PROFESSIONAL HELP

This note and the previous one are to take some difficult stuff and make a record of it. Only one friend has expressed an interest and she may read  this.. She's aware of my birthday and declares that Taurus men are possessive with their women.  I never possessed this woman, though years ago she asked is she was 'my girl..' Euphemism..

It was the surprise that got me all upset.  Bottom line, is that we tell our friends stuff that maybe will change our relationship in a way that is not hurtful.. and may preserve the friendship, even if it changes. That happened like a slap in the face to me and my writing about it and getting feedback from one writer friend is helpful.  I want the woman who surprised me with news of 'being with' a man for ten months and never mentioned it to just tell me why? What happened? I had no social or 'mate' type of connection with her. We would report back and forth once or twice a week on the phone. The Plague has had her not invite me to her home and so.. a couple of meals over time and life was 'normal' except that she's in a relationship with this guy. Am I unable to handle the truth??  I do try to treat her like a special friend with gifts and stuff from time to time..  That's not staking a claim.

My criticism of her way of doing or not doing something is a cruel thing to report. But.. it's the truth.  I've walked on eggs for years just because the friendship was more important than causing her to be angry, which was not hard to do if I wasn't careful. Why stick with a connection like this? Well you may ask. Because I have a genuine respect and affection for her and want to be supportive and have been. Thinking she was grateful was enough, though he feeling of gratitude never realy was felt. End of story.

In my attempt to fix things.. because this is all on me, of course for having a very emotional reaction to her "I don't know how you'll take this.. but..." I'm still smarting, but she is just about my only connection on a regular basis to the outside world. Oh poor me. 

So. I wrote this to her:

... I understand that you did not mean to hurt my feelings.. I am pretty sure. But.. I've been feeling left out and disrespected for a long time as far as we are concerned: to matter less and less to you and it makes sense because you are in love with someone who makes you happy.. Your terse responses or no responses are frustrating, but that's because you have little to share with me.  If you kept your lover a secret from your kids and other friends, which I really doubt.. that would be one thing. I just felt slapped in the face.

So.. this little gift I have for you  may or may not happen.  Frankly, I just want to find out why you'd carry on a love affair and not tell me for ten months?

I've never wanted to hold you back and you gave me fair warning years ago. 

What I'd have done.. after maybe the first hint that some gal was becoming a regular thing for me or we'd slept  together.. and it was maybe 'going somewhere'.. I hope that I would just see you in person and care about your feelings.. just in case you had any feelings regarding my happiness.. and it would have only colored the connection as an early warning with a discussion,.. maybe. But, that's all speculation and just me ..I am still sort of reeling and feeling sorry for myself and like a fucking fool.

You are forgiven. You are my friend. I am shocked and a bit jealous and feel pretty stupid.. But, I'm naive like that and I know you well enough that even this note may be dismissed as a nuisance. 

I sincerely hope not.

The end of August, 2021 You need Professional Help!

August 31, 2021

 The dog days of summer.. Easy times. But, when a person you consider a close friend and has been a friend for over fifteen years calls and says,"I don't know how you are going to take this.." and tells of a love affair that has gone on for almost a year.. well, ten months, I must be wrong to feel insulted and betrayed, not because I hold any sway at all over my friend's life, but true friends generally share good news.
. She mostly dismisses my suggestions and is hard pressed to share much of anything beside a daily report and then my report and then her report. Danger, Will Robinson? Red flag?  To a less naive guy, probably.

To feel dismissed is probably on the dismissee and the dismisser really has no feeling about being dismissive because it's not their affair to look out for the feelings of someone who has .. he thought.. me.. was being loyal and helpful and kind and all of that, as a good friend behaves.

I've vented on FB and the odd thing was that in my dismay and hurt feelings .. I put up one of those meme things with white text and black back ground 

 "I know a woman who has never made an apology and never said thank you from her heart. How about that?"

