Beyond the ‘Wall’
Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the once again mild, overcast island of Nantucket! Great to be with you on this early Sunday morning, the 9th day of November, 2014, with the Cape being as quiet as a church mouse in this lull after a momentous election and before the busy holiday season…
A good time to reflect on what happened this past week, or not. Quite frankly, it has all been said ad nauseum, and on this 25th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall’ all separating ‘East’ from ‘West’ (like ‘red’ and ‘blue’ in the U.S., post 2014), Berlin youth sending up thousands of balloons to mark the occasion only nine minutes ago, I wonder if anyone really listened or cares at all now, I mean, where the hell is the LOVE? All happening as Mikael Gorbachev, the famous former Soviet Union President, warns of another Cold War in the future, stating that the west claimed ‘victory’ with a little too loud of a voice, perhaps explaining some of Vladamir Putin’s recent movements in Crimea and the Ukraine…
But what does that have to do with the ‘wall’ between the haves and have nots? The ever growing chasm, a GRAND CANYON. A great difference between the people now ‘in power’ representing the .001 percent really in POWER and those who do not have a pot to piss in, the vast majority of ‘the American people’…
Funny man, humanitarian and all round good guy, TV talk show host Bill Maher had–on his venerated show “REAL TIME, with Bill Maher”, only on HBO (Fridays at 10 p.m. sharp, eastern; 7 p.m. pacific)–a good example of what I speak of here–a nice, average person who lived ‘Hand to Mouth’ by working three jobs and still not making ends meet’ but can now because she wrote a dynamite book about the whole bloody experience! This is not the exception to the rule, rather the other way around in these days of Ayn Rand’s whip ‘em but good! 21st Century GOP austerity, bringing back the days of ‘yore where only those with land voted and women were second class citizens deserving less pay for equal work than her male counterpart, preferably barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen…
In 1960, when the Berlin Wall was erected, it served as the ultimate symbol of the Cold War, and as that war waned, the wall was torn torn in 1990 with little pieces of it spread throughout the world (as was brilliantly pointed out by Google today, just ‘Google’ it if you don’t believe me Mr. Speaker!), to perhaps REMIND us of what we are talking about here–no more walls between peoples, less hate and more LOVE, hello, McFly? Is this thing on?
The walls have gone up, not down. Look around you folks, the walls of Wall Street are deep and they are VAST. They stretch from lower downtown Manhattan and extend outward from sea to shining sea. America’s new slum lords, with those big banks we bailed out owning much of the real estate that was bought and sold like so much cattle in the most recent ‘meltdown’ of those ‘too big to fail banks’ , banks, along with the oil and gas industry, that ARE the government now, as the Chief Justice John, “we’re not an activist court”, Roberts Supreme Court (as his nose literally grows a few inches as we speak) eyes another prize, “Obamacare”, perhaps erecting yet another wall for over 5 million Americans who just got health insurance, calling the subsidies ‘unconstitutional’ because of a typo.
The walls erected to block opportunity for our young African-American communities, such as Ferguson, Missouri, MUST be addressed, lest we become like the nations we have been fighting for it seems an eternity, Iraq?, no, ‘them Middle Eastern ‘extremists’.
Why do you think these countries have youth that become radical extremists? Besides the folly of the Iraq war for starters. It’s Because those young people lack opportunity, loving guidance and HOPE.
We, the United States of America, are better than that as a country and it is high time we bolster our education systems and EMBRACE our youth, ALL of them. And not just lip service that WE can ALL see right through…
“Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, er, um… you just can’t get fooled again.” (credit the classic comedic stylings of our 43rd President of the United States, Mr. George W. Bush!). No sir, we do not need talk that carries NO street cred, ultimately bringing the nation BACK from the brink of the destruction of a hard fought for 238 year old democracy with that little letter ‘d’.
Beyond the wall (door), “…there’s peace I’m sure…”. (credit; guitarist/song writer Eric Clapton)
Have a nice Sunday folks and please enjoy your day!
PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M
p.s., Where was Berlin? ‘Was that Russia Danny? No? It was in Germany, that’s right, I remember now….
