The Blame Game
How much longer can the world sustain the endless and unnecessary playing of the Blame Game? This is a vile and malicious game that has been played throughout time. The etymology of the phrase divide and conquer (from the Latin divide et imperia) first appeared in English around 1600.Its most common use is in political gamesmanship.
It is used to take a relatively peaceful group of people who have a history of solving problems and dividing them. The strategists who wish for a change will take a problem and they will often magnify the problem and then blame someone for the problem. The issues differ, but the strategy is the same. The problem becomes more than one problem, and the divisiveness grows. Almost every civilization has used this device, and it is being used so effectively now here in the United States that our population is severely divided.
My first question is this: Who decided that red was the color of the right wing and blue the color of the left wing? Can we not all strive for purple? A recent study by a group was conducted to see how Vermont, which voted “blue” for 80 years, suddenly voted “red.” The group sent Bernie Sanders in to talk to Trump voters in person, and conduct town halls to get a feeling of how the people were feeling. Bernie’s report was “There’s a lot of mythology that goes on in this country about red states, and blue states. But I don’t believe that for one second. I think that whether you’re in rural West Virginia or Burlington, Vermont, you got the same exact issues. And I think we don’t let people divide us up, we gotta come together to fight for all of us.” The topics discussed were the lack of healthcare in rural areas, the lack of job opportunities, the opioid epidemic, cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, and how the middle class – what is left of it, deserves the tax cuts.
One Trump voter named Kristen attended three town halls with Bernie over two days and said “The first night was real eye opening for me – it was a whole mind shift of my whole belief system …”
I know that many wise Americans have uttered words such as Lincoln’s “A Nation divided against itself cannot stand.” Poets, songwriters, educators and philosophers have told us these same words of wisdom for thousands of years. Then why do we keep playing the Blame Game? Why, then, do we not listen? Why do we not learn?
To me it goes back to the lyrics of a song written by Rogers and Hammerstein for the musical “South Pacific,” written in 1958.
“You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught
From year to year,
It’s got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught.”
“You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.”
“You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You’ve got to be carefully taught.”
Can we all stop playing the game, and teach ourselves and our children about what truly matters to all societies? Harmony, peace, caring for one another, and kindness.
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