Do Over!

               I was and still am for that matter most comfortable when I don't have to think about things. I want to believe I enjoy my life and my world the most when I can just put everything on auto-pilot and ride the ride so to speak. In my lifetime I've avoided confrontation perhaps mainly because when I was much younger I was not permitted to share an opposing point of view. There was no room for another chair at the table that had a place card saying alternative opinion, there was only the truth of the grownups and that truth would not be questioned. It would take me a very long time to come to a point where I am willing to state my opinion not expecting it to be the only opinion and more significantly not the only right opinion.

                Some that read this will recognize the name Arbin York. Mr. York was the high school basketball coach when I was a kid and by the time I was in high school though he was not my basketball coach he was my U.S. Government teacher though I don't recall if that was the exact title of the class. I don't think I ever recalled much of anything from his class even though I was there for every class, must have passed the course because I didn't have to take it over and for the most part came away glad when it was behind me. And with that being said Mr. York left me with something I've held on to for some fifty years now.

                One day during one of his classes he stood there before us and spoke some words that I still believe were prophesized by a man I'm fairly certain didn't consider himself a prophet. To this day I have no clue why of all the things he said through those classes that this one statement would be forever etched into my mind I have no explanation but because of his words I have watched and waited over the years always wondering just how prophetic he might have been. His proclamation hasn't come to pass as of yet but I sense that the time is getting closer.

                "There will come a day within your lifetime when there will be another revolution within these United States. I won't see that day but I believe before your generation passes on you will see it come to pass. It will be a revolution which will find the middle class of the United States fighting, perhaps even on the streets, against the lower and the upper class."               

                Even though I can say there's been a time or two in my life where I could see the writing on the wall in my own life the truth is I don't fancy myself a seer or a prophet or the like. I still retain much of that tendency learned long ago to allow the "grownups" to proclaim what is right or wrong and keep my thoughts to myself. I actually find it uncomfortably comfortable to simply pad my opinions with enough space that if confronted I can easily wiggle out of them. After all the lessons learned early are lessons retained for life even when you find yourself growing out of them. And with that said I find myself once again in that classroom with Mr. York and I find myself agreeing with him more today than ever before.

                For all I know this country has been as screwed up and maybe even more than it is now for ever and the honest truth is I can't say one way or another mostly because I didn't want to think about it back then. But the thing is I want to think about it now and it bothers the hell out of me mostly because I have opinions, I mean I have real opinions of my own, about what's coming and I keep hearing the echo of a long ago school teacher in the back of my mind.

                It wasn't all that long ago that I was introduced to the concept of tribes when it comes to folks aligning themselves with one another. I'd never looked at the world in those terms mostly I suspect because I've viewed myself as not only something of a loner but also as someone most folks didn't really want to get to know all that well so why bother. So when I was introduced to the concept of folks aligning themselves into tribes and thus standing at a distance from others not in their tribe I really got to thinking about not only the people in my world but those I see and hear about across this nation and I realized we really do have a problem. And no I'm not so foolish as to think that this is something happening just now because I get it that it's part of the reality of being human. But what it did do for me is make me realize that what I so naively thought of as one nation of folks trying to live together isn't much more than a whole lot of tribes with each tribe trying their best to become the top tribe. And tribes can mean trouble.

                Tribes are a reality for a human beginning with the day they enter this world. Some tribe affiliations will never change, family for instance, but others will come and go. Some will be highly limited like your best friend and those others that you allow into that circle of friends to the church you go to and the schools you've been a part of to the person you love and the tribe you create because of that love. Then there's those other tribes you wander in and out of while at other times you find yourself locking arms with. Religion is one tribe that binds a whole lot of folks together and politics is another. Both can be equally misguided and destructive in their own ways and sometimes in conjunction with one another.

                And so it is with what this nation is presented with currently. Tribes are joining together and tribes do not like being questioned. And with that being said I will tell you that anyone who will stand up tall and proud and say that the folks that will most likely be heading the Republican and Democratic presidential tickets come the fall of 2016 are the best this country has to offer really does need to be feared. Why this entire nation didn't stand up and scream for a "Do Over!" right from the start I'll never understand. Then again the real truth is that none of it will matter all that much when you consider that the vast majority of those running for reelection this fall will be walking right back into their old offices and not much of anything will actually change. Sure there'll be someone new at the top but the fact is it goes way, way deeper than that and in the end pretty much no one wants to talk about all the business people that have their hands in this whole mess. No one wants to talk about how totally broken the whole process really is and how none of those folks sitting in those positions of power have anything close to our interests in mind because we don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to give them for a speech or millions for their foundations. Nope, they're damn lucky if they can even get a twenty dollar bill out of us and even I ain't stupid enough to think that will get me a call back.

                It's comfortable not to look at the whole of the problem. It's easiest to point at one person and say he or she is the problem and/or the solution. It gets a whole lot harder when it gets closer to home and we start looking at those other politicians and what they're really all about. So we will not look deeper but rather we will join into our tribes and simply say our tribe has said this person is the best we have to offer and that is the person we will support. We will be comfortable and after all that's all the more we really want, well, that and not having to think for ourselves.

                This nation is in trouble, big trouble, and it's coming our way on a whole lot of fronts. Something is going to have to happen that very likely isn't going to be comfortable for most anyone. In this year of elections the tribes have become disturbingly obvious in that they really do only want what they want. The R's have decided, the D's have decided, the L's have decided, the G's have decided and the only thing left it be decided is very likely nothing at all. There will be no place for those like myself and once more discontent will mount if only just a little. But that is the danger, that low simmer that builds toward boiling, and then one of these days this nation may find itself coming face to face with the words of a man who taught government to a bunch of high school kids in a little town in Wisconsin a lifetime ago.

                Then again this is only my opinion and I was taught a very long time ago to keep my opinions to myself.