140 Characters and a Meme

We’re two weeks removed from our nation’s 240^th Independence Day and the founders' great experiment is experiencing an upheaval unlike any that I can recall since the protests of the Vietnam War over 40 years ago. 

Over two centuries ago, America was the revolutionary undertaking that a doubting old world viewed with a bemused expectation of imminent collapse. For more than two centuries America has weathered the storms of war, strife, corruption and a temporary sundering. It's managed to put some issues behind it. But one issue, one wound will not heal. Whenever we think that the scab might fall off we manage to pick it and open the lesion afresh. It's our trauma that's scarred the nation since before it was a nation. 

It's the can that the founders and their successors managed to kick down the national road for over 200 years.  And once again, for that umpteenth time, we stand with that can before us with the decision to pick it up and finally dispense with it or kick it for another generation to deal with.  That can is of course race relations and the can kickers have been our nations leaders; by and large old white guys. The original can kickers couldn't come to agreement despite their reputation for being enlightened and ahead of their time. 

What’s clear to this old white guy is that there seems to be a current scarcity of enlightenment and an unfortunate surplus of violence, hate, indifference and blame.  Or maybe not.  Maybe the haters and blamers are all just louder.  Isn’t that usually the case?  To exacerbate the problem our national discussion has been done largely in soundbites.

A few folks have tried to begin a true discussion. They've challenged the nation to talk, to reason and to try to understand.  President Obama, as the President should be, was the most conspicuous.  

Clearly what our ailing nation needs is a generous dose of leadership.  It’s recently got that from our president – twice.  Two times more than a nation should have to go through in the space of a week.  The first followed the shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.  The second, at a memorial for 5 slain police officers in Dallas.  Both speeches were heartfelt and bespoke of his humanity and his fairness.  But the blowhards, the haters and the blamers will not be swayed. They are on a singular mission to drag this president through the muck of political rhetoric, hyperbole and outright bullshit. It doesn’t matter at all to these folks what he says.  If President Obama were to come out and roundly chastise Black Lives Matter I’m sure that Rudy Giuliani would find some twisted path to criticism.  Slamming this president is a ridiculous, baseless national right-wing sport.

But for all the logic and reason that he presented, President Obama was rewarded with the blame for fomenting the Dallas shootings. When we needed calls for calm; when we needed those with a national voice to help us find a small little spit of common ground and reason in a turbulent sea of violence and venom all we got was a tempest of tweeting gasbags.    

                Joe Walsh, known for being shown the door after one term in Congress tweeted, “Watch out Obama…Real America is coming to get you.”  What would you expect from a guy who disparaged an Iraq War vet who lost both legs in combat?  As the Dallas shooting were unfolding and before any cogent facts were known Walsh announced that “two uneducated black thugs” were doing the shooting. By early next morning we knew that there was only one shooter. 

                Iowa Representative Steve King tweeted, “#DallasPoliceShooting has roots in first of anti-white/anti-cop events illuminated by Obama … Officer Crowley. There were others.”  King’s sensitivity when it comes to race relations might best be summed up by the Confederate flag that adorns the desk in his Washington office.

After his second speech at the memorial for slain Dallas officers, Obama was ripped for bringing up easy access to guns.  I wonder why he would do that?  Maybe because while most of Facebook America was posting photos of the dog or their steak dinner, in 2014 Micah Johnson was arranging the purchase of an AK-47 - on that very same Facebook.  We would be disappointed if the president’s passionate plea for reason wasn’t met by a barrage of half-baked ignorance.  Katie Pavlich tweeted; How am I surprised Obama would use a memorial for police to lecture about gun control and politics? He is the worst.  How am I not surprised that Ms. Pavlich is a Fox contributor? 

Yup, much of this billingsgate comes in the form of tweets.  Why the hell not?  The GOP candidate for president seems to live on Twitter.  Sure, why the hell not?  Because everyone knows that complex societal issues can best be explained and solved constructively in 140 characters or less.  If nothing else I guess that Twitter provides a sort of momentary release and self-gratification; until the shame sets in.  Sort of like masturbating - and then getting caught. Take Tomi Lahren, who tweeted, “Meet the new KKK, they call themselves ‘Black Lives Matter’ but make no mistake their goals are far from equality.”  Poor Tomi got caught squarely with her hand on the goods and deleted the tweet most certainly not for any shame, remorse or second thoughts that she'd gone a bit overboard.  No I'll go out on a limb and guess that the ensuing firestorm of protest was causing her to see her professional career life flash before her eyes.  

But when a tweet won’t do then post a meme because during times of strife there can be nothing more satisfying than posting a photo with a misleading or inflammatory caption.  And so America there’s your debate over race relations, law enforcement, killing and guns; 140 characters and a meme. 

To call this mess a debate is fiction.  This is primates at the zoo throwing poop; a scream-fest and an ocean of ugly bile all in one.

Trauma surgeon Brian Williams added his plea for sober, thoughtful discussion. He was the surgeon who operated on the Dallas police officers at Parkland Hospital and agonized over those that didn’t survive.  He said to CNN’s Don Lemon, "I don't understand why people think its OK to kill police officers. I don't understand why black men die in custody and they're forgotten the next day. I don't know why this has to be us against them. This is all really... it has to stop...We are all in this together, we are all connected. All this violence, all this hatred, all these disagreements, it impacts us all, whether you realize it or not. This is not the kind of world we want to leave for our children. Something has to be done…The problem is the lack of open discussions about the impact of race relations in this country.”

Indeed Doctor. Twitter doesn’t constitute open discussion.  Tweeting is not dialog.