Nearly eight months after starting this journey as a writer of opinion, I realize that I actually have a following, that you are reading – and commenting – on my words.
Your feedback is important. Please continue to stop me in the market, send me e-mails and comments.
Since I have been writing for public review, I have grown to understand that ageless adage, that writers write because they must, and it is true.
When I look back over many years, since I was a child I have been writing: long essays, short stories, plays, poems, research papers, the great American novel (unfinished); a memoir, etc.
When I have not taken up a pen, pencil, crayon, or lipstick – yes, lipstick on a napkin works just fine – and now the computerized keyboard, my mind remains fully loaded with some exposition or variation on the same theme. Rodney King said it best when he posed it to the world: “Can’t we just all get along?”
Reading back over my submissions, I have found a recurring theme: the nature of humans; i.e., humans in relationship with one another, with all of nature, between racial/ethnic/religious groups or some combination of the above.
These past few days, we have been part of the drama unfolding in Washington – the “debates” in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate — about what the pundits have defined as the brink of disaster, called the budget ceiling. It has been a most uncivil display. An old-fashioned duel may have been a better resolution.
I don’t know about you all but I have listened intently, read extensively and have pondered with all my reasoning faculties and I still don’t fully understand all of what it means for the country to be broke. Except, last night, one of my friends, a federal employee, finally got it when she suddenly realized, bottom line, that she might not get a paycheck.
So how does this bode for civility?
In my opinion, it is gross mistreatment of its citizens for the country’s elected leaders to drag us through the emotional roller coaster caused by their inability to compromise in various caucuses, their individual weak resolves, their political brinkmanship — all because an election is coming up next year. Or that they only vote along a hard political party line; or that they have pledged to be anti-any/all current administration proposals; or, or, or…….
Shame! Shame! Shame on the heads of the sitting rulers for their protracted acts of inhumanity that threaten the federal workers, the retired, the sick and suffering and other vulnerable populations dependent on a solvent government. May the wrath of the people be upon each of them when up for re-election.
Unfortunately, just as shamefully, the electorate has become so bloodied and bowed to not have the feet to, anymore, get to the polls.
Can’t we just all get along?
Antonia Williams-Gary is a consultant with Miami-based Savings and Grace Enterprise. She may be reached at toniwg@bellsouth.net
Photo: Antonia Williams-Gary
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