Enough of the angry old men

I’m tired of angry old men.

I’m tired of seeing them. Red in the face. Eyes in a squint. Finger jabbing the air to punctuate a guttural tirade against whatever happens to be annoying them at the moment.

I’m tired of hearing them. Raspy voices tuned to the key of inchoate outrage pouring forth litanies of agrievedness for which the remedy is ever and ever the same: Do it my way. Or else.

I’m tired of angry old men. Tired of giving over a national stage to the cranky old fart living down the block who harbors an irrational defensiveness concerning his lawn grass. Tired of the neighborhood growler who snatches up errant kickballs, rants against backyard water fights and threatens civil action against your family dog.

And I’ve no more patience for their female counterparts, the hissing, shaming, self-righteous cacklers demanding the world and everyone in it do as they say and damn the consequences. I’m tired of irate lecturing from Miss Grundy and Almira Gulch on what is and isn’t, should be and shouldn’t be and the dire fate that’s about to befall the lot of us if we do or if we don’t.

I’m tired of the harangues; the accusations; the tit-for-tats. I’m tired of hearing we’re hovering on the brink of apocalypse and that pinning on a campaign button or donning a red had is all we need do to usher in the Second Coming.

I’m tired of it. Too many of our politicians seem to have taken their cues from those “shoutatcha” preachers who dominate the late night airwaves with hellfire rants and pleas for ever more generous donations. They’re preaching the gospel of fear and loathing and the politics of damnation to a congregation directed to close their eyes, close their ears, close their minds; to simply, and simplistically, believe.

And blame.

We’re descending into the politics of the scapegoat. Wheat evil there is is the fault of some other – illegals and Islamists; billionaires and birthers; socialists and the one percent. The threat is from somewhere else, from someone else. Never of our own making, never rooted in our own mistakes. Eliminate what, who is the cause and all will be right with the world – just like in the good ol’ days.

So they put out the call to build walls. Tell the nation that “billionaires shouldn’t exist.” Draw the line between “us” and “them.”

And of course, “they” are to blame.

We’ve heard that kind of anger, that kind of blame before. We heard it in the hoarse raving of an Austrian corporal full of anger at the Jews and socialists who “stabbed Germany in the back” to end the first world war. We heard it in the Moscow show trials exposing the “wreckers, traitors and enemies of the people” hauled out of the Lubyanka enroute to the executioner. We saw it in the distorted faces of the Red Guards brandishing Mao’s Little Red Book. It was there at Srebrenica, Syria and Charlottesville. It’s infecting our politics. It’s changing how we look at one another.

Who can deny the tragic irony – as a nation, as a world we enjoy extraordinary material riches, more than enough stuff to satisfy the needs of each and every one of us, but we’re confronted with the potential of social, political and spiritual bankruptcy at every turn. We confront each other rather than confront solvable problems – economic insecurity, climate change, social injustice. Those who seek to lead seek to divide us, rather than unite; seek power, rather than progress; offer panaceas rather than face the challenge of practical solutions.

We follow them at our peril, these angry old men – and their angry apostles. Can we rather listen for a Lincoln, a Mandela, a Kennedy, or, even, a Christ? Hear hope rather than hate? Repentance rather than rage? A vision of a fruitful future rather than the fears of an angry past

Enough of angry old men. There’s no future in them we want to see.