HAVE YOU NOTICED?

     There is a disturbing trend, a phenomenon in both real life and literature, that has developed and is gaining strength and it bodes no good for the world. This is the trend that demands no punishment be assigned for misdeeds, that emphasizes the forgive and forget aspect, that finds excuses for misdeeds, large and small, consequential or not, and thus leaves a huge void in the moral component of life.
     Today there is almost no responsibility assigned to wrongdoing. Children have their defenders in their parents to the point of no return, where a "discussion"  or a small "time out" will suffice. Teens believe they are invincible and when we do not punish for misdeeds, when we set no rules and boundaries, they find themselves in trouble, serious trouble at times, and then there is no way out. So what good are we doing when we allow  this to happen.
     Banks, financial crooks, criminals with more physical consequences, all know that there is always a chance for plea bargaining, even for complete escape, or at least no imprisonment or a short term and what they have done, the ruination of lives, is tsked tsked away.
     Today the emphasis is on "understanding", explaining away why the "errors" in judgment were made and how we can overlook them. One of the biggest or largest areas in which we see this trend is in literature, and particularly in Holocaust
literature. In the most recent novels, excellent though they have been, from The German Suitcase, to Finding Rebecca, to The Death's  Head Chess Club and others, it seems that there is always a "good" German, one who is in his awful situation as a Nazi guard, a member of the SS, or some such position, one who was trapped there or who took the job to try to do some good. They are excused and accepted into life by others, including their victims by the end of the novel and off they go into the sunset.
     This bothers me a great deal. Sometimes one must have the courage to say NO in resounding terms and while I do not wish to test myself, I do hope that I would have the courage to do the right thing at the right time - or at least admit to myself what I was doing.
     This trend is everywhere. It is now fashionable for convicts to have a "come to Jesus moment", finding G-d in whatever form or religion they choose, and then expect the world to forgive the rest of the punishment for their awful crimes.
Again, people are not stupid and know how to play the game and we in the rest of the world are left in a bad situation.
     Politicians are not held responsible for their chicanery and financial greed. The open door, the revolving door, between lobbyists and retired military, retired pols, retired ranking governmental officials is sickening and this is what turns the idealist youngster off. How does one fight this?
     And what about here, in the Village? What are we to do with our misleading pols, our error committing "leaders" who have taken us down the wrong roads so many, many times and yet here they still are. How many times are they to be forgiven, had excuses made for them, have it said that, "oh, they meant well"? I hope that is gone for good. People make mistakes, have judgmental errors and can then make them right. We do not have to hang someone for a correctable error and one who sees the error of one's ways. BUT, when one continues on in one's own merry way, no forethought, no care for the future, no care for anything but for one's own wishes and for the retention of power and authority, then we have troubles and our system of checks and balances, our moral system that demands people take responsibility and credit for both the good and the bad, has failed us - or rather we have failed it and ourselves.
     While we are not alone in the larger world and can only try to do our part in rejecting the crooks and liars and in punishing properly those who deserve it and help those who are truly worthy, in this world, our smaller world of CV, we can and must take larger responsibility for the deeds and actions here. We must hold those responsible for major errors to the line, demand answers, demand reform in government here, demand justice and honesty. While I do not know if there are legal actionable issues here, there are certainly issues of incompetence, of selfishness, of ignorance, both deliberate and not and this must be taken into account.
     We must take action. We must demand answers. We must demand resignations and banning from office - for our sakes. Forgive and forget - not here. Maybe in a few years if we are back on track, but until that point in time we have too much to do and too much to undo to even bother with that thought of forgive and forget. How much more damage can we be expected to take, undergo, before we reach our limit? And we must demand better terms from the Levys who seem to take and rarely give, come to the battlefront reluctantly and only when forced to. We have much to do - and please do not forget organizing ourselves for life after the Millennium Agreement expires. Hi HO, Hi HO, it's off to work we go.....