On a recent evening I listened to an old tape of 1960s folk music and, of course, Bob Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind” was one of the songs on it.
I was a bit stunned at how applicable the words are to the world we inhabit today. The line, “the answer is blowing in the wind” seemed particularly relevant to the plethora of tornados that damaged five states on the weekend of Dec. 11. In proportion, those storms, in conjunction with last summer’s forest fires, rival the whirlwinds of the Old Testament. Are such unprecedented events the price we will have to pay for our neglect of the environment? The answer may indeed be blowing in the wind. As the song says, when will we ever learn?
Returning to the words of the song, consider the line, “How many times can a man turn his head and pretend he just doesn’t see?” I find that an apt question for the reaction of nearly all the Republican congressmen as to the insurgency of Jan. 6, 2021. Our elected representatives were likely quaking in their boots in a secure hiding place, while the mob surged through the Capitol and disrupted Congress from doing its constitutional duty of validating the election.
It is chilling to think what might have happened if they had gotten their hands on Nancy Pelosi or Mike Pence. Yet, instead of being appalled by the events, the Republicans now describe the event as a group of patriots doing their own tour of the Capitol. To turn your head that far from reality is an amazing anatomical feat. I know it makes my head spin just thinking about it.
Let me just briefly mention another line, “How many deaths will it take before he knows too many people have died?” For those against vaccination, the number is apparently a lot higher than 800,000. It seems a large number of Republicans have adopted the attitude of another Dylan song, “Don’t think twice, it’s all right.”
Despite all the Republican party’s blustering rhetoric, they have chosen to remain silent as to the truth of Jan. 6. On that same music tape mentioned above, there was a Simon and Garfunkel song that contained the line, “Silence like a cancer grows” and the party’s political body appears to have become infested with a cancerous blindness to the changing needs of the nation.
The Republicans cannot admit the truth and so they dangerously bellow the big lie of a stolen presidential election. History suggests they will become either a fringe party or dissolve completely. My fear is that, as they fall apart, so will the nation since all those “patriotic militias” are not likely to quietly disappear.
I fervently hope that such a national dissolution is not blowing in the wind.
Richard Szlosek lives in Northampton.