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Vocabulary

Building a Vocabulary

If you've read this blog for any amount of time, you know that I truly enjoy words. Selecting the right word can add color to a description and clarity to a position, and in some cases both.

Over the past four years, my vocabulary has expanded into topics and areas that I would never have considered part of life in the United States, let alone any vernacular. Sure, I'd heard some of these words from time to time, but infrequently, such that I had no true familiarity with how they would be used to describe or identify people, places or events.

Allow me to give you a taste of what I've been coerced into learning. In some sense of misplaced fairness, I've listed these in alpha order.

Authoritarian - of, relating to, or favoring a concentration of power in leader or an elite not constitutionally responsible to the people

Antithetical - being in direct and unequivocal opposition

Autocrat - a person (such as a monarch) ruling with unlimited power

Bigot - a person who obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices

Despot - a ruler with absolute power and authority; a person exercising absolute power in a brutal or oppressive way

Disenfranchise - to deprive of a franchise, of a legal right, or of some privilege or immunity; especially: to deprive of the right to vote

Fascism - a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forceable suppression of opposition; a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control

Ineptitude - generally incompetent : bungling

Hyperbolic - of or relating to, or marked by language that exaggerates or overstates the truth

Hypocrisy - a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; behavior that contradicts what one claims to believe or feel

Illiberal -  not broad-minded: bigoted; oppose to liberalism

Imbecile - a person affected with moderate intellectual disability

Narcissistic - extremely self-centered with an exaggerated sense of self-importance : marked by or characteristic of excessive admiration of or infatuation with oneself

Nepotism - favoritism (as in appointment to a job) based on kinship

Misogyny - a hatred of women

Plutocracy - government by the wealthy

Scientifically illiterate - showing or marked by a lack of acquaintance with the fundamentals of a particular field of knowledge, in this case science 

Sycophant - a servile self-seeking flatterer

Totalitarian - of or relating to centralized control by an autocratic leader or hierarchy; Authoritarian, Dictatorial, Despotic

Xenophobia - fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign

I love learning and always have. I only wish learning this vocabulary had not been forced on me over the past several years, just so I could understand the news.

"A Republic, If You Can Keep It"

I have tried over the last ten years to make this blog primarily subject oriented: photography, food, travel, and living, and the latter was loosely defined. It truly depended on what was passing through my mind: thoughts of relatives who have passed on, the differences in taste buds (savory vs sweet), perspectives (normal and unusual), .... just aspects of every day living. I tried to keep my personal thoughts on politics, economics, religion, social justice or injustice, and democracy out of this small blog, but it becomes harder and harder, if I want to write at all.

I am ashamed to say that I and my education failed me. Why? Because I never read the Declaration of Independence nor the Constitution of the United States ... that is until Trump was inaugurated. We all have heard so many of the Articles quoted and referenced in the news and in television programs, so I guess I thought I was well enough acquainted with their contents. The inauguration and Trump's early performance as President made me seek out copies of both, each of which I have read several times.

Like too many of us who have been fortunate enough to have been born in the United States in the mid- to late- 20th century, I've taken our democracy for granted. In college, I studied other forms of government, but until recently, I never thought I would ever personally see the the face of any other possible form of government. Democracy seemed to work despite ourselves. I'd read about monarchy, oligarchy, and tyranny, and recently even became acquainted with the term plutocracy, but never thought I'd need to understand exactly what those terms and governmental structures could mean when living within them.

So many have said that Democracy is fragile and it's proving to be true. I pray to God, we do not see it fail completely. There is a story, repeated often, that when Benjamin Franklin exited the Constitutional Convention he was asked what sort of government the delegates had created for this new country. His answer was "A republic, if you can keep it." Reading this, sent me immediately to research the exact definition of "republic". A republic is " a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officials and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law".

Our Congress men and women are elected officials and have sworn to uphold the Constitution, our laws,  and our Democracy. Why are they failing so blatantly? Why is any of this being tolerated? This behavior terrifies me for the future of not only our country but the world. Tolerance and compromise seem to have vanished from our representatives. Self-interested politics appears to be the driving force in Washington, undermining the rule of law and nearly all of our democratic principles.

