“All
the world’s a stage,
And
all men and women merely players;
They
have their exits and their entrances,
And
one man in his time plays many parts…”
“As You Like It” Act II Scene VII
William Shakespeare, 1564 -1616
Our
nation’s men and women are troubled and struggling with what they are seeing,
hearing or experiencing first hand. It is not difficult to understand why. Neither
is it difficult to notice that many have turned, in desperation, to the safety
of “I wish” for solace. There are several problems with ‘I wish’. The most
obvious is the old adage “Be careful what you wish for because you just might
get it.”
History
is filled with men and women who pinned their desperation, hopes and wishes on
the likely existence of an all powerful elixir. Elixir has been defined as a
flavored liquid used for medicinal purposes. Ancient alchemists also sought a
preparation that was believed capable of changing metals into gold. Others
sought a preparation to induce love. The early Greeks saw it as a powder for
drying wounds. Elixir was sought by many because it was believed that the right
combinations of unlike extracts, tinctures and powders would, when matched
correctly, cure all diseases. The wish and therefore the hope for the “cure all”
was widely sold to many who had become convinced enough to believe and trust.
Most of the believers merely discovered they had been cheated. Many of them
died.
The
word flimflam comes to us from old Norse as a lampoon or mockery. During the sixteenth century it was understood to be nonsense or idle talk and a sort of shallow
trick that a reasonable person wouldn’t fall for. To the unwary, the flimflam
man used it as a distraction to confuse his target customer even as he was
being shortchanged. Flimflam is often found in the company of claptrap.
Claptrap is defined as cheap, showy language, pure nonsense and silly rubbish.
It is almost always displayed by hucksters several of which we can easily identify
as political candidates. In all of the debates, both republican and democratic,
aired on television to date, I have seen few leaders emerge from behind the
shadow of flimflam and claptrap. The daily interactive verbal battle ground
leading to the most important office in the free world litters the landscape
with wishful thinking, magic, flimflam, claptrap and more than a dash of
hyperbole and dishonesty.
We
are, therefore, on a collision course with history and in spite of current revisionists,
history never gets it wrong.
Observe the current outcomes created by political hucksters preying on the trusting people who chose to believe in them:
the
necessity of buyer beware and better safe than sorry,
the
reality of spending our future with money printed on demand,
the
true cost of something for nothing schemes,
the
pain suffered through the loss of self worth and self respect,
the
tyranny of a top down government,
the
massive underemployment in response to regulations promulgated by agencies
accountable to no one,
the
stability of continuously improving peaceful race relations of this nation are being reduced
to confrontations with the promise of open hostility a mere breath away,
the
misuse of constitutionally entrusted power,
the
destruction of an internationally respected national health program,
the
bold faced lies, always and forever, the inherent and persistent political
lies.
Lastly, I believe we have ignored our national moral
and ethical compass and the door built for our safety and a possible national maturity is rapidly closing.
I
suppose we could accidentally and suddenly rediscover what made us great for
such a long time but that too is probably nothing more than wishful thinking.
We are close to losing the hundred year war we have been fighting and history is patiently waiting to push the reset button. I fear it could be a very long dark night.
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