Do the Right–Wrong!

Because what else would have been the perfect gift for Mrs Fringe on Inauguration Day, 2017?

Because what else would have been the perfect gift for Mrs Fringe on Inauguration Day, 2017? Thank you!

I’ve had this thought circling in my head for the past few weeks.  I talked about it a bit with Nerd Child before he went back to school last week, and today it seemed appropriate for musing on the blog after 1 full week of Trump & Co in office.  Yeah, I know, this isn’t a mom-blog and I already talk an awful lot about my kiddos, but bear with me, please.

Husband and I have always tried to do our best.  We knew that wouldn’t always work out as intended, but still, parenting is a commitment we take seriously.  A commitment to our children, but also a commitment to society.  We do our best, and hopefully offer decent, kind, well-adjusted human beings who care about others, themselves (raising saints and martyrs was never our goal), and the world at large.  How’s that for overblown navel gazing?  And yeah, we want success for them. Success doesn’t have to mean a job making a bazillion dollars a year on Wall Street, but for us it means that in addition to doing something they feel good about, we wanted them to understand it’s important to be able to pay your bills, and do better than we have, a little more comfort, maybe even own a house.

But have we screwed them in the process?  I’m looking around, taking stock of the past week, who’s taken office, been nominated, being confirmed despite (because of) no experience, no compassion, conflicts of interest galore and long documented overt racism; running the country, deciding to rip apart the social contract we’ve been building and trying to improve for over two hundred years….  Sure, greed, corporations, and selfishness have long been valued in our society.  It isn’t brand new, the results of this election didn’t come from nowhere, regardless of how many want to pretend it has.  There has also long been room for success from those who actually want to contribute, work with others.

Remember?  One of the first things we all teach all children is the importance of sharing, waiting our turn.  Husband and I taught our kiddos to do the right thing because it’s right, not because they might get in trouble, not even because of an afterlife.  But because this life matters, and every life of every person matters.  Trite but true, at the end of the day, can you look in the mirror? This week has shown us a whole different world.  At first I typed new. A new world.  It isn’t though, is it?

Today happens to be International Holocaust Remembrance Day.  And today, Nikki Haley, the new US ambassador to the United Nations,  addressed the UN and said, “for those who don’t have our backs, we’re taking names.” Trump is signing executive orders to begin building That Ridiculous Wall (the one that still makes  zero sense), still discussing a registry for Muslims, will restrict incoming Muslim immigrants (unless they’re from Muslim countries his companies do business with), and is denying entry to Syrian refugees.  No, not new at all.   No wonder they’re so enamored of that fascist “America First” slogan.

And by the way, in case you’re thinking all of this is being done in a (misguided) attempt to actually protect American citizens, ha!  This is the sneak-peak proof that this administration and the GOP couldn’t care less how many citizens are left without adequate healthcare in this country.  Why let people know they still have a few days left to sign up for a year’s worth of care? Sure the ads were already in place and paid for, but, well, fuck ’em. I can’t address the beginning of the dismantling of women’s rights and health care in this country.  Not yet.

So yes, in with all the other worries and panicking I’m doing about medicine and health care and civil rights and ohmygodhehasthefuckingnuclearcodes, I’m worrying about my kiddos; if they are prepared for this next page in American history, where might makes right and sharing their cookies is a notion as quaint and outdated as teaching them to use a quill.

Much of me is overwhelmed right now, certain we have said goodbye to American freedoms, the true American values of equality, justice, social mobility, education, progress, and democracy. We haven’t always hit those marks, and there’s no question and no excuse– our “equality” hasn’t  been equal, but we have had gotten better.  Now I have to believe we didn’t do them a disservice when we taught our kids they have to be able to look in the mirror, and I have to hope the mirrors they look into are true and clear.

 

 

14 comments

  1. I have nothing to add, really – I’m still in shock. And this is one “I told you so” I take NO pleasure in saying.

    Seriously – even NIXON’s antics look reasonable by comparison. Our only hope is that his 3-year old attention span will somehow encourage him to find a way to step down. Probably when he scams enough money from the endeavor and loses a few yes-men.

