THE RIVER

     It is often stated that time is a river, always flowing, always changing and yet remaining the same. Well, it certainly seems that way now even as its flow is clogged with garbage, with sewerage from ages that should have long ago been erased from human behavior.
     Shootings have become ho hum, as eyes skip over these reports on news feeds. Yet another one in a Wal-Mart store even as a hostage situation was ending and of course we have the havoc and murder of the NYC bike path. Yet another attack on the fabric of the city in the same neighborhood of 9/11. So just as movies special effects keep growing, all the better to keep the level high, will the level of frequency and violence keep  mounting until we are blasé about everything in this category of life?
     It seems that we are just attacking the quality of life, the values of truth and honesty, of honor and true patriotism all without end. Those who scream the loudest appear to be the perpetrators of the misdeeds and the attacks on the American fabric.
     So Trump and the Republicans, particularly the "conservatives" rant of outrage as the football players take a knee to protest racial injustice, prejudice. Oh, the disrespect towards the flag the "patriots' shout. Throw them in jail, fire them, shouts the president of the USA forgetting the First Amendment and then we have the horrific violation perpetrated upon a hapless roommate in the University of Hartford, all done by her roommate who belongs in other political parties of other times!! Why are people feeling empowered to do such horrible things to another human being? Where do they get the inner what- guts, courage, gall - to do this and I hesitate to use words of positive connotation with these actions and beliefs. And yet our 'leader' does not condemn these actions, only raising his voice to shout re immigrants, tarring an entire class of people with the same tar and feathers, forgetting that immigrants have given this country its lifeblood over the centuries.
     And of course we have the perversion of the 2016 election campaign and the election itself. Fact after fact now comes out, the filth spewing out, the trolling of the internet by Russian troll websites, the layering of fake sites and fake news, lies, lies, lies, the interference with our sovereignty, the fact that Flynn, Junior (that creep), Kellyanne Conway and others retweeted the garbage of these sites - where does it end and when does its import end? The CEO of Apple talks of the dangers these troll sites portend, the divisiveness of them, the danger they present to the country and its very fabric of values and yes, all so true, but where is the solution and more important - how did we get here? And how do we reverse engines? How do we reverse the flow of the river?
     We conflate research with collusion. We conflate lies and viciousness with just the way things are. We begin to lose sight of the wrong, the very wrong, people being placed in office, into judgeships, into the very places that will ruin America for decades, that will turn the clock and the river backwards, that will choke our land, choke our citizens, but all is well for others as they plan even more accumulation of obscene wealth, more houses, more goods, more lives in which there seem to be no moral values, no red lines.
     Is impeachment the answer? I truly do not know. I do know this man is not qualified to be President of the United States but I then question if Pence is either. He very quietly is pushing his own agenda and the place of civil rights, the place of women's rights, the place of social safety nets, the place of goodness, of being fair - all this seem to have NO place in his talks and philosophy. Quite frankly, I think he is even more frightening than Trump. And personally, men who paste their hair to their heads in an obsessive hairdo give me the creeps.We all know Trump is a major doofus and we can try to rein him in, but how to deal with the smooth operator? That could be the question of the future. How to deal with the 'patriots" who are actually the very opposite and who are intent on limiting the rights of our citizens?
     So the river of America, the river which once had green shores, had many ships of state emulating the larger one of which we were so proud, which we made sure to maintain - this river is going, going..... The native American chief shedding a tear alongside dirty banks is now crying for more than trash alongside. He is crying over the trash of life that we are heaping all over ourselves, our country and our river. The Stones sang how 'time is on our side" - but well, it is not, and we are quickly losing our grasp on time, on its river, and on ours. To the oars, my friends, to the oars!