On this Labor Day, a post (op-ed) from a friend in California (Thanks Jeff !)

"Write an op-ed piece, me? The notion presented by a friend caught me off guard, but she was adamant that I should so here goes. Who am I that you should read what I write? Nobody special, really so don't read it if you don't want – what do I care. Heck, we have beauty school dropouts and comedians that host their own political commentary shows now, why not an op-ed piece from me? But as long as you are asking, I really am nobody special – millions of Americans are just like me. Actually if you push the issue, I will have to admit that I don't really consider myself “average” because I find them – the average Americans around me - to be quite impressive and, admirable. So, by my very nature I would find the concept of writing an opinion piece to be laughable – like I have more education or experience that could possibly lead me to have anything more valuable to say than anyone else. Perhaps this too is typical and why so many of us that actually make things happen, choose to sit by, quietly NOT foisting our convictions upon others – it is out of respect for everyone else. Have we discovered the proverbial 'silent majority'? If we continue with this line of logic, we see that perhaps we have discovered why the liberal left is so willing to be so vocal – they actually do not respect the rest of us and our convictions. Disturbing on a number of levels ….

Maybe that is where I can have something to say, though – as but one of many millions just like me. If I am exceptional in any way it is because, in spite of everything today, I know that I was lucky - lucky beyond measure to have been born in this place at this time, at the pinnacle of this culture at the height of its influence and ability (well, at least I can remember it ...), surrounded by these People – Americans - they are from everywhere. It is that I have always known, as a full blooded American Mutt like so many of us, that regardless of which side of the tracks on which I was born or what may or may not have been offered to me because of it, I know I have had opportunities unavailable to almost every other human that has ever existed – in any country, at any time – we all have. That regardless of whatever convenient demographic that is used to identify, stratify and mass-market to us, I am surrounded by a people that can only be described as possessing a quiet Nobility – where the finest of human character is a common experience. That we have all come together to call ourselves Americans and we all proudly stand for a flag, that for those without, is nothing but a beacon of hope.

Hope.

There is a word. It used to be a neat word – a great word. It used to stand for the promise that is America - all the good and great things that are possible when it all goes right – it used to be so full of possibility, just like that flag. A place where together we know that nothing stands in our way, and that if we set our minds to it, with the Grace of God we can even walk on the moon, … and come home.

But it doesn't quite mean the same thing any longer. It is a new word now with a new meaning, though what that meaning might be I am not quite sure. It is now a word that people don't like to use, not without an expletive. Now it causes concern, and furrows brows. It was taken, hijacked by those who specialize in finding problems – real or imagined – and exploiting them. Now it symbolizes something else ... what is found when the rock is flipped over; all the possible things that could be bad when it all goes wrong. Now we concentrate on them, and are told to be ashamed. The word has been stolen as the core of a sales-pitch, it now sullies what it used to glorify – all of us, our hopes, our dreams … and our flag. It now symbolizes those who stole it; willful blindness to the point of ignorance, politics as usual, a hearty screwing of the little guy - smiling and shaking his hand while looking him in the eye as the knife is twisted. It symbolizes contempt for each and every one of us – treating the whole as if we are all as simple and gullible as the least of us on our worst day, or 'spinning' the latest controversy to shine one more reason to stay willfully blind. It symbolizes the arrogance of two sets of rules – one for us and another for those who make the rules. It symbolizes irresponsibility, and a total lack of accountability and transparency. It has come to mean very much the same as 'hype'; “tell them whatever they want to hear so we can get away with whatever we want to do”, “pass the law so we can read what it says”. In such statements it is hard to say any longer if our elected 'public servants' have any idea what they actually think, their goal for far too long has been the business of that sales-pitch, the schmooze, the spin, … and the twist. The casualty has been the truth, integrity, … and legitimacy.

Hope.

The word is now used only by those who continue the shill - trying to sell to us the notion that they can cure all that ails us, real or imagined, without any pain. The snake oil of choice has been “government spending”, but these are the same public servants so eager to see us all as less instead of more, so they can continue to emphasize the least that might be instead of the best that we are, so they can continue to pander and trade their snake oil for votes and continue to live by those other, better rules.

Perhaps the most wise among us could have foreseen this; promises so vague they were bound to be disappointed, so grand that the disappointment is unlike anything in a generation. Maybe those wise minds did, and in spite of their warnings we followed the piper anyway (or buy the snake oil, or drink the koolaide, or put on the rose colored glasses, or … pick your analogy), but now we are beginning to see the piper's bill and it isn't sitting well. We know we are still falling, in spite of the latest spin, but as the old saying goes; it isn't the fall that hurts, it is the sudden stop at the end, and we have a sneaking suspicion that all the commotion and hand shaking and smiling while looking us in the eye, were just more knife twisting and now we have to fall from a lot higher than we might have … we only 'hope' their isn't a rope involved. At least, unlike other systems, we get a chance to correct things – to 'make' a new decision. Maybe some day we can even rehabilitate and redefine a word ...

To me an opinion piece is mostly about politics, but you see, politics mostly makes me angry. Why? Because in a country that was founded on optimism and the premise that I and every person I know, is noble – think about it; you are Nobility – we are held in contempt and vilified, and treated like anything but. We Americans, if I may be so bold, are sick and tired of being made to feel bad for trying to be good. It makes me angry that an average guy like me – nobody special at all and one of millions just like me - can see that we have lost our way. In a country that is arguably one of the very Greatest to have ever existed and that was founded upon the ideal that less government is more and more is less, we have allowed more and more and more and more and more - without any end in sight. We have abandoned our fundamentals to the sound of pipes and fiddles, and the applause of those charged with watching the gate – well, the Huns are not at the gates, my good friends; they sit on the throne.

I never know where these are going to go either. Next week, maybe we can examine the role of the American media in this debacle – how they give such self-impressed, boisterous and apparently heart-felt lip service to the First Amendment and then fail to even recognize it when it matters most, how the Founding Fathers entrusted them with perhaps one of the very most crucial roles in our Republic and how they have failed; how they fiddled in accompaniment to the piper's tune (most impressive perhaps, is watching as they stop fiddling and drop away, ... one by one …), and applauded until they wet themselves. Or maybe we can discuss the failing of the Founding Fathers when they assumed that the 'press' would always have a self-interest that was critical and unbiased. Or maybe we will discuss the societal differences that make some cultures say they 'take' a decision, while Americans almost universally 'make' them. Or maybe we just did. "

Best regards my friends.

(Cartoon added by me.)


Tom Ford

NO. 800