Memorial Day 2022: Reflections during a Difficult Time. .
Just two hours ago, I decided to do a podcast on Memorial Day. As someone who grew up with strong patriotic impulses, it has been a surprise to me how my perspectives have changed. Today, I think my country is in very bad shape. There is an incredible danger from extremist elements who think it will be necessary to have a violent insurrection, even a Civil War, to overthrow the extremists who now control us.
I am writing this at a very depressing time in our country's history, when there are 19 kids and two teachers lying dead in Texas. They were killed by an 18 year old who brought an AR-15 the day after his 18th birthday. And there are others lying dead in Buffalo, killed by an 18-year-old who wrote a 180 page manuscript describing how whites are being overwhelmed in their own country and they have to fight back.
And I am thinking of what happened in Dearborn last week when a white man with a baseball bat went into a very upscale vegetable marker and began hitting two Black women who were shopping. Was his goal to create a white Belfast in which certain neighborhoods would be only for "our" people. You can go to your own neighborhood? I have been in conversation with a white nationalist who thinks that way.
If you want an uplifting podcast, this is not the one for you.
But I keep thinking of what Hemmingway said. "You love your country in spite of, not because of."
I am not giving up. But I am of the age when I need some of you younger people to do the heavy lifting to save our country.