#994 – Dick Bernard: Mr. Spock

Leonard Nimoy just died. I watched Star Trek and liked Spock, though it was not a cult-like fascination for me. It was a good show, with a short run, three season, about 1966-69, and Spock did stand out. (Coincidentally, those three years were among the most difficult, and transformative, years of my entire life.)
Unlike most vacuous stuff on television, Star Trek, even with a short run, has never died. Leonard Nimoy apparently is one of the main reasons it lives on.
Mr. Spock made sense. No drama.
Overnight came an interesting analysis comparing Spock, the U.S. Congress, and President Obama in the current and continuing bizarre theater that is the totally dysfunctional Congress we, the people, have elected. Succinctly, Congress would not star on Star Trek; President Obama is Spock-like.
The analysis is worth reading, and thinking about, and then getting into action in all the ways available to us. .
A few hours earlier came a cryptic Facebook post by someone I know very well. This is all it said: “You can oppose things all you want. Once we elect you, we expect you to stop them.”
I’ll say no more about the two sentence quote except, as I’ve already said, it is the entire message: no link, nothing more.
I think it is a commentary about national politics…and if so, I would completely disagree with its apparent premise (to me, at least): first win, then dominate. Never, never, never work together.
We all, by virtue of our vote, or non-vote, our action or inaction, elected and empower the clowns who are now playing with national power from their local power bases: the ones who think that, once in office, they can stop “them”, whoever, or whatever, “them” is.
There was a time when we were a “nation”, not a nation of individuals, who think that all that matters is to be in power, then we can show “them” who’s boss.
Time to bring back that nostalgia, and make it real.