RageLately, I've noticed that I'm angry much of the time. When I wake up in the morning, I'm angry. When I watch the news, I'm angry. When I go to work, I'm angry. Not always, but often. I'm angry when I eat my supper; I'm angry when I sweat and pant on the treadmill; I'm angry when I drive; I'm angry when I go to bed.
Not a particularly pleasant way to live. And it worries me.
People who are angry eventually go nuts...they end up in hospitals... they burn up their souls raging against the Universe... they become bitter old people who can only look back on their own lives with disgust and contempt.
God save me from such a fate.
But why am I angry? I haven't always been this way. Why, then, is so much of my life wasted on rage?
Well, I put it down to a sense of impotence....impotence against the oppressive and regressive corporate system, wherein we are systematically robbed of the fruits of our labor.. impotence in the face of monumental stupidity, wherein people are plainly shown the truth, yet still somehow deny it.
What a pig!Take, for example, the explosion in the price of gas. This crisis has been engineered by evil (yes, evil) people. Or, remember how the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 were stolen through paralegal maneuvering and voter suppression? Or, consider how we are all being made to bail out the crooks on Wall Street who have been cooking the books on us so greedily that their avarice threatens to crash the entire world's financial network. And then, remember that there are still those who believe that the people responsible for all this are somehow honorable and worthy of respect.
These same people, who blithely ignore the flames erupting all around us, who ignore global warming and overt corruption in our government, and the overall decline of our humanity, cause my blood to boil.
And underneath all this anger, there is despair. Daily, I must make the effort not to submit to it. It is a challenge. The American dream, the lifestyle that we have come to love, is toast. Even if we all, today, this very moment, dedicated ourselves to saving it, we could not.
If, as I believe, the downward trend of our economy and our global credibility not only continues but sharpens, we will have a very different perception of ourselves as a nation by the time the November election rolls around.
This country does not lack for well-meaning idealists and enlightened, good-hearted people. There is still hope that the horrors of the Bush administration will be repudiated and that we can once again bring our nation into the good graces of the other peoples of the world.
Barack Obama, for all his weaknesses and faults, provides the best hope for the beginning of a recovery. But even if he is elected to the Oval Office, a real recovery and salvation will only come if he unites the American people and calls upon all of us to make the sacrifices and endure the hardships that are necessary.
One slender reed...Well, Obama may be a slender reed upon which to place one's last desperate hopes, but what other choice remains?