"We will be closed permanently as of Friday, May 27th."
The above notice was posted on the window of the former coffee station at the train station I used to commute from. And strangely enough, I miss the routine of going to work at a job I "sorta" liked.
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This May, I'll have been separated from my job at the bank for 9 years. And I don't miss what the job turned into at the end. My last major assignment was a no-win situation with a person who did the work of 4 people, but wouldn't explain what she was doing so that she could be managed. In fairness, she made herself indispensable, but at the expense of the people assigned to manage projects depending on her work.
Much has changed in the past few years since I left my position with the bank. My once useful skills are now obsolete, and I understand what those former steel workers felt when their mills closed down. Yet, I only have myself to blame for my skills becoming obsolete, as I can only blame those in dead one horse towns for not leaving before the one main employer there had the chance to shut down. It doesn't take much to see the writing on the wall. But it does take some effort to heed the warning (as I did too late) that writing gives before disaster strikes.
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I see America in a culture war that no one individual started. Instead, it is a natural reaction to the McCarthyism of the 1950's. In the 1950's the "Red Scare" was used to manipulate people to fear Communists in their midst. People were blacklisted by accusations alone, even though it was their right to advocate for America to use a different form of economic system. (I won't get into discussions of Stalinism, and other good reasons to be concerned about Soviet problems infecting the United States in this post.) Communism and Socialism became things to fear. In the 1930's, we had "Nothing to Fear, but Fear Itself." In the 1950's, we were taught to fear everything, and to "Duck and Cover" for whatever good that would do.
By the time the 1960's came around, we were getting into the Vietnam War, and our youth started to wonder why we were wasting American lives. Now, there was a rift in American society. Half said: "America, love it or leave it." The other half said that the most patriotic thing we could do is to point out when a country is going wrong. It was a good thing to challenge leadership when it is wrong. In short, it is a good thing NOT to follow leadership when our leaders are taking the wrong path.
Since this time, America has gone through multiple political cycles, its pendulum swinging back and forth between conservative and progressive periods of political dominance. Unfortunately, the conservative movement has now gained power by distortions of truth and by outright lies. Honest conservatives have been pushed out of their own party, as the radicals seek only power in order to crush the progressives and what they stand for. These radicals want to make America look like it did in the 1950's, a land where people of color were 3rd class citizens, a land where women took 2nd place to the males in their lives, and a land where the LGBTIQ population had to live in shame and fear.
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As I write this post, I am thinking of last night's State of the Union (SOTU) address and its rebuttal. The President's speech was one of unity and of goals. The GOP rebuttal was one of fear, accusing the progressive movement of starting the culture war. All the scary symbolic words were used in a way that I might buy into the message had I consumed a diet of right -wing propaganda. At least, I knew enough to tune out the GOP's spokesperson, as I couldn't bear to hear her lies and distortions of the truth, given her past history.
Years ago, Triumph of the Will showed the world the danger of the cult of Hitler. Roughly, 80 years later, we saw similar imagery and themes used by a now (thankfully) former president to get himself elected. White Americans who feel victimized, humiliated, and continually threatened by (too rapid) changes without a social safety net to depend on bought into his message of empowerment and reclamation of past entitlement status.
Sadly, the message coming from the radical right is one of fear. They will put us transgender people back into the closet (at best) and make us fear for our safety if they can. If they have power, many in their ranks will feel empowered to victimize anyone who doesn't fit the social models presented in shows like "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet", "Father Knows Best", and "Leave It To Beaver." There was no way where LGBTIQ people could be presented in a positive light, and no room for people of color to be seen as equal members of society.
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So what happened last night? In short, we have seen the definition of what is at stake in the culture war. We can not be a reasonably democratic republic if we regress to an America based on 1950's American values. We can not be free if we are forced to live with 1950's cultural norms. And, we can not be free if our bodies are not ours to control.
Luckily, most Americans are not supportive of the goals of the radical right. But they must continuously be reminded (in a soft way) what is at stake if the radicals win. We must take advantage of the tools protected in our constitution, and use them as effectively as the radical right has, turning their arguments against them at every opportunity.
Years ago, Charles Chaplin lampooned Hitler in The Great Dictator. He said that he never would have made this film had he known about the horrors of the 3rd Reich. I feel that it is important to be able to laugh at authoritarians, as they do not know what they can do about being seen as pathetic caricatures of powerful people. So, I go back to the SOTU address and the radical right's politician who disrupted the address to call the president a liar. If I had been the president, I'd have responded in a way similar to Groucho Marx gag from Duck Soup, and said: "I'm fighting for your freedoms, which is something that you'd never do."
The more things change, the more they stay the same....
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