This came up on Facebook for Mar. 8 2012
Getting ready to relaunch "Speaking of Everything" @
www.larrybellinger.comI have been reviewing some of the stuff on the site. This piece kind of sums up where things went off the rails for me
What’s Going On?
October 1st, 2010 by Larry Bellinger
A while back my son asked me why so many of my posts sounded so angry. I reflected on that query and realized that I was being very personal in my political viewpoints and commentary. I had to stop and ask myself, “Why are you so angry?”
I knew the answer but I didn’t start this blog to be another partisan ranter, I started to help my writing chops as I entered grad school for Public Communication. I should have graduated by now but I still haven’t submitted a thesis for as I tell people, “life got in the way.” In September 2008, my mother-in-law’s health declined so rapidly we took her out of her assisted living facility. We thought it best she pass away among family. Her doctors told us she had at most three months so we gathered the children and grandchildren home to say good bye to grandma… she passed February 1, 2010.
But it was right about August ’09 that I truly began to feel totally burnt out. By that time the health care reform debate was in full froth and ugliness ruled the day. My thesis would not be ready by the end of my studies and I would not be able to submit it until December.
What got in my way wasn’t “life” so much as “lack of passion.” When I gave up my anger I believe I lost my passion for writing.
What was fueling my anger? The right-wing of the nation’s politics. Don’t get me wrong, the far-left fringe drive me nuts, too! The knuckleheads in Black Bloc always take the spotlight off the protest and turn it on to themselves.
What really irks me is the fact that the nation seems to have lost sight of what all this is supposed to be mean.
Listening to my Dad and his buds while I was growing up taught me a very valuable lesson. These men had actually lived the majority of their lives under the specter of racism and Jim Crow and nearly all were WWII veterans. To a man they were patriots. They had taken the worse this nation could dish out to them and in return they gave their blood and bodies to save the country and the world.
They voted in elections, paid their taxes and wondered what else white folks wanted from them. The answer to that question didn’t matter for above all, these black, negro and colored men considered themselves to be Americans.
So where are the American patriots today? The Tea Party? Oh yeah, what do they stand for? "Give me mine and the hell with everyone else."
Forget racism that’s much too narrow a strait to sail through. No, today’s American doesn’t give a damn unless one question is answered first above all else:
“What’s in it for me?”
Poll
