From the Mouths of Babes

Some times it takes time to sit back and look at what happened in the world in the past to better understand what's going on now. 

Being back where I am has me loookng at where I came from to better understand where I'm at. 

The thing that really got me over the past couple of days is that i've been playing Battlefield and letting the sound scapes and the situations take me back to earlier days.  

I was leading a squad and a young kid says "can I tell you a jke" to the squa at large.  "It's dark humor."  
That caught me a moment but people ome from dark places and sometimes humor grows from it.  "It's kind of racisist he ads."  

"I don't do racist humor."  I responded.
"Well it's dark, but a little racist." 
"Look, if it's a little racist it's still racist."  

And it got me thinking.   What makes dark humor legitimatly humerious?  
What makes any humor funny. 
When it's self depreciating.  
And that's the difference between meanness and humor.  
Meanness is trying to paint someone or something else in a bad light and finding the pain that it causes funny.  
Humor looks at an aspact of ourselves and brings it into the light for blunt examination. 

Dar humor isn't racist, or biggetist.  
Dark humor takes a thing from the darker parts of ourselves.   The dark aspects of our lives and talks about it.   
Dark humor makes people uncomfortable because not everyone has that kind of darkness in them.  
the darkness that comes from survivingg various types of trauma. 
Mean humor takes someone eleses trauma and treats it with disrespect.  

That's what i thought of while we continued running and gunning our way through the various theaters of WWII as presented in the game.  

It's a strange thing.  
I find myself quetioning why I play these games.   
The run and gun types.  

The only answer I have is...work. 
A way of having conversaations with myself, and when I find myself opening up enough to turn the mic on, with others about what the meanings behind the confilicts real and ficticious represented there in.   

I often look back at the decision in my life.  
Look at the decisions yet to be made and ask myself. 
"Can I live with it?" 
The thing is, no matter what ecisions one makes the answer is yes. 
I have to. 
The only thing that I can do when faced with such decisions is to try and make the most forward moving and try to leave something behind a little better than how I foudn it.   

The one thing that Ifind as I take away from the film Ijust, Judas and the Black Massiah,  watched that kind of goes along with the topic is a quote from Fred Hampton, which Ithinkg he got from Malcolm X . 
"War is politics with guns and politics is war without guns...."

We often want to paint the children fighting in the wars and given the guns as the terrorists or the bad guys...
I've never seen it that way. 
Not since Iwasa a child 
in a hundred armed people there might be one or two that are hell bent on causting destruction but most of the time the shooting starts because of someone making the decisions put people into those situations.
And most of the people doing the shooting are either doing what they're told or what they were taught. 

Dehuminizing....
That's the difference between dark humor and racist, or what ever ist, sort of "humor" one may use. 
One humanizes a dehumanizing moment while the other dehumanizes a human moment.

PtP

Stay safe out there. 

Steel Hearts and Electric Veins

I keep looking for ways to revitalize a nation fallen to hard times, deindustrialization, and the dark side of globalization.  

I wouldn't say that globalization is a bad thing, just the way it was gone about was very...wrong. 
As larger companies realized they could find cheaper labor over seas and American factories began to shut down, people began migrating into the larger city's and city centers.  
Leaving small towns and the older people that live in them to essentially die alone.  

As the Pandemic grinds on and these schisms in the fabric of the American culture widen and are shown how large they really are under the scabs that have grown over them in the last thirty or so years on thing keeps coming back to me.  

Remote work and the needs of a national works project.  

Setting aside the crimes against the labor forces that constructed the rail industry and the forced home relocations that came with the interstate system I feel like it has reached a point in our nations history to start another large scale project like that.  

There is nothing more healing to the mind and the body than finding a project to throw ones self into. After the loss of a family member or dear friend it is often finding new things to work on to reflect on how things have changed in our lives.  Sometimes the cause of the losses is because of drastic things and it is returning to something of a normal routine that returns stability a mind a heart at turmoil.


So how do we do this for a nation?  

We rebuild it.

From the ground up.  

For the past century America has gone around the world and attempted to help other, smaller nations, rebuild while our own nation falls into neglect and disrepair.  
I see it.  As someone that has worked in almost every sector of our economy.
From building homes to stocking shelves.
From laying streets to teaching children.

From serving tables to repairing sewer lines.  

I see it. 
Going from places that once were fresh and newly built to the veritable ghost towns  of neglect that they have become. 

I can't get this crazy idea out of my head.  
The one about rebuilding the railroads.  
To connect communities back together. 
To give a nation of people searching for meaning a common goal again.  

That's the funny part.   
When the nation was stitched together, for good or ill, with the steal of rail tracks it created something. 

That something was literally cemented together when the interstate system took the place of rails.  
But as that concrete based started to crack and crumble it was patched back together with asphalt.
Now those patches are starting stretch as the underlying problems beneath them continue to rot away. 

So what do we do?
How can we fix things? 

I say by running the rails again. 
Relaying the track.
By stitching the communities back together. 

There's no real need for taking new land for this project.   The old rail easements are still there.  Empty lots where the stations used to sit. Crumbling down towns full of empty store fronts like crowds holding it's breath waiting for the teams to enter the field. 

We start simply.  
We get the steel, sitting in junk yards and scrap yards and we recycle it.  
Into track and engine and cars. 
While the foundations are being formed we find the routs.  
Along old highways and forgotten lines. 
Through the hearts of small towns, stopping at reservations and parks. 
Transferring and stopping in cities. 
From there we gather the bottles and cans.
And spin it into the fibers needed for a digital foundation.  
Once the routs are found and all of the old steel and plastic and glass melted and reshaped 
We build. 
Rail lines to carry people on commutes from rule communities into the cities to work, trade, explore, and plan.  
To carry people from cities to rule communities to live and play. 
Fiber lines to keep communications fast and open so that those stuck at home through disease, handicap, age, or choice can work from where they live.
To create solid foundations for the digital age we find ourselves and help better study, teach, and stay in touch with the larger world. 
And carry the grid. 
The electrical grid that keeps all of the toys and tools and cars charged and ready to go. 

We build. 
And as the building draws to a conclusion we plan.  
For the repairs, for the upgrades, for the maintenance, and for the emergencies.  
Plan for the worst, hope for the best.   
Every step of the way rebuilding old industries in a modern age. 
Creating new industries to support and rebuild things from past ages.
And turning forgotten small towns into vibrant homes.
Crumbling cities into bastions of education. 
It's a lot of work.
And work that will help a nation heal after centuries of fighting with its self and act as an example as other nations build towards their futures. 
A solid partner to those nations that have built on their own foundations and continue to thrive.

And a sign of respect to the nations that were here before and hopefully will continue to be as the land and it's people begin to heal.