I would have been a bit down in myself this week anyway. Following on from Kilkenny’s snatch and grab win over Galway, with a last second goal in the Leinster final; history repeated itself on Sunday when my old club, Lough Lene Gaels suffered a similar fate, helped by a late and dubious free awarded against them. My cup of woe it doth flow over …
But it’s the breakup of my romance that I promised to tell you about. I have threatened here previously of cutting the link once and for all, but this time its definite and I see no way back.
No, Mrs Youcantbeserious is still in situ and listening to my rants about politicians and referees. Getting to the point, I have totally fallen out of love with the United States of America. A divorce judge would put the break-up down to ‘irreconcilable differences’.
My love for America started 70 years ago. In our house I heard the story over and over, of two of my aunts sailing from Queenstown (Cobh) and heading for America on a ‘White Star Liner’. It was the ‘White Star Liner’ that did it for me. The romanticism of the words excited my little brain and conjured up a dream that someday I too might sail away on the ‘White Star Liner!’
When I was around 5 years old, two of my aunts (one different from the original two) flew home from America and landed in Rineanna (Shannon Airport). Holy God, the visions that formed in my head; sailing off into the horizon on a ‘White Star Liner’ and coming home on an aeroplane to Rineanna!
When I finally got together with the object of my dreams, America didn’t disappoint: I loved the bustle and brashness of New York, the glitz of Las Vegas, the accents of South Carolina and the extravagance of California.
I accepted that my lover was far from perfect: How the Native American and Black People were treated; the foolishly funded invasion of Cuba in 1961; the disastrous loss of 58,000 of their own young men in the Vietnam War; the dropping of the atom bomb on Japan – with the excuse that it was to shorten the war …. A justifiable war that they only joined when it was nearly over; the undignified retreat from Afghanistan …
But love is blind and our relationship held. It remained one of my favourite holiday destinations. The people are friendly, the food is good, weather more or less predictable, events well organised and lots to see and do wherever you did go. But then, all changed in 2016 and for me, America may never get back to where it was.
You don’t have to believe this column, and most of you won’t; but America is well and truly ‘screwed.’ The rot started before Trump, when on the night of Obama’s inauguration, the GOP met and decided that Republicans would oppose, frustrate and suppress everything the Democrats tried to do – no matter how good it was for the American people. That policy has been followed and remains in place. Then came Trump …
The next presidential election could be the last one in America. Conspiracy Theorists, downright lies, social media espionage and blind faith in one man’s ranting is a far greater threat to a country, that was the embedment of democracy, than all those wars we mentioned.
The ‘base’ follows blindly; chanting and flag-waving; and like Nazi Germany of the 1930s, it isn’t that they believe all the propaganda, but that they are afraid to stop. Afraid to question any of it for fear of what their pals might think; afraid to shout ‘stop’ … afraid of their own mob that they helped create. Can you imagine one of our former presidents referring to President Higgins as a ‘Motherf***er’, as did Trump on Biden at a recent rally in California? What will be the next ‘new low?’
You might have thought that nothing could be further to the far right than former ‘speaker of the house’, Kevin McCarthy. But Kevin committed the unforgivable crime last week of cooperating with the opposition party in order that government would not be shut down and wages could be paid. Eight of his party rebelled and brought him down. Now, McCarthy had proven himself to be two-faced and an alleged liar – but, for the first time ever, the ‘speaker’ has been removed and not replaced and the venom and spiel increases on all sides of a divided Republican Party.
A recent UK study showed that roughly half of us would commit a crime under certain circumstances. We humans are complicated animals, but basically, we meet hostility with hostility and kindness with kindness. We are all capable of great acts of decency, but also of heinous acts of cruelty. Cruelty is close to taking over completely in America.
I know I told you before that America and me were having our ‘issues’. Maybe just a separation might work …?
Don’t Forget
In the war of right and wrong, we can’t afford to be neutral.