Immediately, I get the email telling me that I need professional help. In my inimitable way, I agree. I need a plumber and other professionals to do the stuff that I seem uable to do myself.  The sad thing is that instead of offering any help or wanting to make me feel better.. I get another dismissal.  Some folks are like that :Black and  White.  I've been accused of that and hope it ain't true.. But hiring a 'professional helper' for a situation that could have easily just been discussed about the second month that she was having so much fun; opting to share it with her other friends (I'm pretty sure..)  and not me.. it felt like a deliberate slight and 'I don't know how you are going to take this" as an introduction to this surprise was just really a friggin' surprise.

 The business of venting in public is not all that cool.  How many of her friends know that she's never apologized because she is never wrong and says the words 'thank you' clearly, but with nary a hint of really being grateful might be that, I, in my feeling dismissed wonder why sharing good news.. she found someone to be with.. would not be something to share right off the bat?  Am I jealous, probably. But, the air kisses at parting after a dinner or lunch and exchanging reports was probably a red flag, too.

We all have stuff that is on a need to know basis. Sometimes too much information can be.. well.. too much information.. My getting my tender feelings stomped on is on me, right? Feeling left out? This behavior expands to other stuff that I've deliberately swallowed and kowtowed to, just because being snapped at for asking 'is everything all right?' makes me a cautious pal. Red Flag?

I take responsibility for the stuff in my life. Do I deserve an apology for being deiberately kept in the dark vis a vis my friend's happiness?  Maybe because I had discussed her handling my estate if/when I die, as a friend..  made me think that I mattered in some extra ordinary way?  Could be.  so. 

Poor Me.. my feeings got crushed and she's in the sack or not. .none of MY business. with someone she likes and finds attractive and that's a blessing.  I said to her on the phone "I just want for you to be happy.. " and I meant it, but that did not dismiss my feeling as though she really had very little concern for my feelings and probably would have not said anything, except we have some business she helped me with and she didn't want the news of her big deal to come from another source.. 

 Maybe I'd have gotten an invitation to a wedding in the mail? Oh By the Way..  That's silly, of course, but I'm on a roll and still feel crappy and would do just about anything to fix it because it all comes back to my feeling damaged by another person's actions, whether they intended to hurt me or not.  The get help email was deliberately mean.  But, being terse and tacit is the way some folks survive. 

I maybe wrong all together. Later?  I'll be happy to be friends.  Am I glutton for punishment? Evidently??  It's just not very comfortable dealing with a person who thinks about things more than being spontaneous and when I've tried to make her laugh ..?  It's like pulling teeth. I'm about one for ten. 

We learn to cope and the fact is I've relied on her way too much. Too many eggs in one basket, right? So.. We get what we deserve.. the royal We? ..  I can forgive just about anything.. but I am entitled to my feelings and my feelings are in sad repair. 

We are all responsible for our own feelings even when they have been knocked silly by someone who was trusted.  They didn't ASK to be trusted, that's on the trustor.. is that a word.. the one doing the trusting?

All anyone has to say is 'I'm sorry that you had a bad fall.  Let me give you a hand. I didn't mean to push you. It was an accident." Or they can look down at the heap in the puddle of tears and say "Get professional help." 

Okay. .call me a plumber? ..

 

August August or just a bust?

 When a go to theatre guy  / cum college prof rises to the call of August with the Scottish play at hand, weird sisters in the times of non-binary and up the LGBTQ and such.. The following scene is set not upon a Heath or a Butter Brickle for those in the know of candy.. but in the phosphors. 

Barbara Garson's "MacBird" discussed a scenario after the death of a really good president with the Bard as a matrix... So, Professor Bill Svelmoe, bard of the Bend of South rises to the August occasion. 

 

With Bill's permission, I share his writing here and applaud the notion that the Theatre may be a resting place for what's to come this august August.   

 With thanks to Professor/actor/director/playwright/novelist and observer of the days of dogs to come.. His latest take on the state of our nation: Thanks Bill.

//   

It is August.

I (Bill) awakened this morning covered in sweat. The air was full of portents. Birnam Wood is on the move. Pentecostal prophets hee and haw throughout the land. On every lip one hears the cry, “August. August is here.”

 

Yes, my friends, August is indeed here. A month, we have been promised, like no other. A month, a day, an hour unlike any in our history. The Phoenix rises from the ashes. The head that had been wounded revives. The king retakes his throne.