    I don’t fancy that Pence will be much better, but he does seem to be sane, at least – and I truly doubt that, after only a single week, anyone can say that anymore about “Agent Orange.”
    xx,
    mgh
    (Madelyn Griffith-Haynie – ADDandSoMuchMore dot com)
    ADD Coach Training Field founder; ADD Coaching co-founder
    “It takes a village to transform a world!”

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    1. Agree completely. Three days ago people were saying they missed George W. Three days from now they’ll be saying they miss Nixon. This is unprecedented in American history, in the worst possible ways. Of all the ugliness that rips my heart out, the worst, imo, is how many still don’t see that he, his administration, and the kowtowing GOP, are causing serious, permanent harm to all of us, regardless of gender, sexual identity, religion, color, nation of origin, or any other identifying feature. America is completely redefining itself. 😥

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      1. “America is completely redefining itself” – into what? WWII Germany?

        Cognitive neuroscience explains McDonald’s many remaining supporters as extreme examples of confirmation bias (seeing only what supports one’s initial belief structure) – with millions exhibiting clear signs of struggles with “cognitive dissonance.” (ie, the “I have to maintain that this is a good thing or I look like a fool for supporting it to begin with” reaction).

        I don’t know WHAT it will take from him to shake them out of it – or what we’ll have left when that happens.

        xx,
        mgh

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  2. It’s just as depressing on this side of the Atlantic, watching the Government and Opposition compete to remove us from the EU on the hardest terms possible, despite knowing it’s folly so to do. And where do we look instead? Yesterday our PM was whispering sweet nothings to your president, today she’s been making nice in Turkey. Trump: A year ago parliament was debating whether to bar him from the country. Now we invite him to meet the Queen. Erdogan: a man who has locked up more journalists and academics than the military ever did and is rewriting the constitution to keep himself in power indefinitely. Let’s sell him fighter jets. Such inspiring company, such lofty goals, but it’s what’s left to us. It’s bad enough, I’m sure, living in the land of Trump but here, in the client state, we tag along hoping for crumbs. Why concern yourself with human rights when there’s trade deals to be struck? And yet May knows what she will never say: that any deal struck with such men will be on their terms and they will exact their price. I’m ashamed of my country.

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    1. It truly feels as if the world has gone mad. Our so-called leaders have gone mad with hunger for morepowermoremoney, while our citizens are set to plain old go hungry. Though with the millions set to lose health care here in the US, we may drop dead from illness and injury before starvation. I am disgusted.
      *Thank you for popping over and weighing in!

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  3. We raised our kids the same way, mrs F. Our kids and yours and millions of others will be needed to put this world back to rights. They’ll be up to the job – but god there’s work ahead.

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  5. Enter grapplin’ mode, whereas anybody with any sense whatsoever is screaming WTF as Trump et al lay waste to liberty, freedom, justice, as he steamrolls over all that is good and right, as alt right haters like Bannon become the voice of this country with the power of a president behind them. . .

    I don’t have kids but I taught kids back in the day, little kids of five and six learning how to be good citizens and good people. We were a “community of individuals,” both parts equally dear, and equally important. How different those days seem compared to now. What are we teaching our children?

    The great cleave in this country is growing wider by the day. I wish we could stop it; wish we would reach over the great divide and pull ourselves back in communion, but I don’t know if we can do it now, even if we wanted to. The breach is too wide. We don’t recognize our neighbors anymore. We can’t fathom how they believe what they believe. We can’t believe they don’t see what we see. It’s ‘us’ versus and ‘them’, and in between is The Man With The Ax, rending asunder all vestiges of who we thought we were and who we aspired to be. Nine days, and this country is already unrecognizable. Just yesterday, Hillary Clinton tweeted: This is not who we are.

    But it is. That’s the tragedy.

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