Why I Follow the Voices Here :

Reading “Enough Already” today

There are many great writers on Substack, I follow many, and subscribe to few for economic reasons. “We live in interesting times” is the most overused, yet apt, statement that was ever made. I am writing today about “Enough Already” today, the article “Homes of the Brave” (link below). Previously having read some information about conditions in Gaza from someone who lives there, I found an unexpected link in why I follow news, even if it is not “good news”.

These times are dark times and there are many persons, who must for various reasons, must turn away from the insanity. Those of us who are older, those who grew up in the shadow of WWI/WWII, cannot avoid noticing echoes of that era now. It is not so easy for those who grew up in the Age of “the Fall of the Berlin Wall” to focus on the slender murderous thread that arises from time to time in the human race and national memory is fickle. We are formed by our experiences. We avoid what hurts and seek things that make us happy. It’s how we’re wired, physically and psychologically. It is merely self-defense to avoid the painful darkness and keep to the “hoped for” light. 

On reading “Homes of the Brave” (link below) I realized that at a deep level, my childhood shaped my ability to tolerate darkness only because I had seen it up close. In the 4th grade, I would sometimes walk home from school, past endless cotton fields. Sometimes there would be a decaying building at the edge of the field. Sagging roof, no glass in the windows, no door, dirt floor. You would think it abandoned, except sometimes you would see a cereal box or a bottle, or some other evidence of human habitation. Now my illustration was from a large holder and retrieved from the National Archives. My travels had been through small holders and conditions were as I describe them.

When I asked about this, I was told that those places were where the “Braceros” lived. (If you don’t speak Spanish, Bracero means “one who works with his arms”. Other definitions include “serf, peon, and laborer.”) This was in the 1950s — the peak of post-war power for the United States. Don’t think for a minute that there are not people in this country who are not living in the same circumstances today — and for much the same reasons. Manual Labor was the main employer for centuries and the exchange of labor for goods was never an equal exchange, and probably never will be.

The main cause of our financial success after WWII was that we had escaped the destruction of bombing as a new tool for warfare. It was a double-edged benefit because it hampered our development. Other countries that had been involved in those two wars had nothing left, built new factories that included lessons learned through the war. Our ocean isolation from both the East and the West had protected us in terms of destruction, but hampered us in the area of innovation. We got a wake-up call when Russia launched the first satellite in 1957.

How did we fix it? By a national attempt underwritten by the Federal government. That’s also how we got to the moon. How did we lose it? By deciding that everything was for sale and we would all become salesmen in America. Of course, we had a fancy word for it: entrepreneur. In fact, we got so good at sales that we finally sold our federal government to the highest bidder who is now, on paper, “the richest man in the world”. This is all well-known information, but I repeat it for a reason. My first read today was an interview with a man living in Gaza right now. His description was horrifying to me because it was exactly what I had grown up hearing about the European experience during WWII.

And there it is: all I can say is “Again”? “Really”? I know that I am not the only one who feels this way, but that is no comfort. The only comfort available to me is knowing that other voices echo mine and continue to remind us all of what is at stake. I’d rather see hope than fear, so I look to these other voices for encouragement, for reassurance that I am not alone in the world. And to me that is much more important than the fact that there is negative news in the world. Historically, it is not in anyone’s best interest to avoid the news.

HOMES OF THE BRAVE