 

Is it the return of Christ?!

For his followers, it is better than that. Like the sun rising, an orange shadow will be cast over the land.

It is the return of Donald.

It is a month that requires its own scribe. 

Its amanuensis(a literary helper?). 

Its chronicler. 

Its poet.

Barbara Tuchman, take up thy typewriter. Combine “The Guns of August” with “The March of Folly.” Perhaps “The Fools of August.” Set aside “The Distant Mirror.” A narcissist’s mirror must not be distant. Perhaps “The Mirror Next Door.”

Oh Shakespeare, take up thy pen. Record the moment. A new title that must never be mentioned on the stages of the world:

 

“Donald”

Act I, Scene 3.

Enter DONALD and GIULIANI, drenched in sweet and sour sauce and drifting makeup. With torches.

Donald: So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

Giuliani: How far is’t to Mar-a-Lago?

 

Three Pentecostal Prophets appear wearing nothing but Bibles.

The Prophets: The Weird Brothers, hand in hand,

Looking like a bad boy band,

Thus do speak, in tongues, in tongues,

Shandalabaya, and Bayadashanda, and thus spake Zarathustra,

The Donald will come and make it thunda.

Peace, the charm's wound up.

 

Giuliani: What are these

That look not like the inhabitants o’ th’ earth,

And yet are on the internet? – Live you, or are you aught

That man may question?

 

Donald: Speak, if you can: what are you?

 

First prophet: All hail, Donald, hail to thee Thane of Mar-a-Lago.

 

Second prophet: All hail, Donald, hail to thee Thane of Bedminster.

 

Third prophet: All hail, Donald, that shalt be King hereafter and Thane of White House.

 

Giuliani: Good sir, why do you start, and seem to fear

Things that do sound so fair?

In the name of truth, prophets, that mythical concept with which we are not familiar,

Are ye fantastical? My rotund partner

You greet with present grace, and great prediction

Of White House returning, and of hope of actually learning … something … for a change,

Oh he seems rapt withal as if believing his own lies.

If you can look into the seeds of time,

And say which grain will grow, and which will not,

Will the grain of his brain grow like a Thane

Or will it, like rain, run down the drain?

 

First prophet: The drain.

 

Second prophet: Yeah. The drain.

 

Third prophet: Best not get your hopes too high. We’re prophets, not magicians.

 

First prophet: Lesser than Obama, but greater than … than … somebody, somewhere, surely. Maybe Pierce.

 

Second prophet: Not so happy, yet much happier than the country will be. Forsooth. I would not want to be that nation that gets him again.

 

Third prophet: Thou shalt perhaps get another Supreme Court justice, though thou be a fool:

So all hail Donald, and Giuliani.

 

The PROPHETS turn to leave.

 

Donald: Stay, you internet prophets, tell me more:

I know I am Thane of Mar-a-Lago,

But how of White House? The Thane of White House lives

A real gentleman; a man of knowledge; a man of experience; a man who actually knows things about government; and to be king again

Stands not within the prospect of belief, although I have high hopes for Arizona

and for aid from the Thane of Pillows. Say from whence

You owe this strange intelligence, if intelligence I can call something for which there is literally zero precedent in the Constitution, or so they tell me, as reading it is really asking too much,

or why

Upon this blasted heath you stop our way

With such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you.

 

PROPHETS vanish.

////

Alas, that is as far as Shakespeare can take us. Perhaps Ivanka with bloody hands will reveal more.

Let us await the Ides of August my friends. As it has been foretold. “When the sun doth set upon the numberings of Arizona, then will the Son of Doofus be revealed. For when the bamboo splinters of the desert are carried throughout the land, he will retake his scepter. He will rule with a rod of pasta, and his rapier mind will once again be focused for up to three minutes at a time on topics of relevance. And the solutions to the problems of God’s nation will once again be just ‘two weeks’ away.” 

 

It will be an August for the history books … or at least, an August for the comic books …

 

HEARTS ON SLEEVES

 These are the days of new stuff.  Old stuff creates the foundation for the new stuff and it becomes old stuff and so on and so on.

