Stuart’s Thoughts 2/14/2020

Soaring Negativism

I’m sad to see so much negativism in our country, the most at anytime during my lifetime.  In my opinion this is closely related to the dismal performance of our government in Washington and the disappointing role being played by our broadcasting and press services.  Clearly, the entire Washington establishment cannot seem to get over their shock of being rejected in favor of an outsider in the 2016 election.  They are not only disappointed that the American people did this to them but they are so extremely angry at all who have rejected their greedy reign of self serving power.

Regimes throughout history have been overthrown when they fall prey to selfishness in place of serving the best interest of their constituency.  The people of the United States have finally had enough of the Washington insiders focusing more on their own careers and self interests than on the jobs they were elected to do, i.e., solve the problems and issues facing the people of the United States, their employers and those they were chosen to represent. During the past three years, we have witnessed the true extent of this corruption and failure to do their jobs.

Compounding this failure of the Washington political establishment has been  the failure of the supposed watch dogs of our government, the broadcast and press corps.  They too have proven that their goals have been largely self serving.  The gain of personal wealth and power has been paramount in their sights rather than oversight of the government in service to the people of our nation.  They clearly come down on one side or the other of the political system.  Nowhere to be found are newscasters reminiscent of previous eras where they just reported the news without encumbering it with their own, or the station’s own, partisan position.

As a result, one gets the impression, probably true, that the entire Washington scene is that of a war zone, Republicans vs Democrats or, if you prefer, Conservatives vs Liberals.  Productive work of solving problems for the people is nearly totally brushed aside for WAR.  Each side just doing their best to destroy the other side before the next silly election.  Winning the political war is the only thing that matters in gaining the victors more wealth and power.  All is fair in love and war and what we citizens observe is all out efforts to win including, rampant lying, cheating, vicious attacks and even illegality, eg., the illegal efforts of certain FBI officials in their war against Trump.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not putting Donald Trump on an ideological pedestal.  He can be equally nasty, dishonest and untruthful, but that’s always been who he is.  It’s a combination of a New York City street fighter and highly successful businessman.  The entire Washington political establishment, including the press, were devastated when he won, thus, upsetting their apple cart and threatening to take away their collective “golden apple”.  They reacted with unbridled hate for the new President and immediately pledged to not only resist and block everything he wanted to accomplish as President but to also launch several parallel attempts to overturn the results of the 2016 election.  False documents and charges were aimed at establishing a phony  narrative of him colluding with the Russians in defeating Hillary Clinton in the Presidential election and, if that failed, they would impeach him for some, yet to be determined reason.  In any event, Donald Trump had to be taken out and to hell with the country’s business until that matter had been resolved.

We’ve all now lived through that 3 year period of negative apocalypse .  The congress has been totally consumed with riding themselves of this plague that has overcome them.  With the exception of several wins for the people initiated by Donald Trump and concluded with the help of the Republican Senate, e.g., tax reduction, regulation reform and revision of unbalanced trade agreements, we have been paying our representatives obscene sums of money so they can engage in non-stop political war.

Needless to say, many American people have become disgusted with this behavior and are, frankly, angry and fed up with the entire Washington crowd.  We have had our families and communities fractured by this terrible behavior and are in great danger of being consumed and truly adversely affected by run away negativism.

My advise is to tune out this unpleasant noise from Washington, tune out the news broadcasts, tune out the political speeches, the political debates and the lying campaigns.  Separate yourself as much as possible from the incessant groan of negativism.  Turn off the TV, the internet and any of the other sources of slander and negativity and try to find those rare uplifting sources of achievement and success.  As that old Johnny Mercer song goes, “Accentuate The Positive, Eliminate The Negative, Latch On To The affirmative …

The following is a quote copied from a book by Dave Barry, “Lessons From Lucy”.  This book loaned to me by Jim, is an entertaining story of things the author has earned from his dog.

“ The default tone of political discourse - and not just on Facebook; It’s everywhere - is angry, even CAPS LOCK ANGRY. It is also often wildly melodramatic.  Everything that happens is THE WORST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED. And to round out the unpleasantness, the tone is often lecture-y, sneering, contemptuous, condescending, self-righteous, smug.  No matter what the issue is, the message is: This is what I think and there can be NO DISCUSSION about it because the only possible reason you could have a different opinion is that you are stupid or evil, or stupid AND evil. …. I’m not saying don’t care about politics.  I’m not saying don’t stand up for what you believe in.  I’m not saying don’t debate people you disagree with.  What I am saying is:  Don’t hate them.  Try talking to them, instead of calling them names.  Try listening to them.  And even if you disagree with them-even if you hate what they’re saying-don’t let your hate consume you.”

Right on Dave Barry. Hatred, more often than not, harms the hater far more than the hated. 

 I highly recommend this book, not only for the entertaining writing style of Dave Barry but particularly for the uplifting experience told in an extra chapter, added after completion of the original manuscript.  It’s certainly a welcome change from the incessant negativity that we  encounter on a daily basis.

For our collective benefit, let’s disavow negativity and hatred.  Life will be much more enjoyable without those destructive elements and like Lucy and Dave, we all may start having a lot more fun again.