Musings

The Times of London treats us to an interview with Gore Vidal, in which the great American writer says that, as smart as Obama is, he’s not up to the job and Vidal [a relation of Al Gore] says he should have backed Hillary because she at least understands the world at large better… oh, and the United States will likely be a dictatorship soon. Oh… and he’s really bitter. (I was perplexed by mention of his correspondence with Timothy McVeigh, who he called “a patriot”… I suppose it’s like Norman Mailer… American men of letters are supposed to adopt some killer on death row or something… sorry… not something I can understand…but I digress…)
I’ll just say that not even I am as bitter or cynical as Mr. Vidal seems to be; I have some degree of hope for my countrymen, though it might be a bit misplaced (and to be fair, it’s not a big degree of hope).
As I fight through a rather vicious and persistent cold, and look over at the kittens and the young ‘un, I do worry about the simultaneous precipices we are now on– financial, environmental, military, military-industrial, political, and of course, moral, and I say not without a tad of irony that as I read the words of the 83 year old Mr. Vidal, I’m kind of glad I’m already 46, and stand a good sporting chance of not being around long enough to see the full fruits of the psychotically short-sightedly rapacious mindset that took over my countrymen during my adult life… the children of the children of the Depression became the children of entitlement, and thereby made sure that their children… well… never mind that.
The best thing we can do for our own children is to prepare them to be resilient and adaptable… because our collective psychological inability to dial-down our rapacious lifestyles will ensure that they have to live under a different standard… and they’d best be ready for anything. And while man is the only animal blessed with the gift of self-delusion… teaching our children to see things as they are is about the best gift we can possibly give to them… and if we don’t give them that, it’s not clear what value anything else we give them will have.