Tag: Tolerance

The Anger, The Crying; I Think Not.

Published on by annwjwhiteLeave a comment

I watch public television all the time. I travel in my mind away from the noise and bluster to places in the world that have frisky lambs, lochs, and waterfalls. I want to be in that world, just for a bit. There are always people who search for the old days, but I don’t want those. Disease, prejudice, a lack of money aren’t quaint or charming. I’m looking for modern charm in places of the world where charm is preserved. I don’t want the crass consumerism, the crowds that leave you without a breath, but I want to see how people get along together, supporting each other, and still taking time out for individuality. I’ve never had much patience for people who raise arguments for the sake of arguing. Arguments make my stomach knot up and my head ache.

Politics always concerns me because people forget that we are a “people” and not just two armies on the battlefield. I watch European governments deal with their parties with relief that there are more than two parties that have seats in power. They change with the whim of the people and sometimes because of events that overwhelm the senses.

They say that the last great generation was that of my grandparents who grew up in a time of strident ideologies that tore families apart, targeted people for genocide, and ripped the surface of the planet apart. People gave all they had to make sure the stridency of hate ended. They believed their sacrifices would protect those who came after from such a fate. Churches gathered resources to protect the innocent. Families gathered supplies and knit socks and hats. The Red Cross had a generosity that today is portioned carefully. Men and women gave their lives, in the military and as civilians. If you had two pots, and your neighbor had none, you shared. Or so the stories tell, and those stories that haven’t been written down or filmed have found a place in the garden of good deeds where you didn’t brag because you did something good. I’ve been told those good people are gone forever, and I’ll tell you know, more are coming up from the shadows where they learned of needs to the bright light where we should again celebrate them…

I live in an area with a high military and government service population. Life is fast-paced here and if you don’t slow down you will never see the good gleaming out in the open. If you are rich, you can take a world stance and be a hero in the public eye. Mrs. Clooney is representing a whole people in a court at Nuremberg, she was the lawyer who recently took the case of the Yadizi people of Northern Iraq. Young girls enslaved, young boys indoctrinated to ISIL, fathers and mothers murdered, what positive could possible come of such a situation? It’s the advocates who agree that there must be a world accountability. But what if you don’t have a lot of money? You don’t have the time? Would you want this happening in your country? We defended these people, so did the Kurds.

There was a couple, both Marines, who took care of things that “needed doing” in the neighborhood and at the school where their children attended. They never did it for the reason of publicity. They did it because it was right. They helped as they could; shoveling snow so that seniors didn’t risk it, rebuilding the crew shed for a high school with materials that were thrown up and now had a chance to serve. They cleaned up after Gradnight celebrations. They stayed busy because they believed community is where things start. They took a lonely neighbor to ball games, invited the neighbors to dinner, and reached out as much as they could.  I was saddened when they went back home.

There are so many volunteers providing meals for the elderly, for the dispossessed. The local market delivered four tractor loads of food last fall to be given to needy families. They’ve kept it up. We have a homeless prevention program that advocates, shelters and guides families back into a position where they can resume their lives in a positive way for themselves. Vets who provide services to animal rescue organizations? Vet clinics who foster kittens for adoption? Lawyers who work with families who can’t afford legal advice? PAL’s organizations who foster, promote and find homes for animals from all volunteer systems? Newman’s Own, where all profits are assigned to help those in need. Teachers who stay late to tutor for free? Ball teams that give back to youth in their cities promoting a healthy lifestyle. There are so many people out there who care. These are the greats of our times.

Communities want the same things: a reduction of pollution, services for those in need, medical treatment, an end to homelessness, respect for our veterans, education for the young, jobs, roads, schools. How did we start arguing about these things?

World War II saw the end of the implementation of the greatest social experiment ever. We took care of our own, we gave the world what was an intense reaction to the behaviors  of totalitarianism and Nazism. Bullies need a target to be better than in order for them to come to power. Roosevelt used an extensive national program to rebuild a nation whose classes didn’t communicate, to find work for those needing work, and to protect a national call to action by all of her members. It wasn’t perfect, but it established a system and a precedent to protect the “Welfare” or wellbeing of the citizens of our Nation. Seniors were given a chance to be fed, housed, and given medical treatment so they didn’t have to work until their dying day. early education came twenty years after.

