The day after the shootings at Kent State University in May, 1970, our teacher in Advanced Biology -class I had first period - asked for a show of hands of everyone who thought the students had gotten what they deserved. I was the only student who didn’t raise a hand.
Western High School in 1970 was not what we, today, would call “progressive.” It had not progressed, one reasonably may infer, by 1984 when a junior high student, Ryan White, was diagnosed with HIV.
I developed a theory of personality, sometime between undergrad and law school, based on experiences from early years through the end of high school in the 1960s going into the 1970s, and from college years.
Thirty-eight percent (38%) of people are ... anal orifices. Each of us has tendencies to be AO’s. After all, we are human. Bad moods, bad days, or encounters with people from the 38% can make us vindictive. Most of us usually overcome the tendencies.
People of the 38% are not simply jerks. They are damn mean - joyful, in 1970, when students who protested an idiotic war were shot and killed; self-righteous when they drove a nice kid away from their school system.
The 2016 election for President illustrated how the 38% can assert itself. Those people turned out, voted, and got the GOP ticket for Prez/VP close enough that, with some well-placed hacks, the dictators of all the Russias got to pick that ticket as the winner.
At other times the 38% was with us. Gun nuts who showed how brave they are by walking into Starbucks locations, handguns on hips, daring anyone to question their Second Amendment right.
(Hint: The Second Amendment should not be put on display for its own sake.)
In undergrad, during the summers, I worked construction. One guy, at a job site in Indy, was defiant when he said no one ever would take away his eight-cylinder Ford LTD and sneered that for every person who tried to reduce pollution through conservation, he would just drive more miles. He had little concern for the environment or anyone other than himself.
At its peak, the USA, with only five percent (5%) of the World’s population, owned or controlled half the World’s wealth. Many Americans enjoyed a standard of living that brought material comforts with little effort.
Eventually the economic bubble that followed World War II did not burst but sagged. Jobs in factories disappeared as the factories reduced, or moved out of the USA, operations. Some line workers had made over $50,000 per year - in 1980 dollars.
Kokomo is the county seat of Howard County, in which Russiaville is located. Indiana’s 5th Congressional District contains part of Howard County. Other towns in the 5th had economies based on factories.
Not everyone in Kokomo and the area around it, holds the regressive views I have described here. Some people have rejected this animus. Howard County even has a “Hall of Fame” to which Ryan White was named.
The 38 percent always has been a minority - as was the group of voters who cast ballots for dt, the current occupant of the Oval Office, in 2016. The anger of the 38 percent can intimidate some. We cannot afford to be intimidated.
I am Mark Small, candidate in the GOP primary for U.S. House in Indiana’s 5th Congressional District. My opponents in the GOP primary seem to gear their messages to the 38 percent, but hatred and ignorance should not control the GOP.
We need to grab control of the GOP from the hands of that minority - the 38 percent. I’m proud to be a progressive. I’m pro-choice, pro-environment and would propose we cut our defense budge by half. I approve of this blog. Hell, I wrote it.