Emotional ups and downs.. our hearts on our sleeves, have become fodder for the last year. Self denial and exploration and ideas warped by bad juju in the country and in the world.  No one is exempt. 

I've learned stuff from old stuff and am hoping for new stuff for additions to my life's foundations and for those I love. We all have that going on in one way or another if we are paying attention. Paying attention is good. Being distracted may disrail or change an intention.  Focus is, for me, difficult to maintain and it may be true for others.  If we are aware of this happening, and get back on track, the tea water won't boil dry, we'll have a cup and find reasons to keep on. 

I see lonely posts on FB by lonely others who will probably always be lonely.  This is not to dismiss them, but to say that I understand. So.. my heart is on my sleeve in that regard. 

Missed understandings and 'trigger' moments are more and more prevalent with 'e' communication. You may read a 'tone' .. even in this post.. that is contrary to my intention.  My intention is to just release some gratitude for having feelings dealt with and information exchanged today that matters. 

Most of us don't have 'real' discussions.  We report and fall back.. Report and pretend to listen. Not really listening. Men and Women express and 'listen' in very different ways.  To be truly 'heard' is a rarity, but now and then, with trusted others, we may feel heard or in turn truly listen. 

That said, I want for those old republican classmates and dear friends and pals and peripherals.. all  to know that if it was up to me, we'd all just forgive one another and to whatever degree we may be capable of, restack the order of our love and share it as best we can. 

It seems that politics with "P" has become religion with "R"  a big fat R.. and the strong emotional ties to whatever our Beliefs "B".. may be, they seem to override the Essence "E" of what true connections are about. or really ought to be: essential.

I'm at a crossroads.  "E" communication: email, texts and other stuff that I don't Enderstand are dissolving our communication.  What I call 'meme' mentality is dominating social media.  A parallel is being cut off in traffic ..probably by accident and the exchange of silent genstures and unheard shouts erupt. It's where we are.

Flip side?  I drive an old VW Bus.  It's a pal. Every time I head to the market or to do errands and drive the Bus, someone may smile or wave or ask to buy it. It's human communication.  Thanks to a mutual moment of feeling good. 

I'm becoming an advocate of letter writing.  I believe that if I hold a letter written by an old friend in Paris, a cursive note that slants up or down, on recycled notes about his music, that the connection is a warm and welcome one. No discussion of the weather. Maybe a thumbs up about the direction the USA is headed. Art. A paper missal (sort of)  from
5,637 miles away.  

Typing may become a 'thing' again.  It's not cursive, but it is personal.  That's what I miss: personal connections. It's too easy to whip off an email or send a text.  Of course, casual connecting is vital, to keep a ball in the air, but good communication .. to me .. must begin again to be more personal. 

Of course, there are folks who rub us the wrong way.. or vice versa.  It's inevitable. It's tough to be not liked or dismissed.  Dismissed is probably worse or maybe just to have become inconsequential? At least, with animosity, something is happening. Maybe we act out just to get a reaction when someone has ignored us. (That scene with Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction? Yikes!)

This is a note in a bottle that I've written mostly to myself.  I hope I never ignore me.  The Old republicans from high school will maybe understand and respond. Edit.. Edit... Edit..

An old right winger pal in my home town has giving me the silent treatment for a bad taste joke I played on him. If friendships matter, marriages, relationships? connections? If they matter, they can be fixed. I learned that lesson  from my most trusted friend. Before that day, I thought that an argument or dust up meant the end of the relationship. She showed me a better way.  

Love one another.

michael sheehan

glendale, california 

april 17, 2021

This is my cousin, Nidra.  She makes me smile.

Does Satan have a chance?

This guy, Bill Svelmoe, has a POV and gets it from education and paying attention. He's more up for it than I am, but I have his permission to share his thoughts. We have Theatre in common and a political stance that is similar, but he is much more thoroughly educated than I. Thus.. sharing ideas that make me glad to be his distant pal. He gets a bit more het up than I might, but still.  Critical thinking and calling out the folks who are wishing 'armegeddon' (sic) on the USA is something to consider.  Thanks, Bill. 

