THE BACKLASH ERA

The past thiry or forty years have been years of increasing backlash.  Why would backlash continue for such a long time?  I have recently come to realize that the South carried on a "backlash" to the loss of the Civil War for more than one hundred years.  Maybe backlash is not the proper word.  Maybe it is a form of cultural warfare.  What, specifically, am I talking about?

Women's liberation has resulted in the Republican war on women.  The men want total control of women's lives.  Apparently they have decided that the best way to achieve this is to enact every possible restriction on abortion, eliminate planned parenthood clinics, forbid contraceptives and do their best to keep women "barefoot and pregnant."  They say they are deeply concerned about human life.  However, they do nothing to prevent child abuse, to see that hungry children are fed, or to provide health care for women and children.  Their cliams of deep concern for human life appear to be total hypocrisy. 

Gun control is another area of backlash.  The beginnings of gun control go back to the 1980's when President Reagan was shot.  The gun control movement made good progress for about ten years.  Then the NRA began its fight to push back again this progress.  The NRA wants to allow every one in America to carry concealed weapons, to "stand their ground," shoot first and ask questions later, to be allowed to carry assault weapons, and they want to allow guns in parks, courts, schools, businesses, etc.  They don't want murder weapons to be traced, they don't want guns registered.  In other words, the NRA has gone off the deep end in fighting gun control.

The next area of backlash is the environment.  Republicans used to be concerned about the environment and worked to protect it.  Now they have a scorched earth agenda.  They are so angry about every thing that they want to destroy the earth in order to "get even" with environmentalists.  Preserving the environment doesn't destroy jobs.  It changes some old jobs to new jobs.  It really does help people to be able to breathe clean air and to drink clean water.  The present Republican "jobs agenda" of fracking and mountain top removal for coal, are destroying vast water supplies.  Our climate is changing (which they think they can prevent by sticking their heads in the sand.)  Water is becoming a rare and precious resource.  It will become far more valuable than coal.  And what will we do if we have no water?  We can't drink oil or coal.  Every bill in Congress has a Republican attachment that would limit environmental protection of water and air.  They have publically announced that they want to eliminate the EPA.  That will result in the deaths of many people.  Then they say they care about human life, or at least the lives of fetuses.   

We have a black President of the United States.  Some people are horrified, though of course they say that they are not prejudiced.  Of course he couldn't possibly be legitimate.  He probably doesn't have a birth cetificate they say.  When they are shown the birth certificate they "know" that it is not real or legal.  He probably was never born at all.  Birthers, interrupt his speeches, billionaires are spending billions to unseat him, Congress prefers American bankruptcy to cooperation with the president.  We are still fighting the Civil War.

I have heard my elders in the past asking, "What is this world coming to?"  Now I am asking the same question.  What is this world coming to?  I used to wonder how Hitler gained control of Germany.  Now I am seeing some of the same mentality here in the United States.  How do we combat this?  One scholar has said reason will save us.  Unfortunately, it appears that emotions overpower reason.  How can we teach people to use their minds and control their emotions?  How can we overcome people's biases?  Education may be the only answer.  Interestingly, all the states are cutting the education budgets.  "We can no longer afford education."  It was public education that made America great.  Now, many want to do away with public education and have private schools.  Those who cannot afford better education will simply remain ignorant.  However, it does not benefit the nation to keep people in ignorance.  Although, it does allow those in power to retain their control, which is apparently what they want.  White males are seeing the future and they don't like it.  Women are gaining power and control.  Blacks are gaining power and control.  Hispanics are growing in number and soon will cease to be a minority.  White males forsee the possiblity of losing power and control.  They are desperately fighting to hold on and to destroy any and all adversaries.  We can only hope that this is their last gasp and hope that it won't last more than another thirty years.  Maybe then they will see the need to cooperate with other people in order to create a more perfect union.  I just hope that they don't destroy everything in the meantime.