Well, everybody's got a secret, Sonny
Something that they just can't face
Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it
They carry it with them every step that they take
Till some day they just cut it loose
Cut it loose or let it drag 'em down
Where no one asks any questions
Or looks too long in your face
In the darkness on the edge of town
"Darkness on the Edge of Town" - Bruce Springsteen
I wasn't preparing to riff on "The Boss" in this diary, but I had read a good article in The Atlantic about the making of Bruce Springsteen's penultimate album Born To Run, and how it represented the failing of the American dream for a lot of working class young people at that time. I don't have a link to that, but I would suggest reading it very much.
But while Bruce may have been lamenting about a pervasive darkness on the fringes, I look back at the events of the past couple of decades, but particularly the events of the past week, and I believe darkness has made its way well into the heart of America. You may want to bring a flashlight as I explain further beyond the orange squiggly.
As most people probably know, a local news reporter and cameraman were frighteningly gunned down and killed on live television this morning. While this is horribly tragic, sadly I'm not surprised this actually happened. We've come to a point where random acts of gun violence are becoming the latest bit of wallpaper and white noise on our daily newscasts. We have been hearing about random mass shootings since the 1990's, when disgruntled postal workers took to shooting and killing their bosses and co-workers (which ironically led to the term "going postal"). We also went through the tragedies of the Branch Davidian compound being set ablaze with women and children inside, presumably at the hands of it cultish leader, and the Oklahoma City bombing, which killed over 100 people. A few years later we stood witness to the tragic shootings at Columbine high school by two troubled teens. At the time, people were outraged and demanded strict gun control measures to protect their children.
But what happened instead? The NRA doubled down on putting guns into the hands of anyone who wanted to get one, and they lobbied their representatives in Congress and the state legislatures to loosen gun control laws.
But that was just the backdrop to the sea change which occurred after September 11, 2001.
After the attacks on 9/11, we launched two wars in the Middle East presumably to combat terrorism, but we also launched a simultaneous psychological attack on American citizens at home, with the NSA setting up programs to monitor all American citizens' personal phone and internet data, and various conservative groups launch smear attacks on Muslim citizens and anyone who dared criticize the war effort. Meanwhile, the rise of right wing media like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Fox News spread even more hatred and meanness around. They also virtually condoned the use of torture on Iraqi and Afghani prisoners of war, thus trashing whatever moral standing we had in the eyes of the world.
Even so, it seems times became even more problematic after the election of Barack Obama to the White House. Right wing pundits, politicians, and Tea Party supporters chimed angrily and fearfully about how President Obama "was going to take your guns away." Meanwhile, more mass shootings occurred, with patrons being shot and killed at a Colorado movie theater, young children and teachers being slaughtered at an elementary school in Connecticut, students being shot and killed at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois Universities, other sorority students being shot and killed around southern California by a shooter who was angry that these same women would not date him, unarmed Black people who have been shot and killed by white police officers for rather dubious offenses, and tragically today, the local reported killed on live television. After this latest shooting, President Obama came out publicly demanding more gun control, more background checks, mental health screenings, etc., which was also echoed by Hillary Clinton, and while these would be good measures to curb gun violence if actually implemented, I don't think it deals with the real issue facing our nation.
For the past 50 years, since the Civil Rights movements and Vietnam, America has been struggling to come to terms with its violent history, but I believe a lot of these issues began to ramp up in the 1980's with the rise of right wing hate groups and also street gangs like the Crips, Bloods, Gangster Disciples, Latin Kings, and others. And while the groups were very violent and deadly, what was more pervasive was the anger, hatred and fear directed at various groups that the mainstream deemed to be "different" than everyday Americans. Whether they were "dirty hippies", "feminazis", "welfare queens driving Cadillacs", these slogans were intended to shame and demonize selected groups of people, whether they were warranted or not. Pretty soon these slurs were expanded to target immigrants, women, liberals, and even the "lamestream media". Sadly this has been playing out since the 80's but seems to be coming to a head recently.
Understandably in the wake of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, and other unarmed Black men and women being killed under mysterious and/or dubious circumstances, the Black Lives Matter movement has sprouted up. Now some people have come around to counter that by saying "all lives matter," but is that really true?
If you have been paying attention to the news recently it would appear not to be the case. It certainly doesn't appear to be the case, as Donald Trump is running for President on the grounds of deporting not just all undocumented immigrants but their legally documented American-born children. Yet while his Republican challengers should be jumping at the chance to differentiate themselves from Trump and offer a reasonable alternative to the immigration issue, they are clumsily trying to take a "me too" stand with with Trump. That's not to mention those supporters yelling "white power" at a recent Trump rally or the Trump operative telling Univision reporter (and American citizen) Jorge Ramos to "get out of my country."
These are just some of the more recent ugly episodes, but this doesn't count the number of episodes by politicians and media people either slut-shaming women, poverty-shaming the working poor and their children, and shaming immigrants seeking a better life for themselves and their families because of their skin color. Add to this a very uncertain economic climate for 99% of Americans and this leads to a very toxic atmosphere for attempting to relate to our fellow man.