Nostalgia, The Good Old Days – Who Needs Them?

During the past, and recent presidential election we hear the all too familiar suggestion of “returning to the good old days.” Every candidate talk about returning America to a sense of values. I don’t know about you but each time I hear, or heard that suggestion I get a little queasy in the stomach accompanied by a little bewilderment, confusion, and absolute disgust!

Whenever I hear the suggestion I often wonder exactly what period in time they want to take us back to! Could it be the days of our slave-holding forefathers? Perhaps they want to take us back to the glorious war that then President Polk suckered the Mexicans into – bless his heart. Then again, perhaps they want to take us back to the Civil War when Christians were giving each other an inhumane and thorough smokehouse bashing. Maybe they want to take us back to the glorious days when Americans were slaughtering Indians, buffaloes, and passenger pigeons - and the Indians were scalping Pilgrims. Perhaps the politicians ideas of a good old day moral America was the gun-toting wild, wild west and the Jesse James era?! I certainly hope it’s not these good old days!

Maybe they want to return us to the hypocritical , yet architecturally lovely “Victorian” period when it was impossible to get a divorce, a time when spousal abuse was at it’s greatest peak because married couples loathed each other and the only way out was death, hence the phrase “until death do us part.” A time when women were treated like spoiled meat! This was also the period of shoddy treatment of immigrants and minorities, of cross burnings, drunkenness, cocaine addiction, mass poverty and labor unrest. In fact almost every well known figure in the medical field was high on cocaine as cocaine was considered the wonder drug. Sigmund Fraud himself did his best work under the influence. Maybe…just maybe they were referencing the historical period of the glorious war that William Randolph Hearst suckered the Spanish into – they never saw it coming – bless their hearts!

How about World War I when once again Christians were giving each other an inhumane and thorough smokehouse bashing? Or the glorious 1920’s when Americans went on a spending trip with their newly earned war profits- you remember this period it was the time of prohibition, gangsters, unsolved murders, unchecked mobs, and of course the Wall Street Crash . Ah yes - the good old days of old fashion American values!!!

Perhaps what they really want to do is take us back to the time of “brother can you spare a dime” - you know – the 1930’s and the 1940’s and World War II when again, Christians were giving each other an inhumane and thorough smokehouse bashing! Or perhaps they want to take us back to the 1950’s when once again Americans were carelessly spending their newly earned war profits. Ok Mr. Politicians why don’t you take us back to the 1960’s – those glorious days which ushered in the concept of ‘father knows best’ when the fatuity of it all turned our stomachs and opened our minds to a useless war which took the lives of thousands of our young men causing an industrial labor shortage. Yeah, you know, the Vietnam War. Uh huh!!!

How about the 1970’s when we had a maniac president who spent most of his career trying to convince us that he was not a crook. Or, the 1980’s when we had a dimed-light president with the most corrupt administration in the history of our great country - not excluding that of the great Warren G. Harding!

How about the good old days when America was changing from a producer to a consumer nation? Ah yes, the good old days when our politicians began to sell us out to what used to be third world nations who now control the American economy by buying our debt, boycotting our exports under the so called Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA and holding us hostage to threats of immigration overloads, crude oil import reductions, euro currency demands for payments of goods, terrorism, and credit denials. Allowing them to control our resources has given them the power to control our world.

Nostalgia

The problem is that our political leaders want nostalgia. They want to always go back, if it’s only for one day and not have to face the challenges right now or tomorrow. They’re hoping for the glorious days of the Hollywood black and white movie where the masked man in the white hat, on the white horse always arrived on time to save America at the last possible moment. When this doesn’t happen they start looking for one liner heroes like John Wayne, Ronald Reagan, or House – the TV doctor who despite his arrogant, obnoxious approach always saves the patient at the last possible moment. But since none of them were available America settled for Barack Obama - who ran on a platform of change. Yes Sir - when the rest of the world was cringing in terror from an uncertain America Barack stood tall. While on the campaign trail facing our man of a million lies, Barack Obama stood tall on nostalgia disguised by a message which suggests change. Yes, take your changes and you go give the enemies of America hell Barack – that’s what we did! This was the advice from George W. Bush. Advice from the old Captain Stupid to the new ship of fools who think that America will prosper by going back to the “Good Old Days” Nostalgia, that’s what they think we want, a time when the buck stopped somewhere, and you could allegedly still buy something with it. A time when television was in black and white and so was everything else.

Well, congratulations Mr. Politicians, you have succeeded in your desire for nostalgia. Here’s the current status; wall street is shaky, the housing market is still in a slump, the government has taken over financial institutions and major corporations, war related items are hot, unemployment is at an all time high, jobs are down, money is scarce, racism is up, human rights is down, the threat of war with Iran and North Korea is a lingering possibility, Israel and Palestine is still testing weapons against each other at the cost of innocent lives, peace is uncertain, and common sense is at an all-time low. While all this is happening you’re looking backwards to the good old days and pretending that none of what’s going on in the present is real!

Nostalgia - just keep clapping your heals together and repeat – there are no days like the good old days, there are no days like the good old days, there are no days like the good old days and watch the country continue to spiral down the slippery slopes of hopelessness and despair due to a lack of visionary planning.

Forget the Good Old Days. They were never really that good at all! It’s because of the perception of the good old days that America has developed a warped sense of values. We want to return to what never was. We need politicians with a vision. We need visionary leaders for such a time as these! In this day and time why do we still have so much alcoholism, drug addition, rape, murder, incest, battered spouses and children, panhandlers, derelicts, homelessness, and street gangs? Why is the economy no better off than it was sixty years ago? Why are families losing their homes and retirees losing their pensions? Christian values appear to be no more than a perception of a dream gone wild! Civil rights, human rights, gay rights, women’s rights, immigrant rights - it’s all wrong – These struggles are nothing but rollover issues from the so-called good old days that was never resolved. Our political leaders appear to be victims of “Selected Amnesia” remembering what they want to remember and forgetting what they choose to forget. All of a sudden Tricky-Dick Cheney, the man who called for a global bloodbath in the name of protecting America against terrorists is suddenly getting more media attention than those calling for a new direction. The man who’s idea for global security was ‘Blackwater” whose slogan was “shoot to kill and save airfare on a one way trip to Guantanamo because we’re just going to kill them anyway!” Dammit - you liberate one country and the whole damn world wants liberation!!.......and according to nostalgia - the so-called good old days...our politicians will vote America to be the hero ridding on the white horse with the latest weapons waving the American flag of hope, freedom, and democracy for all - from Iraq to Crimea!!!

Nostalgia, we don’t need it! Unfortunately, that’s all we’re getting. So, President Obama – you've had four years to turn things around on your platform of 'change'. Granted, no one should think, or should have thought that it was going to be easy. Nevertheless - it's been four years - actually six years of the same old politics. The only change we've seen has been faces in the white house - but the politics of economics, democracy, social, military, vision is the same. What we really needed was a better vision for the future. We need for the next presidential election is a visionary with a real plan to prepare us for the 22nd century.

My question to your Mr. President is similar to the one the apostle John posed to Jesus which was ”Are you the one - or should we wait for another?!

We're struggling here Mr President - Help us out!