Category: Society

Peter Fonda has passed on. Today, at 79, he succumbed respiratory failure brought on by lung cancer.

A quick scan of comments from the many news articles on his death tells of two things: Americans pretty much hate the Fonda family in general (and the Hollywood elite in particular) and, that as a population we (at least the “we” that are veterans of the 60’s) have been irrevocably divided into two camps: one is patriotic, nationalistic and flag-waving, the other idealistic, sympathetic, one-worldish.

There is a very great divide in this country that can be traced directly to the war in Vietnam. Not that the war itself divided us, but rather the actors (both literally and figuratively) forced us into hard stands on positions of great import (peace, war, life, death). Those of us that traveled through the 60’s carry heavy baggage that can be triggered by words. Words such as Kent State, Kennedy, Nixon, Johnson, Baez, Woodstock, Saigon, peace, love, and a hundred other words (that of course includes Hanoi Jane (Fonda)).

So Peter Fonda passes and soon Jane will as well. Each of us will. Each of us does the best we can in this life and we head off to our grave with our own joys, regrets, and burdens. Those we leave behind carry heavy loads of the same nature. For the time being, at least until the family has had a time to recover from their grief, lets set aside our baggage from the 60’s, become humane once again, and offer condolences to those that are suffering. We can pick-up the fight another day.

AESOP has posted a great rant over at the Raconteur Report. It’s a little “dark” but does a great job of sternly advising the unruly of the hazards of pursuing greater conflict within our society. Here is a brief segment of AESOP’s tale:

…..In short, minions of Leftardia and Stupidia, you have blundered into a minefield, on a pogo stick. Stop what you’re doing, tiptoe out, and pray to whatever deity you think appropriate that you get away with your skins.

Because if you insist on pushing your revolution, you’re going to get the war of which you cannot grasp, and the results of which you cannot even conjure in your wildest fever-swamp nightmares.

And your opponents, who’ve been stacking in supplies and loading magazines, are shifting from backing away, and hoping the fight you long for doesn’t come, and instead coming to a feeling of thinking it’s about time to roll up their sleeves, and end you.

Not your party.
Not your progressive communist utopia.
You.
For all values of that word.

Every goddamned traitorous last one of you. Followed by your spouses, your children, your pets, your semi-domesticated illegal alien hordes, your schemes, your putrescent institutions, your metastasizing socialist programs, and every festering vestige of pustulence you’ve spewed onto a country you do not understand, didn’t build, and over which you and yours will never rule.