I'm Old, Too

I’m Old Too

This is a guest blog from an occasional contributor named Tom Pennington, who thinks he has something to say, but can at least write in complete sentences.

My father used to say, “Just because they’re old, it doesn’t make them good people.” He was referring, of course, to old people in supermarkets who bump into you with their carts on purpose. He was not a fan.

But now I’m old, too, and I realize that when people get old they don’t all age gracefully. In fact, many of them appear to lose all reason, and begin to believe that surviving a number of years gives them the right somehow to be correct in their words, no matter what kind of nonsense comes out of their mouths.

We have seen people absolutely lose their minds after being seduced by politicians and pundits and media chasers who spout any type of idea whether it has a basis in fact or not. In short, they want attention. Attention seekers look for only one thing; attention. They’ll get it any way they can. They will prostitute themselves (think of what all the Republicans did this summer) for attention and the spoils that might come from attention at a national level. The front men. The barkers. The carnival clowns who get folks pulled into the tents so they can be fleeced by those waiting inside in the dark.

Those are the people I’m writing about. Trump is a pawn in a bigger game, and he doesn’t even realize it. He’s the pied piper leading otherwise decent folks into tents with people who will steal their soul. These are the power brokers, the ones who don’t want to be front men, the ones who don’t want attention. What they want is power.

They are dangerous, they are malicious, they are manipulators. They are the definition of evil. We’ve fallen in love with people who have some power hungry maniac pushing them from behind, and if we don’t stop thinking with our hearts and start using our brains, we’re sunk. The people who founded this country (and if you think “Founding Fathers” you have already given in to the power brokers. You honestly think only white men could have pulled off a revolution without the help of black, brown people and all women? Not a chance) warned us against these kinds of people. They knew that power is the problem, not the solution. They knew that giving people a voice was the solution, not silencing ordinary citizens. They knew that taking care of the least of us made the rest of us stronger.

So we’re at a place where we can change, and we need to change, or the Great Experiment that is America could cease to be. Don’t think for a minute that dodging a bullet with this election is the last of the power hungry out there. It may just be the beginning.

Tom Pennington

Contributor, PurelyFiction.net