“Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician Sex. JFK blown away, what else do I have to say? We didn’t start the fire. It was always burning, since the world’s been turning. We didn’t start the fire. No, we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it”. Okay, I already know what you’re thinking. Wait, this song isn’t about missing someone, or looking back at the many regrets in ones life, trying to close a hole in a broken heart, or even the difficulty in having to start life all over again well into middle age. So what gives? Well, it’s my attempt to approach the topic of one of the two things we’ve always been told to steer clear of – politics and religion (and don’t worry, my take on religion will have to wait another day). So when did this country start being torn apart just by the different viewpoints of it’s citizens’ political opinions? I’ve always thought (right or wrong?), that it perhaps started in Dallas, on a cloudy day in late November of 1963. Up until then, yes of course there were political differences, and yes some of it was ugly. On both sides of the aisle. And many people did not even want Kennedy elected back then just because of his catholic faith. Seriously, WTF right? But we all still got along with everyone – friends, neighbors, co-workers and family members. So what changed exactly? Well after JFK was blown away, I’d say everything. The Vietnam War began to escalate, over 50,000 dead American soldiers would give up their lives (in my opinion, for basically nothing), there was turmoil, riots, violence and protests in the streets. And as we all know, more tragedy in the way of assassinations. Those damn 1960’s man, damn they were dark.
And throughout the following years and decades, though the killings of our political figures did fortunately come to an end, this nation did seem to keep getting more and more fractured. Watergate happened, as well as the women’s rights movement, the AIDs explosion, Iran-Contra hearings, television evangelist sex scandals, and the list just kept going on and on. And then along came the 1990’s. Which was about the same time that 24-hour news networks and talk radio programs started to become more influential and came to dominate the news cycle as well. In other words, when our country started to turn to shit. It became less about just reporting the news Cronkite-style, and more about capturing the all-important ratings (both television and radio). Because, well ratings equals revenue. So yes, because of the all-mighty dollar, the “news” then became less about facts and more about viewership or listenership. And if that wasn’t enough, along came social media in the 2000’s. It was much like dumping fuel on a fire. Between the “news” channels and the talk radio shows instilling fear into each of their their captive audiences, often at times going right after their most prized demo – the gullible and fearful who were tuning in religiously, and then factor in the giants of social media (facebook and twitter) amplifying it up about a thousand notchs, well hell no wonder we now have a country basically at war with itself and each other. And yes I mean everyone – friends, neighbors, co-workers and family members. Yea political differences is fine, we all should have and should value our own opinions. But argue those differences over a cold beer with your buddy. Hell Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill would get together at the end of many days and do just that. And you can’t have any more of a difference in political views than those guys. So you don’t have to necessarily end friendships just over a difference in opinion. Or in layman’s terms, you don’t have to storm the capitol or even kill people over it either.
So what’s the solution?, or is there even one? Most likely, sadly, there probably isn’t one. Which means we’ve gone past the point of no return. One thing this nation could do (but they never will of course), is to set term limits for our elected officials. They do for presidents and governors, and it seems to be working out just fine. However these ‘lifers’ (and I’m talking both parties, and in both the house and senate) don’t necessarily care what’s good for our country or our people, it’s all about keeping their job so that they can retain power, money, influence, and let’s be honest, their celebrity status as they make the rounds on those same 24-hour television news channels. And how do we go about setting term limits you ask? Well, they have to be voted in by those same ‘lifers’. So yea, that ain’t never happening.
So while we didn’t actually start the fire (that fire was started many years ago), we did help keep it lit, and we’re not trying to fight it.