Cleaning Up, Hopefully

FOR WHATEVER REASON, for a long time now, I have had an uneasy feeling about mainstream American culture. Not fringe American culture, if there is such a thing; mainstream American culture. Maybe its the latest mass murder, the one in Michigan, which has me spooked. I try not to write an article about each and every American mass murder; after all, one can only do and say so much; I usually check in about every fifth one, and this is the fifth since my last vent. I chuckle when I recall how often I used to say that if American culture were a horse, it would be shot out of mercy. I can't put my finger on it, but I still feel that way. Something just isn't right. Maybe its the fact that, out on the streets in public, most of the time strangers either ignore me, frown at me, or nod stiff lipped, which is what most men do. And I actually live in a very small southern town, the sort which is supposedly known for open, warm friendliness. That stereotype is nothing but a rumor, I fear, or perhaps a wish. If I smile, strangers often smile, and if I don't, they never do. As if they are saying: "I'm willing to be friendly, but only if you're friendly first". Whatever. And heck, I really don't look menacing, or unfriendly, or threatening in any way, unless I'm dreaming, which, I admit, I might be. All I know is, I try to smile a lot. For a long time now, people have seemed angry to me, as if resentful of the world in general. And, interestingly, more and more people are starting to notice this, and talk about it. More and more often, in the media, Americans are being characterized as "angry", and resentful of the establishment, whatever the "establishment" is. Back in the nineteen seventies I thought the establishment consisted of people who dressed properly and voted for republicans, and supported the Viet nam war as an act of uncritical patriotism. Now, it seems, the establishement is seen as the sum total of those who live in Washington D.C., and who have held political power there for longer than a few minutes. There's something called the "liberal elite", something called "the conservative elite", and something called "the establishment", whatever all that might actually be. Any quick listen to conservative talk radio reveals all this. All the hosts are very very conservative, very hateful towards anything remotely liberal, and almost equally resentful of anyone who might be implicated as a "R.I.N.O.". Woe to any republican who gives a liberal, or President Obama, the time of day. To compromise is to surrender to weakness. No matter what obama or any liberal proposes, oppose it, its pure evil. We tell ourselves that we are polarized, then we proceed to polarize ourselves. To meet in the middle, with a smile and a handsake, is utterly out of the question. All indications of courtesy and respect are seen as "political correctness", a disease. Perhaps all this is the end product of a nation perpetually at war, with much of the world, and within itself. Or, maybe, just maybe, its a temporary abberation, an electrical-chemical reaction to ambiant artificial electromagnetic radiation, and but a passing phase, while we go about the business of cleaning up the environment, our poisonous economic and political atmosphere, and our very troubled souls.