reigned and created confusion within. Democrats were busy creating new social ills to fix, asking us to work harder to lift up the poor and forgotten. Both parties stopped working with each other, stopped working for us. Instead, they spent their energy blaming everyone but themselves.

Misguided efforts by disconnected, self-interested people and the rest of us suffered. Absolutely no one was taking care of the shop in Washington. Nobody had an eye on America. Then again, is that really true? Wasn’t someone paying attention?

Choices Are Few

Truth is, we are here now only because of ourselves. Instead of paying attention to building America better and stronger through negotiation and compromise, respect and partnering, we dropped the ball. We paid attention to soundbites and egos, scandals and conspiracies. It sells. So much so, a majority of us bought into it.

In an earlier post, I called the man an idiot, but he isn’t. I duly apologize. That post was written immediately after the election when my adrenalin was still coursing madly. I’m calmer now, but honestly, there isn’t a politician, Republican or Democrat, who I can side with.

Don’t trust, don’t believe and certainly don’t respect most of them. For me, the loss of trust happened years ago, and they just haven’t earned that respect back yet. I stay informed and watch what happens, though the soundbites and accusations are all grains of salt. Let’s just say I’m on a low-salt diet.

Bigger Ain’t Better

Here’s a work story to illustrate a point about the bloat getting slashed in the Federal sector. Story applies to bloat anywhere.

After getting married, with an English degree, went to work for the Department of the Army/Department of Defense. Back then, they sky was the limit and the dreams were soaring. Wanted to travel the country, see what happened. Only planned to work for the Feds long enough to skedaddle. Forty-three years later, I can tell you I’ve seen a lot of the Feds.

Wasn’t big and cumbersome back then and everybody’s job was important to the mission. Being a military installation, working alongside soldiers gave me unbounded interaction with these fellow countrymen. Learned a lot and there’s no waver in my respect for the soldier.

Along the way, things got bigger. In my little universe, I was a one-person shop for the big boys and did the work of at least seven. Worked my butt off that way for just about all of those 43 years. Around me, offices, departments, entire branches asked for more operating budgets each year and hired more people. New ideas, more work, and more people.

With ever-increasing budgets, money had to be spent to meet that year’s budget to get an increase for the next year. No incentive to make a profit and many reasons to grow bigger. I made a modest, blue-collar salary for most of my years with the government. Still, I always made the essential personnel list in matters of concern. Somebody had to get the work done.

Age of Incompetence

Point is, the Federal Government performs a whole lot of critical functions and they do the job well. Even today many of these jobs are quite critical to the mission. Many of these missions needn’t be tampered with, they remain critical.

The business model just isn’t working, however. They are supposed to function as umbrella protection for the states, working with them and helping them to stand up. Provide for a militia and exist as a binding force of democratic justice. As a rolling employment opportunity, there are too many qualified Wal Mart greeters getting damn good paychecks. Dilutes the critical missions.

Then again, willy-nilly elimination is not an approach to use either. Insults the integrity of the missions. Moreover, blanket dismantling dismisses those pioneers of our democracy who honored states rights as a part-of-whole concept. The union provided a broad cloak of support like a thread of democracy holding the country together.

No matter, we’re here now, entering into this modern day a go-go version of nationalism a la trump. Along with his cronies, he could do some damage, but he’s got some ideas that, if done right, would indeed make America whatever again. What stops me right there is the man’s character, his ego, his arrogance.

Foundations of Freedom

Many of us had hard lives growing up and I was surrounded by a lot of negativity to navigate through myself. Yet, even if we didn’t have the best role models in front of us, we knew who and what to aspire to. Our very essence of being has required the principles of trust, honesty, hard work. We respected our elders, our neighbors and we were known to give strangers a chance if they seemed deserving.

Trump has become a politician like no other. He has taken America by force and with unbridled power, he has the ability to significantly alter the course of history. Those who voted for him have no doubt that he will and generally commit his soundbites to their daily meditational.

I can’t blame the voters for what they’ve done, although they’re playing with fire a bit with the Orange Poobah sitting in as Camp Counselor. I’ve said before, I can only hope he gets a few things right while he’s running the show. Any damage done will hopefully be short-lived and we can rebuild again.

How do we make that happen? We’ve spent the last twenty or so years blaming each other to the brink of civil war in this country. Sigh. Seems we’ve lost the ability to sit down and compare notes, listen to each other, and work jointly to bend and compromise for our future. Shamefully, we certainly don’t have any political parties worth a mountain of beans.

The Mayflower coming over was a miraculous beginning and we’ve come a long way in building this country, surviving adversity, and allowing freedom and respect to mark the way. There’s really no need to blow it now.

Think On It

For our citizens, those here now and those who long ago laid the foundations of democracy, we have each other. We can reverse the polarity and find common ground. And in that search, we will find that we have far more critical missions in common than we have dividing us.