 **********************************

 

George Bernard Shaw once said of newspapers: "They are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilization."

I am reminded of that quote as I watch the right, particularly the religious right, froth at the mouth over various proposals from the Biden administration.

A few examples.

Jim Garlow, a California pastor who regularly feeds the fringes of the fever swamp, said that the possibility that Senate Democrats might do away with the filibuster is a question of “good versus evil, of the struggle of angelic beings against demonic forces.”

Who knew hell was so boring?! We always imagined Satan to be all about sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll. Instead we get Satan in council: “How many votes does it take to overturn a filibuster again? … Ok. Gorbag, see what you can do with Manchin fella. We’ve got to do something about that crumbling infrastructure.”

On that same podcast with Garlow, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins claimed that the filibuster is “the one thing standing between the radical left and the end of America as we know it.”

 

More Perkins: Biden’s agenda is “literally from the pit of hell,” and Biden is provoking God into unleashing his judgment on America. “We’re in the 11th hour and I believe America is in serious trouble. We are literally shaking our fists in the face of God and challenging God, ‘If you’re really God, you do something.’ And he is God, and he will do something.”

One hopes that when God “does something,” his targeting system is better than the usual hurricane that wipes out half of a red state. Perkins at prayer: “Dear Jesus, remind your dad that it’s the blue states that are shaking their fists, not Texas.”

James Dobson, radio Pied Piper of the religious right, warns that if the Democrats’ Voting Rights bill and the Equality Act become law, it’ll be the end of the United States: “We cannot afford to be idle while our country is hijacked by the Left-driven agenda of the Democrat Party. If we do not act now, this window of opportunity that we have to save what we hold dear will close quickly, and America’s shining light to the world will go out.”

No more green light at the end of the dock representing our hopes and dreams. Clearly, for Dobson, “America’s shining light” is white.

 

Senator Mike Lee is also a bit put out by the very idea of making it easier for minorities to vote. "Everything about this bill is rotten to the core," Lee said in an interview on FOX. "This is a bill as if written in hell by the devil himself."

The devil went down to Georgia lookin’ for a vote to steal.

One of the first things an actor learns is to leave himself somewhere to go. If a scene requires you to display a lot of anger, for example, you don’t want to start at a ten. Because half a page later, when the f-bombs really start flying, you’re already maxed out.

The right has never learned this lesson. If, in the first few months of the Biden administration, you’re already at Satan pulling levers to end America, you’ve really got no place left to go. And, at the very least, you’ve got more than three years left of Joe in the White House. Even Hitler and Stalin metaphors are a step down.

 

Jim Garlow to his congregation two years from now: “This latest Biden move is Satan at his worst. It’s just unbelievable how close we are to Armageddon and the end of all things.”

Congregation, looking at each other: “But Satan’s been jerking Biden’s chain for three years, and what have we got? The pandemic is long ago in the rearview mirror. Our bank accounts are flush. The bridges in the area are all fixed. And a few girls that you think are boys are running track. How bad could a few more years of Satan be” ...

 

#################

 

Turning out backs when we might be turning our Fronts?

Being shunned is no fun.  Shunning is not fun either. This article from Daryl Austin of Utah in a recent Atlantic magazine may be dismissed out of hand by some, but it really rang a bell for me.  I've pissed and moaned about my old high school class mavens dismissing and deleting me from news of the class for cause.  The cause, you may ask?  I had the temerity to try, in email, to ask a simple question: "For whom will you vote on November 3rd?"  This was misinterpreted as some stumping for now President Biden and Kamala Harris.  In fact it was not.  I did declare my own idea of for whom I'd vote (BLUE) but did not actively campaign for my candidates.  What those folks did was take my question for some odd political rally or something and the backlash was some really vile responses and ultimately as I dug myself in deeper to try to explain that I just wanted to know where folks with whom I grew up in a small conservative town were headed with their votes. 

That's all pretty repetitive for those who know me and have possibly followed the other stuff I've written here.  

