Buster’s Blog Beyond #39 – Hope, The Audacity Thereof – 11 May 2020

Buster, a fella named Barack Obama wrote a book named, “the Audacity of Hope,” and, can ya believe it, he became President.  Another guy who’s never even opened a book, also became “Prezident!”  Ain’t this a wild country we got?

Hey, y’all, MAGA farmers out there!  Are ya wondering what happened to yer markets and cheap immigrant labor?  Well, you can thank yer old Dear Leader, what a guy!  He’s never met a friend or partner he couldn’t cheat and mess over.  Oh, BTW: If you’re sick of staying home and worrying about this horrible “virus,” you’ll never hear about it on old Fox “news?” but your old savior could have stopped this horror before it ever got a foothold in our dear old USofA.  He chose to wait a couple critical months though, while he had great fun telling you about Nancy partying down there in Chinatown.  OK, stop complaining, didn’t he send you a nice “Economic Impact” check with his name, Donald JT Rump, right there on it.  Yep, and don’t worry, yer kids and grandkids will pay for that check when they grow up and have to deal with our enormous National Debt, and you guessed it, yer good old MAGA pal racked a good hunk of it up there!

Wow, Bus, what was that all about?  I thought we were going to talk about getting out of this disaster!

Just couldn’t help myself, pap, I just thought those poor old farmers might somehow feel better, knowing it wasn’t those awful Chinamen who caused all their troubles, their Dear Leader wouldn’t allow those yellow bellied rascals to do that!

Oh, yes, 65% of Amuricans think Rump’s response to the coronavirus was “too slow,” while 34% think he was “quick” in addressing the threat.  66% say that they are more concerned that states will lift restrictions too quickly, while 32% are worried that states won’t do it fast enough.  73% think that we haven’t yet seen the worst of the Covid-19 impact, while 26% say, “the worst is behind us.” Are ya seeing any pattern here?

Well, Ok, I understand ya, Buster, now let’s get on with the plan!

Right, pap, as you were saying, old Prez Obama’s election seemed to be a changing of attitudes in our good old USofA.  Perhaps that thought was a tad premature!

You got that right, Buster!  Back in your Blog Beyond #18 – Labor Day and other Bunk, where you gave a mini history of our early USofA, we noted the rather sordid approach to “equality” which to this day infects our populace.   It sure seems to that word, no matter how many times it’s been “officially” touted as our mantra, we haven’t gotten very close.  I’m thinking that many of those who, as was the case of our “prezident,” were draft-dodgers, and, consequently, never got to know anyone who was “different” from themselves.

Yep, I see yer point, pap, but now we have an event so dramatic that it may at last cause our reflection to be truly focused on the futility of our divisiveness.  Every single person is being faced with their mortality on waking every day, now!  Can we hope the lessons of history will not be pushed aside for once?  So, for once, maybe those snappy Madison Avenue slogans will actually mean something.  Could “We’re all in this together” really mean “all of us” this time?  Golly, pappy, that would be amazing, and, as old Abe said so many years ago at the site in the great state of Pennsylvania where the Battle of Gettysburg had taken place:  Lincoln ended his 275 word speech with these hopes:

“that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Thanks for the reminder, Bus; I guess we all know how old Abe’s hopes turned out, don’t we?  Well, at least that old govamint is still alive, if only barely!  Ya know though, even a bad example can be instructive.  The fact that after the Civil War ended in 1865, good old Abe was assassinated, and the South was ravaged, causing animosities in general to blossom even more than before, tells us that we need to be careful not to let opportunity slip away from us yet again.

Well, pap, maybe we got a better chance now, since we are all scared out of our wits, and, as that rascal Rump knows too well, fear can be a great motivating force.  Just maybe, we are all scared enough of dying together that we’ll want to seek a better way to live together.

Thanks, Buster, let’s leave that thought for contemplation.