Governor Andrew Cuomo, in one of his daily Corona briefings recently said, "Politics defeats intelligent conversation". Observing politics operating in the U.S. today, I agree.

Professor Richard Beeman, Ph.D., a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania wrote an article titled, "Perspectives on the Constitution: A Republic, if You Can Keep It", in which he said, "Our Constitution is neither a self-actuating nor a self-correcting document. It requires the constant attention and devotion of all citizens." It is our collective responsibility, elected officials and the electorate together, to protect and defend our Constitution. We need to be wiser and smarter about who is elected to represent us. It is our responsibility to hear candidates' positions and demand answers to any and all of our questions, and to make educated votes based on facts, not politics.

Perspective: The Last 50 Years

Graduation Mortarboard

2020 marks the 50th year since my classmates and I graduated from High School. Where did the time go?!

Sadly our reunion had to be cancelled because of COVID 19 and is now tentatively rescheduled for Spring 2021. In preparing for reunion, the organizers were very creative and thought it would be great fun and interesting if the class created a year book for this semicentennial event. They created a small questionnaire to help direct our thoughts which we could use or not, as we wished. I found the questions unexpectedly thought provoking.

I responded to the questionnaire in February, weeks before we'd ever heard of Coronavirus. For some reason one of the questions I answered then keeps coming to mind: "What have been the most significant aspects of the last 50 years: the people, events, happenings, lessons, or something else … that have most mattered?" If answering today, many would think the answer would unequivocally be Coronavirus and all it's alarming consequences, and perhaps when I can get some distance between the virus and my day-to-day life, I will agree but for now I wouldn't change my response ... because I have no perspective on this pandemic yet ... only opinions.

Right now, I must feel some solace and to do that I must acknowledge how fortunate I have been to have had and experienced all that I have. Thus I am sharing with you here my answer to that very question:

What have been the most significant aspects of the last 50 years: the people, events happenings, lessons, or something else … that have most mattered?

“The most significant aspects of the last 50 years”, have been the last 50 years. We have been an exceptionally fortunate generation of Americans. Certainly, there have been ups and downs but for the most part it has been an exceptionally prosperous and peaceful-period in history. There have been wars but no world wars. There have been recessions but with the exception of that last one, we recovered from them all quickly. Post WWII, the US was respected around the globe, our democracy thrived and seedling democracies established themselves around the globe; our Constitution and Bill of Rights held fast and our elected officials worked together as reasonable, bi-partisan, grown-ups (at least most of them).

Previous generations endured world wars, famine and the Great Depression. Future generations face a future of grave uncertainty with global warming, a nervous global economy, limited global resources, and the self-interests of the players on the global political stage. For the first time in these 50 years, the next generation will not be better off than their parents. These last 50 years have been an historical exception not the rule, and we have been the generation who benefited from it the most. How very fortunate we have been to have lived these 50 years.

A Maze

"How do we get out of here?"

According to Merriam Webster, a maze is either "a confusing intricate network of passages" or "something confusingly elaborate or complicated". He also says it could be "a state of bewilderment". Well I think this aptly describes what it feels like to be an American these days. We're caught in a complicated maze of events over which we individually have no control. There are hurdles to be conquered around every corner, and there's no clear, apparent way out of this maze we're collectively in. News, on a daily basis, is bewildering and confusing, if not downright frightening. We, however, are a resilient species, and the optimist in me believes that if we were smart enough to get ourselves into this mess, we're smart enough to get ourselves out. It took a long time to get here, and it may take longer to get out, but we can do it and at the end of the day we may be better for it.

The Huddle ©2011 Claudia Ward

I just hope leaders emerge from the huddle who will tell us all the cold hard truth, create a plan to get us back on our feet, and keep us on the right track. We need an intervention and a reality check - does anyone have the courage and strength of character to care more about us than his/her election or re-election?