Goldwater was the first conservative Republican, believing and creating a manifesto to undo the advances that the Roosevelts had brought forward. Simply put, he believed that our society would become weak if we kept “bailing” people out. That was his choice of word, not mine. I know of few, if any at all, that didn’t advance in life, be it from family, a teacher, the military, with a helping hand.

We’re Americans, not something for one and nothing for others. I’ve got MS. Because of it, I won’t have a pension to retire with, so should I be angry with other teachers who will get a pension that they have earned? I don’t think so. Luck has something to do with where we end up. So does due diligence. So does who you can rely on to show you the ropes to get where you want to be. Point is we are one people. E pluribus unum. We’re different, we’re the same, we’re colorful and bland, we believe in one God or not. We can cherish each other because of our uniquenesses and differences. Screaming hate from one party to the next accomplishes nothing.

Let’s get this voting thing done and go back to our work, dreams, and families. Let’s stand as Americans with the right to disagree, but let’s stand together.

 

Music, Poetry, Prose and Changing Times

Published on by annwjwhite5 Comments

Music, poetry and writing are the methods of following change in the U.S. Music uses repetition, rhythm and where it helps, rhyme. Rhyme is difficult because it has to further the message without over simplifying it. The movement of the blues and jazz, of black hymns, of swing, put such energy into music of the common man that we needed the sixties events to sway us into all of the rock genres. We had radios. That’s nothing in today’s world but in the sixties and seventies TVs and radios became cost effective to own. It was a social revolution. The process of miniaturization was on the development tables. We had seat belts in cars. We didn’t have to rely on a newspaper that was out of date before it was printed. No, words of the doings of man seemed rocketed to us. And we sang songs and danced to welcome the changes.
At the time I was in college studying music performance in the 70s, there was a dispute over the role of modern music (as it’s now labeled). We studied the classics, progressive, gregorian chant, romantics, baroque, and folk music through the ages. Plus we had our own style emerging in direct response to our environment. The music of the sixties and seventies was so powerful that it swayed a huge portion of the population into a passionate response. There were messages that were so powerful they couldn’t be spoken with the same impact. We demonstrated, stood up for rights and believed we could achieve them. We saw West Side story on the TV with Leonard Bernstein conducting. We wept tears at a story that Shakespeare told so long ago put into our world where racism was real and the South was dangerous. Times changed quickly. Things that seemed my parents had always known suddenly exposed themselves for what they were, new and changing to meet the demands of the entire population of the U.S.When I graduated in 1975, Native Americans were about to be given the vote if they lived on so-called government “reservations.” In 1976, Title 9 came into being giving women a new outlet in sport. It was a real challenge. In 1977, I was in the last basic training class of only women. We wore the Woman’s Army Corps insignia all the way through basic, and it was retired with our graduation. Standards changed and people changed with them.

Poetry and music lyrics share similarities, and they both deviate in how they are used. The tools are there.  California Dreaming is said to have a simple set of lyrics, but the concept was new. The method of delivery was new. The fact that the idea was accessible was also something new. We’d seen and heard Elvis. He outlined the status quo for us. We saw John Wayne who was the ultimate macho man. We learned from the music that the Beach Boys sang. And there were many new lessons.  We didn’t have to stay in one place for the rest of our lives. We could travel and that concept brought on a period of extreme social change, and because of the Kennedy brothers being murdered, the image of Jackie’s son saluting the flag covered coffin, the tragic death of Martin Luther King Jr, the music we heard was portraying both sides of our society, good and ill.

We knew more. We questioned our roles as women, becoming a stronger voice for the right to be more than in the past. Men had to choose an image that the TV wanted to suppress, macho or stupid were portrayed as the two options they had. The TV hyped Jackie Gleason and John Wayne. But there were strong elements there too ; The Smothers Brothers and Laugh In. Intelligence in both sides of our species. Only the messages mattered. I watched those “Commie Pinko Shows” with my parents and we loved to laugh at the mixture of music, jokes, skits and just plain fun. It was hard to believe that that was dissident thinking, it’s still hard for me to believe. It seemed like the John Stewart Daily Show, a representation of our world with humor.