Today, I found an article popping up on my Yahoo Feed by Daryl Austin.  It's about "The Silent Treatment."  He is a small business owner and father of four, according to a Google search, in Orem, Utah.  Mormon Country.  Whether that skews his essay, I can't see a bias in his writing. The research is anecdotal, but the stories are, to me, quite touching.

One of my best friends has never been really into writing letters, though our chats over many years, on the phone and in person have been ..for me.. wonderful.  He's a bright guy with what are, to me, far out conservative ideas.  He'll cook up an analogy that makes perfect sense to him and make no sense to me.  Other friends and I have discussed this about him and have passed it off as him just being him. Arguing from a false analogy can make anyone's premise seem logical... to them. This may lapse into religious beliefs, but not here. Not today.

When I teased my pal by pretending to thank him for donating to the Biden / Harris Campaign, with a post card from 'the campaign'...  Evidently, he thought that that might have actually happened.  In one of our last phone chats he became "very serious"... never in all these years has be ever become 'very' serious.. and when I teased him, he hung up on me! Neither of us had ever hung up abruptly .. ever..  I misjudged the limits of his sense of humor.  When he compared my ideas to the ideology of the KKK and people who hunt for puppies and kitties to kill them and hang them on the clothesline in the back yard, I was pretty surprised.  If supporting Biden / Harris makes me a racist kitty killer to him.. that's pretty serious!.. Full discolosure:  I have known folks associated with the KKK, but they were from Georgia so.. that's an explanation. Sad, but true.

When my high school pals divorced me from the occasional mailings that share deaths and time with grandkids, replaced body parts and such, it made me sad. Marvin and Kay in their last email told me that they were done with me. Period.  We all get what we deserve. But, I care about these people and am still trying to figure out how intelligent and educated adults could ever support the stuff we endured, ending on January 6, 2021.   I wonder if any of my mates were at the Capitol that day? 

All this to say.. that I've said I'm sorry that I asked these old pals for whom they'd vote, which made them upset. One dear woman was very, very upset because she wants nothing to do with politics! I no longer use that word with her and we remain friends, thank goodness. So.. 

So.. 

The Silent Treatment is discussed by Mr. Austin here and it makes sense to me.  No one can twist another person's arm to be pals. But, one does have the ability to reach out and ask for communication. Even in divorce from a marriage, the former partners say 'good bye.' 

It's no fun to be 'in trouble' and I take responsibility for my situation.  By sharing Austin's essay, I'm hoping that some of the people who have been offended will consider that I care about them, no matter their politics or religion. (I see the two issues melded a bit for some).  By sending this link to the essay and these words to go along with it, it's my reaching out, all that I can do.  Because why? Because it's time to just be clear.  There are some people I just don't much care for.  There are no good reasons..it's just what is.  They don't know it because I am civil and probably they wouldn't much care if they did.

I care and so.. I encourage you to read this essay and make up your own mind about what the Silent Treatment is all about.  Even if you are just a casual FB pal, maybe there are folks in your life who need a note .. just to be clear?  This, though, is for my old high school classmates: with love. michaelsheehan

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/03/psychology-of-silent-treatment-abuse/618411/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

OF THE PEOPLE AND FOR THE PEOPLE

When I 'met' Bill Svelmoe, the articulate pundit, via his "questions" for Amy Comey Barrett, I had a notion that this guy's take as an historian and reformed Evangelical might be a course in understanding the whys and wherefores of the State of the Nation: Our United States of America.

I don't edit Bill's essays.  He has a lot to say.  His take on the current State of the Nation is eloquent and I like to share his thoughts here because, for me, it's an easier read than the cramped format of Facebook. 

Svelmoe is a college professor. For me he's a bit verbose, but he is scattering seeds of critical thinking that may have been missed in our Civics classes. Today's essay is posted with his permission. It's a civics lesson in a nutshell. Thanks, Bill.  

 

///

Let it be recorded that, in the midst of a pandemic and a struggling economy, while Democrats worked hard to craft and pass a bill to rush desperately needed assistance to their fellow Americans, Republicans stalled, bitched, refused to provide even one single affirmative vote. A party that happily shoveled trillions in tax cuts to the wealthy in the last administration now finds trillions to the truly needy a bridge too far.

