It All Seems so Clear to Me

The wholesale onslaught against free, public education. The widespread attack on unions and collective bargaining by workers – first private and then public. The crass pandering to our vilest emotions, logic be damned (as if critical thinking was even an option for those deliberately deprived of those tools).

It’s so clear that we’re being herded down the killing chute – lambs to slaughter. Back to our rightful places beneath the rich and powerful. Grist for the mill of the corporatocracy that has replaced the fiefdoms of old: peasants to the feudal lords, cogs in the wheels of the machine.

It all seems so clear. We’re being overrun by people who don’t look, or think, or talk like we do. They want to drag us down, to destroy our great civilization, to tear down all we’ve built and all we stand for. They hate us for our freedoms.

Each side so convinced of our infallibility. Each side girded for battle, baring our teeth across the expanse, widening the divide.

We are in the midst of painful change, and it will come whether we’re ready for it or not. They cycle of revolution rolls thus: the rich and powerful grasp to hold the reigns of destiny. And the people rise up. And in between we wage skirmishes of deceit, hatred and propaganda pitting “us” against “them” as decreed by our mutual oppressors.

We call names and slap labels on our adversaries: socialists, communists, Jews. We turn neighbor against neighbor, and then look back in awe at our savagery. Then we vow such will never happen again.

Never again. Or so we say until we forget the lessons our history seeks to teach us.