Tom Parsons
Sep 9, 2018 · 4 min read

As one of the oldest of those called “Boomers” and often blamed for the miserable situation you so painfully experience and describe, please let me offer a semi-apology and a post I just made to friends in a private online discussion group where that friendship has been strained for literally decades now by my own views on the issues I see as central. Twenty years ago, most members responded politely but negatively to my on-the-day post about how the events of 9/11 reminded me of the Reichstag fire, and later posts on the natural progression of which that event was just a part.

The semi-apology is for failing to be able to do anything about the slide into the present debacle, despite decades of various efforts as an American who saw it happening with increasing horror and despair. After the Vietnam War and the threat of being drafted woke me up to the reality of who was in control and how little power the great mass of Americans really had, I did as much as I felt reasonably possible, while leading a normal (and uncorrupted) life. I was active in the local Democratic Party, and served a 4-year term on the “City” Council of a small town, and both experiences educated me in the momentum and hopelessness of the continuing descent.

So I have consistently tried to look at the bigger picture, which has also failed to appeal to most of those caught up in the daily chaos. Hence today’s post to that group:

“Please forgive the redundancy, and feel free to skip this post entirely, no hard feelings, but given the current frenzy I feel a need to summarize what I’ve been trying to say for so long:

“Based on today’s science, the us-vs-them mentality and accompanying strong emotions go clear back to the common ancestors we share with today’s chimps. And even farther, imo. It is a logical outgrowth of the balance between the twin needs for cooperation and competition imposed by evolution. Nobody’s fault, except when they go crazy for one extreme or the other.

“I even hypothesize that a major step in our evolution was the invention of tribal markings (body paint, scars, etc.) that let us form groups bigger than the accepted maximum of 100–150 individuals that we can get to know personally. Bigger gangs tend to beat smaller gangs, and that’s what evolution chooses. But groups of better cooperators also have an outsize advantage. And so it has gone, ever since, ratcheting up the scales of group size and social cooperation (and/or coercion) mechanisms — and here we are in a world with many times more people in larger groups and better armed than ever before.

“But an even older biological response than “hate/fight the other gang” is to piss or poo wherever and whenever. Hey, who cares what falls out of the branches onto the ground anyway? And yet, now that we live in houses, we’re pretty good at toilet training even little kids nowadays, aren’t we? And I doubt we’d want for everyone to do it ‘just anywhere’ again, and maybe then call it “freedom”, would we? Instincts *can* be modified and restrained.

“Lots of posts above show that we all know that people will invent differences between groups, no matter how trivial or even how false the basis is, and then scream “Death to the enemy” (or to heretics, or Nazis, or Albigensians, or whatever — note that I’m avoiding today’s live-wire trigger names, but they’re out there aren’t they?). Or “moderates” will just urge that those others should have second-class citizenship and be pleased to get that much.

“If we Americans want to go back to being winners, we need to recognize these fundamental facts and get together under the Constitution that as written today (but *not* as practiced by the oath-breakers running the government) guarantees us all the right to be as different as we want to be as long as we don’t directly harm others. If others feel offended by what we do or say or how we look, it would be best for us to get together and talk it out to everyone’s satisfaction, but the Supreme Law of the Land says that talking is the most we can do to someone else who is breaking no law that is consistent with the Constitution.

“And I do hope — and even pray — that we can escape from the present drain-circling dance of mutual disrespect that those with money and power have tricked us into. Their use of mass media to emphasize people’s human differences and then exacerbate the natural feelings of competition, contempt, fear and hatred that arise has succeeded all too well in dividing us, the people, thus making us powerless and impoverished. I see so much to like and respect in groups on both sides of so many issues, but somehow that ain’t what makes the news, is it?

“United we stand, but divided . . . well just look at where we’ve come to and where we’re headed . . . And even I am guilty right here in this post of naming a baddie group we can all blame. But I don’t urge revenge or even contempt for them — we’re as human as they are, and vice-versa. And we need to get together as many of us as possible, for the common good. Not to dump bad stuff onto any particular group, but to restrain bad actors while we protect and reward the good.” [Like we should be protecting and rewarding Julian Assange, for instance, as well as other truth-tellers. How very revealing that failure is of our leaders’ true intentions!]

And I’m still hoping. The best solution I could come up with 30 years ago was to get my family out of there and into a different country. That no longer looks so stupid/weird, but the need for it still hurts. I still love America, but trusting it is something else . . .