“Common Good” becomes “So Far So Good”
Ted Folkert
The slogan: So Far So Good, was made popular by a joke about the guy falling from a 10 story building, as he passed the 5th floor, saying: “So far so good.” And, of course, it can be applied to so many occurrences in our own lives. Well, it can certainly apply and perhaps is our only hope of what to expect from the eminent regime of the “Great One”, the one who tells us that the reason he doesn’t need any briefings is: “I am a smart guy,” the guy whose cabinet appointments kind of scare the pants off of most of us as we consider the possible outcomes for the proletariat, the working class, those who make life happen and continue to happen. We can’t seem to imagine anything to come from the Donald that will make life better or even keep things as good as they are now for most of us.
The Great One has threatened so many facets of our lives already, even before taking over his throne, that reading or listening to the news sends us into another sense of bewilderment. He has no common sense about how the government runs, what departments do what, what his function is, what he can and cannot do as president. He has no conception of who will be affected by his moronic decisions, how devastating many of his plans are as stated by his un-thought out remarks.
He has never considered how his proposed protectionist and isolationist foreign policy will affect our international relationships, how his purported trade policies will trigger a trade war that could devastate our economy as well as that of many other countries. He doesn’t know that when you fall from a ten story building it isn’t the fall that kills you it is the sudden stop, the crash.
“So Far So Good” used to be a sort of humorous name for a boat I owned. It is a funny line for the old joke mentioned above. It could be an appropriate epitaph for those who consider themselves agnostics when it comes to religion, but it is only an idle hope for the likely hopeless situation we expect to encounter as powerless citizens of a country which has gained enormous progress over the last eight years under a progressive president, in spite of a conservative Congress.
Our only hope is for a regain of some balanced control of government in two years at the midterm elections. In the meantime we must join hands and find some meaningful ways to hold the Donald’s feet to the fire as he tries to figure out how to perfect his plutocracy and stumbles through his effort to make us an entirely aristocratic society with little opportunity for anyone except the rich and powerful.
All we can think now is: “so far so good,” as we suffer bewilderment, uncertainty, defenselessness, and seem to be at the mercy of a government willing to ignore the words: society, social, community, populace, and last but not least, “Common Good.”
Think about it!