I’ve been meditating intently on purpose. I think purpose and home share the same sense of safety and comfort. They are both where you return to when you become lost and need to recenter yourself. I’ve written a few times about being homeless, and the news of the Supreme Court taking us, once again, backwards in time renewed both my anger and sense of homelessness. What does it mean to be American? I suppose you’ll get as many answers as you would people you ask, but I’ve yet to find a meaning with which I identify. Being American means either being large and lazy or being evil and exploitative.
The same crowd out of one side of their mouths will tell you masks and vaccines are a draconian authoritarian bridge too far, but out of the other side, women should not be allowed to decide what to do with their bodies. I don’t buy the argument, its purpose, being ‘pro-life.’ Where are the childcare programs? Where are the education programs? Where are the healthcare programs? Where are the systems that will make life better? It’s about control.
After the civil rights era, the unholy alliance of capitalism and religion needs cheap labor to exploit. The wealthy need to distract you with the culture war to win the class war, and it is infuriating that they’re so successful. We don’t need Russia’s help on Facebook to tear us apart; propagandists like Rush Limbaugh (RIP), Alex Jones, Sean Hannity, and Tucker Carlson are doing fine. I have to believe they know what they are doing, but they profit from it and choose money over morals, just as many others have.
Upton Sinclair said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” The man who invented leaded gasoline knew the product was toxic but took the money, and the oil industry knew about climate change but took the money. Evil and exploitative. It isn’t just about educating people and then watching as they do the right thing, people know what they’re doing, and they don’t care as it profits them personally at the expense of others. I can’t relate to that.
I understand it is easier to destroy than create, but it keeps getting worse. Where is the ‘home’ we get to go to regroup and recover? The next elections might be stolen right from under us, and they’ve already announced that women aren’t the only targets. If you aren’t a White, Wealthy, Native-Born, Heterosexual, Christian (Conservative) Man, they’re coming for you too. That’s their purpose; what’s yours?