The Witness Chronicles, October 3, 2024

Disasters v life goes on

Photo by Simon Berger on Unsplash

Apocalypse Now?

Send in the locusts

This morning I’m trying to understand the roots of the extreme division among us here in the US. Yes, it’s driven by a political strategy, but despite that strategy being extremely destructive, a huge number of Americans have embraced it. But I’m seeing a pattern.

There’s a hot war in the Middle East. The major ports on the US East Coast are shut down by a dockworker union strike. The entire southeastern US is reeling from a super storm that wiped out entire towns deep inland. The West Coast is experiencing 100 degree plus temps, in October.

I’m sure there’s more but that is what the news tells me this morning. Oh yeah, the DOJ Special Prosecutor released a damning 165 page synopsis of the case against former President Trump detailing his efforts to lead a violent takeover of the federal government.

The Republican candidate for Vice President lied at least nineteen times during a nationally televised debate and then cried foul when the moderators corrected just one of those lies. Not fair, he said. His running mate, the same indicted felon ex-president, said about 100 crazy things, demonstrating that he is almost certainly experiencing either extreme paranoia or dementia or both, yet he is in a tie for re-election just 30 days from now.

It all sounds like a movie script written by a committee of B movie executives desperate for a hit. Yet, outside my window the sky is blue, the air is mild, the leaves are turning and it is a gorgeous early fall day.

As a writer and observer, how do I resolve this disconnect? It’s a question I’m grappling with as the election nears and the needle just doesn’t seem to move towards the sane candidates. You know, the ones who aren’t lying constantly.

When I walked to a nearby cafe this morning for a coffee, the scene was blissfully normal. No panic, no fear, no signs of a hellish nightmare, just students and a few old men drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes outside. Newspapers sitting unread and seemingly everyone absorbed in their phones and laptops. Just a lazy fall morning.

Humans have an amazing ability to compartmentalize, to live a normal life even as the world is in turmoil. Or maybe I should say Americans have that ability, unless you are on the receiving end of torrential floods with no water, no power, no ability to communicate with loved ones.

Friends of friends have a house threatened by wildfire in California. Another friend who lives in Appalachia lost power this weekend but otherwise is ok, except her two nearest towns are buried in mud and cut off from access because of washed out bridges and roads.

It’s a strange time and part of what I do is to try and resolve for myself and a handful of readers what it all means. And despite all my attempts, I can only continue to wonder at my fellow humans’ capacity to absorb craziness and then go on with life.

Asheville, North Carolina was considered a ‘climate haven’, but right now it is nearly destroyed by a hurricane that really was a perfect storm, unlike any seen before. I’ve been to Asheville. It was a pretty town tucked into the mountains, a bit arty and hipsterish, a tourist destination. Now it is semi-destroyed.

I suppose I live in another climate haven or as I prefer to think of it, a climate island, here in Western NY, but any notion that we are safe is a fallacy. I watched as missiles rained down on Israel this week and their entire population sheltered in bomb shelters, only to emerge hours later to find technology had protected them from large scale damage. The lucky ones I guess, considering that just miles away in Gaza, cities are blown to pieces and tens of thousands have died or lost everything.

Our Presidential election perfectly reflects this strange conundrum. One side describes our country as a hellhole being invaded by hordes of murderous criminals, while the other side paints a picture of a place where everything is possible.

When I look at the world as it is right now, this contradiction helps explain the extreme division we are experiencing here, division cultivated by cynical politicians for their own gain or to protect themselves from the law or both. And it helps explain the apparent disinterest and willful ignorance that many have retreated into as a survival mechanism.

If you want to know why the polling shows a dead heat between a crazy maniac and a sensible woman, this may be why. Some see an apocalypse on the horizon while the rest of us believe we can still live a better life. Are the optimists or the doomsayers right? It might be both, but this writer has to stick with hope and faith that my fellow voters will wake up and realize that their choice really matters.

I think it does and that we will do the right thing, but I concede that is not a certainty, as obvious as the choice seems to me. If we face an apocalypse, we need optimism more than some would-be dictator’s empty promises.

Your subscriptions, paid upgrades, and small donations, via Buy Me A Coffee, are the only compensation I get for my writing, beyond the satisfaction that some find value in it, which is a big deal. Please consider supporting my work. Thank you.