My generation talked. My mother’s generation talked and we communicated. That was strange. For many many years when I needed a wise best friend, my mother was the one to turn to, she always had a song for an aching heart, a melody for an infant, a poem for a toddler. She’s still my best friend. But, I digress, we were talking about love and (deep breath) sex. That was new. We were talking about current events and we knew them because of the TV and radio. We talked about, sang about, and demanded social change. For a little while, things did change. It looked like the dreams of the 60s were coming true. I was all in favor of a nicer kinder world, like the one Stevie Wonder sang about. I loved his lyrics, music and optimism. I loved Peter Paul and Mary, and Janis Ian, Phoebe Snow, Shawn Phillips, the Who, and the what, where, and why.

Then came the period of the 80s and our social progression and ethics changed. We became more egocentric, the accumulation of things by adults became more intense. Money was the important thing. Do unto others before they do unto you. You saw the black rage at society with rap because of the inequities that life provided them, again with rhyme and a strong bass, words so powerful that they broke your heart, angered you, or made you sorrow. You had grunge begin in the white population in protest of materialism, surely there had to be more to life than this existence, and suicide took some of the best artists. You saw alcoholism appear strongly in music where it had been mostly in prose before that time. Drug addiction was still referred to with stealthy whispers, “Only that kind of person does drugs.”

Then the internet took off. We could afford computers at home that had more power in each case that the huge rooms of data banks from the past. They improved every day. Technology doubling itself, faster and faster. There was a rebooting of the seventies material in the 2000s, issues that had been laid aside, brought their messages back. It looks simplistic but it represents who and what we are today.

Poetry is complex with people finding a voice in a nearly forgotten format. It isn’t always clear in its message, it requires thought and the interpretation doesn’t guarantee that you understand what the author meant. But the reader’s message is equally valid. Old dusty professors will always come up with a different interpretation that those studying under them, twenty to forty years younger. Time changes our outlook. Music simplifies the message. Aaron Copland’s A Lincoln Portrait is straight forward and the music heightens the experience so you don’t forget the simple words. Puff the Magic Dragon was and is a story for the imagination of the young and old, not a drug message. Where have All the Flowers Gone is a song about the repetition of the mistakes that we repeat as a society. The Beach Boys was about having some fun and not becoming too serious to soon. “Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky tack and they’re all made out of ticky tack and they all look just the same.” A protest about the loss of creativity and the sameness that felt forced upon us.

The audience and the message have to concur before fame occurs. We have something to say, audience needs to want it. Music and writing are two vehicles to send a message that will leave footprints long after we are gone. The amazing thing is that because of the internet, writing and music are marching around the world demanding to be read and heard. Cuba allowed some old English rockers to perform in Cuba and they wanted to go meet fans who could have been jailed for listening. They performed for free. Imagine that. Classical music is performed for free on the streets and plazas of the world. Day concerts of Beethoven, so that the music lives on. Bach is used to heighten our knowledge of math. So is Mozart. Wagner introduced a social message that helped bring on World War II and the quest for supremacy. What a powerful medium emerged! Tolkien took Wagner’s message and wrote a message of opposition and unity in the face of evil. There was a cartoon, Wizards, that took a cartoon audience through the message that Tolkien took four lengthy novels to write. Before Tolkien was Dickens with his eternal belief that we have to believe in the good of people, that good would overcome greed, that good people would be rewarded. There was Plath who suffered from severe bouts of depression, her poetry was part of her therapy. She needed meds. We all have a little bit of all who have come before and while poetry-blind as the times may be, I know a revolution of poets just waiting to emerge. Just check in on LinkedIn.

It isn’t the written word alone that is swaying thought, it’s the combination of music and attainable art, attainable word, dance, politics, social ills, and the acceptance of change. There is nothing simple about it. I find myself singing the damnedest things at strange moments. And behind all of the musicians, writers, politicians, do gooders and tyrants are the messages that the common human needs to hear to preserve their sense of self. There’s nothing simple about lyrics, only that when analyzed out of context and condemned as primary, elementary, simplistic, and even moronic, aren’t. But the analyst is a fool to think they can control the reception something gets. We’re evolving, and we demand the right to hear ourselves reflected in art.