will we look back and
blame only ourselves – it’s not
hard to imagine
In an opinion piece in the New York Times (Hoping for a Miracle, Hurtling Toward Disaster, July 20, 2023), Pamela Paul looks at the possible candidacy’s of Donald Trump and Joe Biden and states:
A Biden-Trump rematch feels like a concession, as if we couldn’t do any better or have given up trying.
I think of the New Deal era and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
So many good and thoughtful people, people eager to take part and help, signed on to FDR’s administration that it was known as the ‘Brain Trust.’
I think of the post World War 2 era and John F. Kennedy.
So many good and thoughtful people, people eager to take part and help, signed on to JFK’s administration that it was known as the ‘New Frontier.’
An ‘undergraduate-must-read-book’ about the JFK administration is titled, “The Best and the Brightest.“
Today, who gets involved in Government?
Today, who would WANT to get involved with Government?
Today, who would volunteer for that kind of abuse?
Instead of a Brain Trust or the Best and the Brightest we have a paraphrase of Groucho Marx saying ‘I wouldn’t join any club that would let people like me be a member‘ sand end up with the idea that I wouldn’t vote for any person who want’s the job.
Ms. Paul writes, “One clear sign of America’s deepening hopelessness is the weird welcoming of loony-tune candidates …”
” … it’s as if we’re collectively paralyzed, less complacent than utterly bewildered, waiting for “something” to happen — say, a health crisis or an arrest or a supernatural event — before 2024. While we wait, we lurch ever closer to something of a historical re-enactment, our actual history hanging perilously in the balance.“
It isn’t the last line of the Opinion piece, but the last line of the next to last paragraph that stands out.
Will we look back and have only ourselves to blame?
I am reminded of something someone wrote about JFK.
I can’t recall the book or article and I am too pressed for time at the moment to get into the google but the gist of it was that President Kennedy stood up and took the blame for the botched Bay of Pigs operation.
After all, wrote the author, there was no other President at the time.
It isn’t a question of being a question.
It is safe to say that we look back and have only ourselves to blame.
After all, there is nobody here but us at this time.
No Haiku For You 