By Bob Gaydos 

Rob Reiner
… he will be missed

    Why in the hell is he talking?

     Excuse me, texting. Same thing. Same nonsense. Same hate. Same self-serving glorification at the pain of others. Yeah, Trump.

     I’ve been writing a column on addiction and recovery for nearly two decades. It was a monthly feature of the local paper when the local paper used to have regular features. A major component of the column was information gleaned from people involved in 12-Step recovery programs.

     These programs are noted for, among other things, having acronyms for just about anything. FEAR. Face everything and recover. KISS. Keep it simple, stupid. SLIP. Sobriety losing its priority. They make it easier to remember the goal.

    There is one that was passed along to me by a couple of local members of Al-Anon, a group for those affected by someone else’s alcoholism, that I have found useful: WAIT. Why am I talking?

    Basically, it’s a message to oneself that no one needs to hear what you have to say at the moment and it is probably only going to make things worse. I think it goes by STFU on social media. The polite way to say it is, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Tough to acronym that.

    So, back to Trump. No, he never learned such lessons about empathy or decency or simple, appropriate behavior. Every occasion is an opportunity to either glorify himself or inflict pain on others. Preferably, both.

    The murder of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, offered the latter. Reiner was a popular actor (“Meathead” on the “All in the Family” TV show) and much admired film director (“Stand by Me”, “When Harry Met Sally”). He and his wife were discovered stabbed to death in their home. One of their sons is being held for the killings. It can’t get any more horrible for those who loved and admired them.

    Reiner also happened to be an outspoken critic, a strong and constant voice, warning of the perils of a Trump presidency. To Trump, he was an enemy.

     So, some time in the night Sunday or early Monday, he spouted his tribute, as the person occupying the Oval Office, to a much loved, admired and respected American public figure:

   “A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS. He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”

    Pathetic. Spiteful. Childish. Hateful. Trump. Why is he talking? Because he has to. It’s his addiction. It’s all he knows.

     But this is really old news about Trump and my gripe here, as it has been for some nine years, is with virtually every elected Republican official in the United States of America: Why do they put up with this excrement?

      That is, why aren’t they talking? Why have they allowed themselves to be defined by such an insecure, hateful shell of a human being. Why have they allowed him to try to destroy this country one day at a time?

   It’s as if they’re still all standing out in the corner of the school yard with the stupid rich kid, who has all the pot and beer and money and a lot of equally stupid “friends“ who will follow you home from school if you even suggest something negative about their rich friend.

    And yes, my gripe is also with the millions of Americans who don’t bother to vote because “it doesn’t matter” and who’ve gone about their lives as if the daily destruction of their country is no business of theirs. Why aren’t they talking?

    “Silence in the face of authoritarianism is complicity. Speaking out is a patriotic act. Democracy doesn’t defend itself. It requires participation, vigilance and courage from ordinary people.“

     Rob Reiner, patriot, actor, director and decent human being, said that. For his contributions to our lives, he will be missed.

    That’s why I’m talking.

By Bob Gaydos

    How messed up is America? This messed up:

    Having written far too many editorials and columns in my lifetime on violence and the need for sensible gun control and more resources for mental health programs, I stopped after writing a couple of paragraphs on the murder by a teenager of 10 black Americans who simply happened to be in a supermarket in Buffalo one afternoon.

     I was too depressed. It’s the same, old story. Do some yard work. Give it a couple days.

     He who hesitates. A couple of days later I was watching the escalating body count as yet another teenager slaughtered virtually an entire fourth grade class in Uvalde, Texas.

     Nineteen children. Two teachers. The slaughter in Texas knocked the massacre in Buffalo off the front pages before we had time to properly grieve that senseless loss of life.

     That’s how messed up America is.

     After reading the early reports of the escalating body count in that fourth grade classroom in Uvalde, I turned off my phone and shut my eyes.

     I cried. If you’re a parent, you’ll get it. Hell, if you’re just a normal, caring adult who appreciates the joy and promise of children, you’ll get it. I pictured myself as one of the parents standing outside the school, screaming and crying as police stood frozen, also outside, while a deranged teenager with a military-style killing machine blew their children apart inside. And I wept. And I cursed.

   And I said, what the hell, I’ve written this editorial dozens of times already. We know the solutions.

   Apparently, we don’t. Not all of them. We know that universal background checks for purchase of a firearm makes sense. Most Americans support this. We know that banning the sale of military-style assault rifles will reduce the civilian death toll. It’s already been proven. We know from sad experience that more mental health resources, especially for young people and schools, are vitally needed in our social media era.

     We also know that the National Rifle Association and gun manufacturers have the Republican Party in their pockets. Bought and paid for. They will fight gun control measures to the last student’s dying breath.

      And that’s the last, obvious, part of the solution to mass shootings in America: Voting for state and national representatives who will support the necessary changes. The one we keep ignoring.

   It has been said that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity. Well then, screaming about the need for changes in gun laws and repeatedly voting for people obviously opposed to them — paid to oppose them — is a form of insanity.

     Worse yet is screaming for the need for change and not bothering to register or even bothering to vote for people who would fight for those changes. Deadly apathy.

      It comes down to this: For whatever their individual reasons, Republicans don’t seem to care about the slaughter in our schools. They have sold their soul for some votes, power and their twisted image of what “liberty and justice for all” means.

       We know very well what needs to be done. We just need to get the final part right. If we want to clean up this mess, we have to behave like responsible Americans and stop voting for Republicans. It’s time to stop expecting different results. Otherwise, nothing will change but the body count.

(Full disclosure: The author is not now and has never been a member of any political party. He is a registered independent voter.)

rjgaydos@gmail.com

Bob Gaydos is writer-in-residence at zestoforange.com.