Saturday, October 16, 2010

who do we blame?

“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Those words were penned by philosopher George Santayana in the 1905 book “The Life of Reason”, and are no less true today than they were then.

We’re in a precarious position as a country.  We’ve gone through a period of wealth and power unseen in the history of the world, and we’ve come to expect it.  We’ve forgotten how we earned it.  We just know it’s due us.  It’s our right.

So, as we begin to see these things slip away, we wonder why.  It can’t be us. 

It must be them.  They’re taking it away from us.  It can’t be we who are squandering it.  We are better than that.

It must the be the gays.  They don’t represent America.  They’re an abomination. 

It must be the illegal immigrants (Mexicans).  They’re taking the jobs Americans don’t want, but they’re the problem, nonetheless.

It’s got to be the Chinese.  They’re taking our jobs, as if jobs are owned by one nation, as if its only our birthright to have wealth and success.   

It must be the Muslims.  There were twenty or so who attacked our country, so the billion or so that are out there have to be the same.   

The teachers, they’re the villains.  Our kids are not passing the those tests.

They, they, they, they, they, they. 

Joe McCarthy would be very proud.  

1 comment:

  1. Points taken Tom and unfortunately 'the said state of denial' has proven to be detrimental to your great Nation.
    -Brenda-

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