Republicans have managed to turn Scrooge and the Grinch into RINOs (Republicans in Name Only).

This rejection of aid to their own base was all done, of course, while their media allies at FOX kept the base distracted by fuming about Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head.

Keep the two fronts of the war in your mind. There is a method to Republican madness.

Indeed it is an age-old method, one that has worked virtually flawlessly throughout American history. This strategy is no new development.

This nation was founded on an argument about class. The United States was the first nation in human history created to be about the interests of ordinary people. Ordinary people believed what Jefferson wrote, that all “men” are created equal. Jefferson didn’t buy it for a second, but regular folk did.

Before the war ended, the wealthy were complaining that their servants were treating them with less respect. When George Robert Twelves Hewes intervened to keep a rich man from beating a boy, the wealthy Bostonian berated him for interfering with a gentleman and split his head open with his staff. The mob that gathered spoke for all of us when it dragged the rich man from his home and administered a catechism lesson in tar and feathers. No more taking our cues from those born with a silver spoon.

That everyone knew that class was at the center of the new nation was demonstrated in the arguments over ratification of the Constitution. The nation was flying in the face of all of human history, and it would not be an easy path forward. A hierarchical model of society was being wrenched into a more horizontal model, and hierarchies do not give up their privilege easily.

And so a Constitution we revere today on a biblical level was soundly rejected by most Americans when it first appeared. They understood perfectly well that the elites in an enclosed room had not designed a government with the interests of regular folk at heart. It was a government “of the wealthy, by the wealthy, for the wealthy.” When Madison and Hamilton spoke of the necessity to protect the interests of “the minority” against the power of majorities in a democratic republic, regular folk knew exactly who they were talking about. They knew the Senate, where regular folk got no vote, and a president with veto power, were specifically designed to protect the minority of wealthy elites against the votes of the rabble in the House. Only Madison’s last minute Bill of Rights let the final vote to ratify the Constitution squeak by in the affirmative.

So, if you had looked into the future and predicted that a nation founded on an argument about class would, in less than 100 years, fight a great Civil War, you would expect that war to be over the unfinished business of class.

Instead that war was only tangentially about class. Instead we fought over race, and poor whites joined their wealthy overlords to ensure that poor blacks were kept at least one peg lower on the ladder than themselves. Very few of those southern soldiers had slaves. Very few had any stake in the slave economy. By rights poor whites and black slaves should have made common cause. Instead poor southern whites rushed to enlist to keep black folk down.

Not for the first time did wealthy elites manipulate regular folk into fighting their wars, protecting their plantations, enlarging their stock portfolios.

One of the great legacies of the Civil War is how successful the wealthy and powerful have been at enlisting us, the little people, into avid support of their dreams, their concerns, their accumulation of wealth. The South was a pyramid social structure, and today we are an even sharper pyramid. What Lincoln called for at Gettysburg, a new birth of freedom for all, a government “of the people, by the people, for the people,” has been largely lost.

Why? We, regular folk, have allowed ourselves to be co-opted from what should be the American project by all sorts of side cultural issues and resentments that keep us at each other’s throats instead of focusing on creating the kind of equality the Civil War was fought to ensure. The kind of equality the nation was founded to create. The kind of equality the Declaration suggested was possible.

We have always answered the question, who won the Civil War, through geography. The North won. The South lost.

But perhaps a better answer would be that, in the long run, the wealthy and powerful, those at the top of the pyramid, won, and we, regular folk, North and South, lost. And what is most galling is that we keep on making war upon each other, the weak upon the weak, brother upon brother, sister upon sister, while the powerful reap the benefits of our distraction.

And our distractions are so pathetic. Our leaders give no more thought to creating them than the length of a tweet. And we march to battle over Christmas, protesting athletes, who marries whom, wedding cakes, masks, and, yes, Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head.

 

Meanwhile our politicians line their pockets with the treasure of the nation, while voting to withhold aid from the very base that marches off to battle, and perhaps dies, in the wars the wealthy and powerful have instigated …

Bill Svelmoe  

March 6, 2021