THE CRACKS BENEATH

     Walking around in Chicago one would never know that there are tensions riveting the nation. One would never know from the crowds in the stores to the bulging shopping wagons at supermarkets that there is any kind of financial crisis and from the casual conversations one has on line or while waiting for something, one would never know that there is an increased sense of hate and despair within our society. So what to do?
     The first thing to do is to know who it is that is speaking, holding forth on whatever topic and then evaluate. For example, listening to Steven Bannon yesterday, the new recruit to Trump's campaign, I thought I was listening to some little pugnacious combative guy who is gonna just show everyone the right way, whether they like it or not. He had an excuse for every misbehavior of Trump's. I sat there muttering back at him and thought how this just confirmed my opinion of Trump and how it is sinking lower every day, not what one wants to think or feel about a Presidential candidate.
     But this combative behavior extends to the entire Republican Party. Instead  of formally and publicly disavowing Trump as their candidate and concentrating on the other open positions - the better for them to stall the government for yet another few years - they are going rabid about those damn emails. Now they want to publish all they get from the FBI and why they got anything in the first place is puzzling. I would like to have the political affiliations of those who made that decision investigated. In any case, these people who were so rabid about these emails now claim that there is nothing that cannot be published to the public as they are generally unclassified, be it the original emails or the papers of he investigation - so if that is true then what the heck what they yelling about in the first place? The fact that by using that server she avoided the server of the State Department that had already been hacked by both the Chinese and the Russians? And now we have Trump being backed by his best cheer leader ever - Putin! Topsy  turvy world we live in.
     What I would like to see totally explained and justified is the exchange of money for people held in Iranian jails. I thought we did not pay ransom or deal with terrorists as USA policy but I guess things changed and the Obama administration forgot to tell us. I would like to hear Clinton's opinion on this and while I most certainly sympathize with those captives and families, this only opens the door for more dealing with terrorists, funding them so they can cause more trouble for us and in any case, where is the last one left there  -what is his fate- Robert Levinson, where are you?
     This hiding the truth, shading the truth has become habit at all levels of government. We have it here in Florida,  and G-d knows that PBC is a disaster zone for the virtues of honesty and truth in so many instances, and here in CV how many times has the truth been avoided, shall we say and only appears when the challenges are too much to ignore. At least we have the Finance Committee on air but again, as I will listen to it later I have to wonder was there tampering with it? That suspicion eats away at trust, at faith in our system and I wish it were not so. We question the whole radio and Channel 63 business, that which belongs to us and not David Israel and yet these two entities along with The Rag have been used as shills for him, with the editors long overdue to be turfed out, retired to pasture.
     And what about the cracks in our voting system? Personally, I feel there should be ID necessary but perhaps there can be more that is acceptable and if sometimes there is a bit of difficulty in getting this ID, well maybe it would make it all the more appreciated, but there must be a sensible limit to any difficulty, especially if the targets are voters that would go to a specific party for the most part. Not playing nicely when we block voters. It is of the same mentality of those who used to encourage the "vote early, vote often" system of voting. But blocking voters does not only happen in the larger world; all one had to do was stand on the ridiculous line at the last vote and see how people were told they could not vote and funny how so many of them were for one person rather than another. We too, here in CV, must still reform our voting system. Computers are not enough; there must be an elimination of any participation of any UCO official or CV person in the balloting and voting and counting.
     And yet even as we might despair, we still find moments of light. Just yesterday I finally clicked something right on Facebook and a year old message popped up, a message from a former student, actually from my first year back at work after all the kids. And it brought tears to my eyes and a validation to my heart. Here was a young man, then a boy, who sought me out on Facebook, any way he could contact me, to say thank you for a talk I had with him and how it has helped him throughout the years. If I did nothing else other than that, I would be pleased with my career but I know from others that there were more of these interactions and again, teaching is hard work, but intrinsically rewarding and the chance to influence others, to help them - is priceless.
     So the cracks beneath can still be paved over, filled in and made whole again. But we must work at it, stress the positive, difficult as that might be and work for a better future - in the world, in the country, in the state and in our Village. I only wish I could always remember that feeling of hope, of optimism for that is how we will move forward but! we must also be realistic at the same time, face the truth and correct the wrongs if we are to move forward.