January in America
The sequel sucks. Trust me. It sucks big-time.
My 14-day trial offer for 2021 recently expired. I requested a full refund. Imagine the lyrics to Simon & Garfunkel’s classic song, Mrs. Robinson. Instead of “ Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.” In 2021 the lyric now reads “Where have you gone 2020? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to war.” Civil War. So far this year has been a Groundhog Day of crap! Things are not getting better. Not even close. We are just two weeks in but suddenly 2020 looks dreamy.
Last January, all was fine. Kobe and Gigi were alive and well. Eddie Van Halen was present. Sean Connery was drinking Vesper’s in the Bahamas. That nice man Alex, from Canada, was still on every night at 7 pm. All seemed normal, though Covid-19 lurked in the shadows. As 2021 approached, collective optimism suggested the worst was behind. The New Year would be different. The vaccine would be a cure-all. A capable and prepared President would take office. And as if by magic, our deep-rooted divisions would dissipate. We shared hope for a turning point, a new beginning. Sadly, the calendar doesn’t do magic. January 1st didn’t change a thing. There has been a turning point. But America’s 2021 pivot has brought us toward the abyss.
Seemingly out of nowhere, the Hindenburg imploded. Around 2 pm on January 6th, that floating blimp of hate that has quietly flown across America for many years finally landed. It was ugly. Americans stormed the United States Capitol in a complete rage. American citizens stormed and terrorized their own Capitol Building. This wasn’t Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. It wasn’t ISIS either. Nope, it wasn’t the drug dealers and rapists from Mexico. This was not 9-11. This was Timothy McVeigh 2.0. While shocking, this insurgency should not have surprised anyone. As we watched in horror, I kept looking for Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx. One of my wife’s favorite movies is White House Down. Those “citizens” last Wednesday were definitely not part of a regular Capitol Hill tour. They were domestic terrorists. Period. These fellow Americans also happen to live less than twenty minutes from your front door. They exist in darkness and the darkness is closer than ever.
My wife and I were glued to coverage from 4 pm until well after midnight. We rotated from NBC to CNN to Fox and of course C-SPAN and PBS. We watched multiple hours of C-Span coverage! A little before 1 am, Joseph R. Biden from Delaware was certified as the next President of the United States of America. Kamala Harris was certified as our next Vice President. Democracy prevailed. Our Republic is still standing and while severely beaten down, it has survived to live another day. But tomorrow still scares me. And so does the next day.
How ironic is it that tomorrow we will celebrate Martin Luther King Day?
Dr. King preached peace. He preached for justice. He preached for equality. Sadly our beloved country no longer reflects any of those ideals. America is lost and rapidly headed down a rabbit hole of hate. America is greedy. America is selfish. And worst of all America is racist. This did not happen overnight. These harsh realities have been with us for many years.
I am very troubled by friends and loved ones that have openly accepted this selfishness and hatred in the name of lower taxes, deregulation, and conservative judgeships. I don’t like “him” and he is a perverse and bad person but look at the stock market and we don’t want socialism. Sure, I agree, fascism is a much better approach. The most troubling of all is the Republican party and Fox News. Together the Republicans and Rupert & Gang have completely capitulated to domestic terrorism. After the assault on our Capitol left five people dead, 147 elected “leaders” perpetuated the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. These cowards chose terror over the Constitution to preserve their power and Fox continues to spread this narrative. That is sickening to me and it should sicken everyone. Just three days before Biden’s inauguration, our nation’s Capitol looks like a war zone as 25,000 troops stand ready to protect our Democracy from ourselves.
I have very few answers or solutions. I have thought often this week about the creed from my college fraternity, Alpha Tau Omega. Our brotherhood was founded by Otis Alan Glazebrook in 1865 at the Virginia Military Institute. Glazebrook planned to use Christian brotherly love as a way to help facilitate reconciliation between the North and South in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. ATO was the first fraternity founded after the Civil War and the first sign of Greek life in the old Confederacy.
THE CREED OF ALPHA TAU OMEGA
To bind men together in a brotherhood based upon eternal and immutable principles, with a bond as strong as right itself and as lasting as humanity; to know no North, no South, no East, no West, but to know the man as man, to teach that true men the world over should stand together and contend for supremacy of good over evil; to teach, not politics, but morals; to foster, not partisanship, but the recognition of true merit wherever found; to have no narrower limits within which to work together for the elevation of man than the outlines of the world: these were the thoughts and hopes uppermost in the minds of the founders of the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity.
Cheers to the Greek system! Maybe fraternities are not all bad after all. Maybe we can take these words and move forward with these or similar ideas as our guide. Or maybe we can remember Reagan’s words of optimism when he called America that shining city on a hill. Sadly, America has ceded that hill. We are a divided and deeply injured country. And remember, a Civil War is not our only concern. Covid-19 is still ravaging our country and our economy is in dismal shape. 2021 will eventually get better. It has too. I have a fierce optimism that good will prevail over evil but it will take all of us to make this a reality.
Godspeed Joe and Kamala.
Happy Birthday Dr. King.
God Bless America.