Past, Present, Future—Pick One

Though I’m painfully aware that I don’t have the time now to fully express these further thoughts on the recent Vice-Presidential debate, I will let them fly out in their unshapely form to see if they’re worthwhile. Because it strong me forcefully that there were three time zones represented in that debate last night.

 

Past: Mike Pence. Still putting “jobs” and “economy” over everything else, climate change be damned. Doesn’t matter if the only job left will be gravedigger, we must above all else preserve—or rather, pretend to preserve for the working people whose vote we need- that we will give them jobs at all costs, even if the very job threatens the survival of the species. Then we’ll pull out the old abortion flag under the Pro-life banner while letting the Pro-death policemen continue to kill the George Floyds, seem surprise about the words “systemic racism,” and bandy about the word “liberal” as if it was the most demeaning adjective possibly attached to a human being. In short, we’ll try to solve today and tomorrow’s problems with the same old ineffectual means that never worked anyway—or at least didn’t work for the majority of American citizens.

 

Present: This is the Biden-Harris ticket, much more tuned into the realities of the present day and serious about confronting pandemics, racism, xenophobia, climate change head on. But not so much as to alienate Pennsylvania and thus, continue to commit to “fracking,” about as unfriendly an environmental policy as one could hope to never meet. They’ll probably more or less let Wall St. keep up with their antics and probably back off a bit from the NRA, but there’s no question that a politician living in the present is light-years preferable to one living in the past.

 

Future: And that brings us to the 8^thgrade girl wondering why all these “adults” were just yelling at each other and not understanding how her future is impacted by every single decision made today. The one, who like all the children I know and meet, would say, “Well, of course, policeman could at least have stun guns or rubber bullets and they certainly should be held accountable and of course the rich should pay their fair share (and perhaps more) of taxes and of course we need to decide on every environmental issue for the 7^thgeneration ahead. And duh! equal pay for women and duh! quit the racist crap and deal with the mess we’ve made, and duh! legal marijuana and gay marriage and double duh! gun control and duh!, these are all intersectional and as simple as making life for human beings more fair, more fun, more possible, more pleasurable by drawing forth the best we have inside and stop tapping on the worst so a few macho guys can get their testosterone rush of power. 

 

So pick one. For now, I can only vote for the present, but my heart is with the future.