Locked in a Time Machine, Headed Toward the Past

I’m seventy-six years old and have lived through several political eras with their battles over what was deemed right, wrong or indifferent. There have been predictable disagreements between Democrats and Republicans all along the way, and those have been generally healthy for the public psyche in every ear, but the one in which we are currently engaged is unlike any other that I can recall. The barbed-wire separation between our two political parties is of a far more toxic kind than I can recall from our shared past.

The reason for this division, though it may have been forming itself over many years, has shown its fangs most sharply and openly over the past five years, as bitter resentments, like lava bubbling beneath a calm field of flowers has surfaced and found a home in the media. There seems to be little, if any, middle ground of tolerance.

I believe that the ban on abortion has less to do with fetal protection than it does with the far-right desire for male dominance over women, whom they see as chattel of property that has become too uppity over the past half- century. I also blame far-right religious dogma for too many women actually believing that this is all right.

Our forefathers understood the powerful and sometimes irrational behavior that extreme religious fervor can create, especially when imposed upon others. For many now, our complex, fast-paced world makes them feel powerless and left behind. White male dominance is comfortable to them, as it renders life less complicated. But that dominance can include subjugation of , not only women, but Blacks, who have become somewhat “uppity” since the days of powdered wigs and absolute control over everything and everyone by white males. Fox news has built its power upon the false foundation that the white race is being slowly eliminated by other ethnic groups, and too many buy this rubbish as fact and vote accordingly in our elections.

I’m perplexed by white male dominance and even more uncertain about its place in religion and the social structure of our government, which is why, for me, Clarence Thomas remains a terrifying enigma. In any case, we seem, as a society, to be locked currently in a time machine that is trying to take us back to the blindingly white-male dominated 1950’s, using religious threats to keep us all in our social places and not too determined to find “justice for all.”   JB

About John

About John John Bolinger was born and raised in Northwest Indiana, where he attended Ball State University and Purdue University, receiving his BS and MA from those schools. Then he taught English and French for thirty-five years at Morton High School in Hammond, Indiana before moving to Colorado, where he resided for ten years before moving to Florida. Besides COME SEPTEMBER, Journey of a High School Teacher, John's other books are ALL MY LAZY RIVERS, an Indiana Childhood, and COME ON, FLUFFY, THIS AIN'T NO BALLET, a Novel on Coming of Age, all available on Amazon.com as paperbacks and Kindle books. Alternately funny and touching, COME SEPTEMBER, conveys the story of every high school teacher’s struggle to enlighten both himself and his pupils, encountering along the way, battles with colleagues, administrators, and parents through a parade of characters that include a freshman boy for whom the faculty code name is “Spawn of Satan,” to a senior girl whose water breaks during a pop-quiz over THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. Through social change and the relentless march of technology, the human element remains constant in the book’s personal, entertaining, and sympathetic portraits of faculty, students, parents, and others. The audience for this book will certainly include school teachers everywhere, teenagers, parents of teens, as well as anyone who appreciates that blend of humor and pathos with which the world of public education is drenched. The drive of the story is the narrator's struggle to become the best teacher he can be. The book is filled with advice for young teachers based upon experience of the writer, advice that will never be found in college methods classes. Another of John's recent books is Mum's the Word: Secrets of a Family. It is the story of his alcoholic father and the family's efforts to deal with or hide the fact. Though a serious treatment of the horrors of alcoholism, the book also entertains in its descriptions of the father during his best times and the humor of the family's attempts to create a façade for the outside world. All John's books are available as paperbacks and Kindle readers on Amazon, and also as paperbacks at Barnes & Noble. John's sixth book is, Growing Old in America: Notes from a Codger was released on June 15, 2014. John’s most recent book is a novel titled Resisting Gravity, A Ghost Story, published the summer of 2018 View all posts by John →
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