First, an apology to everyone who stopped by my diary yesterday. We lost power about 45 minutes after I published. I didn't abandon either the topic, or those kind enough to comment.
I have always been a bit of seine net for factoids. I accumulate bits and pieces of information and gradually a coherent picture emerges. Some of those bits and pieces have been clogging the holes in the net recently, and I feel compelled to clear the net.
I have, during my lifetime seen America rise and fall. I have seen religion move from a private, or family and social activity to the dominant theme in media coverage of politics. I watched us walk on the moon and then forget why we did it.
I was born before the Second World War and retain memories of a nation that understood sacrifice and the common good. I remember the struggle of this country to move towards a true democracy, free of racial bigotry. I pledged allegance with such pride when I heard of the Berlin Airlift. The Marshall Plan was discussed in the classroom, and both the economic and humanitarian reasons for its implimentation were clearly explained. I lived at a moment when the very best of the American Spirit was on full display to the world. I learned that Finland was the only country to fully repay its debt for the war.
"Duck and Cover" was the bain of my childhood. We waited breathlessly for annihilation, emotionally crippled by a deep seated and often unacknowledged fear that the world was going to end with no warning. As a young adult, the Cuban Missle Crisis seemed to make those fears real - no longer the boogie man of monsters under the bed. And then I watched as skillful diplomacy eased us back from the brink. I am one of those who stood in front of the TV and openly wept as the Berlin Wall was taken apart. It was the single most powerful symbol of our fear and it was being dismantled. Then I watched our political leaders blow it by refusing to accept victory, and continuing to meddle in the affairs of others, just because they could. They seemed unable, or unwilling, to shed the mantel of Daddy.
Then, I watched as the power brokers cast around for a new monster under the bed in order to continue their unchecked control of so many elements of our lives. They mobilized to use their Cold War tactics against their own citizens. Religion was enlisted in their effort. Growing technology, growing interdependence with all of those "foreigners", growing loss of small town pecularities and prejudice - all provided a fertile field to plant a second crop of repression and fear. Ripe for picking by those who would clamp down on individuality.
I remember a time when, to force women out of the factories and offices and make place for the returning vets, two decades of commercials were carefully developed to convince women that Spic and Span, the floor cleaner that was to be used in high heeled shoes, would satsify us as much as real work with real outcomes. My Mother-in-Law was a pilot who ferryed bombers during the war. Then she was instructed to go home and make her piece with a new vaccum cleaner. Any woman who did not accept this redefination of their role to create and maintain a spotless home was deemed a pitiable failure as a woman, as a person, as a citizen.
When that was not sufficiently successful, women were indoctrinated into the cult of regular doctor's visits and huge amounts of tranquilizers were main-lined to treat a host of "illnesses" that stemed from being relegated to the kitchen in heels. The rise of the build a better illness and they will come medical practice was born. Restless Leg Syndrome is the cherry on that particualr sundae.
I remember when Betty Freidan blew the lid off that conspiracy and women shook off the drugs and began to rediscover their individuality. But the advertisers would not give up their new found power easily. The consumer society had been born and the humanitarism that had been devoted to defeating Facism and re-engineering the social contract here at home was now given over to selling everybody two of everything.
I read Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring, when it was published and learned that we were distroying the planet with our unchecked breeding - a carry over from the days when infant death made multiple pregnancies imperitive - and from industrial pollution. For nearly 50 years I have watched human greed deny and derail all attempts to enforce rational population control and impose sanity on the use of resources and the byproducts of industry. Those who understood were ridiculed and marginalized as "tree hugging kooks", while the destruction continued, unabated.
I saw a man walk on the moon! The world held it breath that day and the pride eminating from the surface of this planet sent waves of Glory Stuff wafting into the Universe. Then I, and so many others, waited. We waited for the next step into the cosmos. We waited for the world to unite in space exploration and the next big adventure. And we waited, and waited. Waited while small men kneecapped the efforts to expand, at least until they figured out how they could control and milk that expansion for their own ends. Over 35 years and we haven't even been back to the moon...
I remember America as a proud and generous nation, the envy of the world. Those words are still marketed here at home, as they desparately try to maintain the portrait of American Exceptionalism, but I have seen that epitaph destroyed in 7 years of mass insanity. I have seen a population that doesn't bother to vote, clearing the field for people who neither understand what they are choosing, or how those choices are destroying our lives, unchallenged as they exercise their mindless bigotry and primitive fears on the international stage. I have seen the rise of a government that does not withhold sensitive information in the name of security, but deliberately lies and manipulates to create a playing field where they not only control the ball but are the only folks who even know the rules.
There is a lot more, of course. I was a Beatnick, and a Hippy, A Playboy Bunny and a Mom. A college graduate at a time when that was considered by many to be a bad idea for women. I have experienced the immense pleasure of that first pay check, earned by my skill. I made a home for my two boys as best I could, and survived divorce and poverty, the indignity of food stamps and welfare checks, and a million other small and large life events that have shaped my view of the world today.
But I am struck by the events that dominate, by the history that has unfolded during my lifetime. WWII, The Cold War, the fight for equality for women and African Americans, Gays and Peace, the frantic attempts to save the Environment, and the truncated exploration of the Universe.
This is who I am. This is what has shaped me, my opinions, and my goals. And this is why, although I think of my self as Liberal and very Progressive, I am also throughly disheartened. As I recount this history I am most struck by the futility of it all. All of those people striving for a better world watching their dreams destroyed by the greed and stupidity of a few, and no real end in sight. There is still a monster under the bed. I struggle to name it.