~a column by Colleen O’Brien
Since the recent presidential election, I’ve been weighing the efficacy of writing this mostly political column of mine. I have no exact idea who or how many read my column, but the issue lies purely with me. The issue is what’s good for my mental state and what’s good for the newspaper that publishes me.
To write a political column, I’ve learned, means that I have to be as well-informed on both sides as I can be. This takes a lot of time – in fact, most of my time. My daughter asked me if I ever read anything else. (Yes.)
I’ve been writing a column since 1981, so I’ve penned enough words to equal a dozen 100,000-word novels… I’ve never completed one, although I’ve started five. The column always got in the way. I started out writing a twice-a-week column of 750 words, any subject, which I did for about 30 years, and then I changed location and editors and now write once a week as many words as I need for whatever it is I have to say
Over the years, I wrote on any topic that came to mind, including occasional political columns. During the past 10 years, I’ve contributed most of my words to inform people of a threat – a worthless pretend politico. I believe this guy needs the American press to report on him because of his dangerous half-cocked pretensions of being a leader.
We citizens of the United States of America live in an idea. That idea is exceptional because it was an attempt by white men to live up to the high-minded ideal of what a government can be for its people – not a monarchy, not a dictatorship, not wealth making poverty. It was the idea of governing of, by and for the people.
We have not always been true to that idea nor successful at working it out. But we persist. Right now is a time when we suddenly find ourselves having to pay attention to preserving it because it is being attacked by ego, wealth and careless disregard for others.
It’s a mean soup that is boiling over, affecting this country’s citizens by its stench and poison.
Each week, I could barely write about anything but a selfish boy-man who was not out to help this country but to conquer it for his own purposes. I initially simply pointed out his foolish statements and behaviors, his lack of simple manners, his ignorance, his prejudice against women, people of color, the poor, the educated. He’s done a thorough job: nearly half the country has been fooled by his spreading discontent via constant lies that eventually are believed by their repetition.
I intend to continue writing for my own mental health and a nagging bred-in-the-bone necessity to publish the truth as I see it about a conman whose chosen con has nothing to do with integrity.
l will write largely for my editor who indicates she wants me to continue as a freelancer in her newspaper. She has few negative comments about what I write, which is a blessing for a columnist. But when she told me the story of a man on the street, a Jefferson resident, who stopped to ask her when she was going to get rid of “that O’Brien woman,” I began to think seriously about jettisoning my political view and writing only about how weird life after 80 has been.
After a lot of pros and cons and consultation with a few friends – both writers and not – from now on, or for a while, I’ll continue writing the usual four columns a month: two personal memoirs from an older-than-dirt writer and two defy-the-lie political columns.
Opinion pro or con from any reader is welcomed. Write in care of Editor: news@greenecountynewsonline.com
