CHOICES GOOD AND EVIL

     The world and its history, both in the mass and in the individual, are made of choices. The air is permeated with could have beens, should have beens, as the choices we made and make determine our timeline. When a bad choice is made one often says that we need to make it right, but that is not always possible.
     However, what we have come to think, in absolutes, is that one is either good or evil. No gray. No iffy issues, just either that or the other. And yet that is really not so. The slaveholder who did not beat his slaves - good or bad? The slaveholder who did beat his slaves but freed them upon his death. Good or bad? The vigilante who takes justice into his or her own hands,thus saving future victims, but defying the laws of society. Good or bad? The Mafia don who orders the deaths of traitors but gives a huge gift for the poor at his parish church. Good or bad?
     Literature, movies, poetry, essays and philosophy - all are concerned with these distinctions and choices. All wonder where the line is drawn, if it is drawn at all. The latest movie in the Star Wars series, The Last Jedi, is a great picture, exciting, challenging, and thoughtful as well. It poses the question of choices, of good and evil. It causes the viewer to wonder, during and well after the movie is over, about the answer to the question - is one either all good or all evil? Does the choice at one instant determine the definition of a person, cause that person to fall on either side of the line? Is an evil person without any redeeming benefits? Is a good person impervious to temptations of evil in thought and deed and does even the thought of doing evil, of giving in to evil, cause that person to lose the designation of the good?
    Why wonder about all these questions and determinations now? Simple. Because the USA is now caught in such a time. Never before, other than the Civil War, has there been such a dichotomy among its citizens. Never before have the lines been so clearly delineated. In my opinion, there is little among the Republican votes, other than the Republican Representatives that voted against the tax bill, that could mark any of them as good in this instance. I cannot believe, I do not see, any benefit in this tax bill for the average citizen. Yes, perhaps under its convoluted regulations there might be a slight decrease in taxes for 2018, but when one looks into the future, all benefits to the people are temporary, iffy, while those for the corporations and uber wealthy are permanent, engraved in stone!!
     Rubio can pat himself on the back for getting another $200 for child care for the needy, but big deal as along with that went the massive gift it is in its wording to the wealthy who do not need nor deserve it as well as his vote for this bill that will entangle future generations in a true evil mess.
    Our massive debt will increase by $1.5 trillion dollars. One might ask where are the Republicans who shouted so loudly about the debt before? Gone, blowin' in the wind, I guess, that evil wind that has settled down to a seemingly permanent place in the Congress. No promised post card tax filing as promised, but a new horror that will demand huge amounts of paper, huge confusion among amateurs and professionals and the IRS will never be able to function properly. Refunds will be delayed wholesale.
     Several Republicans in the House voted against opening reserve lands in Alaska for drilling and exploitation but then turned around and voted for this tax bill, this abomination, this evil thing, and in that tax bill was the permission to exploit the land, the pristine land.
     The evil that permeates the land, that results in people being dragged off the street minor or adult, citizen or not - lest you be brown! The evil that will result when we run out of money, when social programs, when safety nets are cut to the bone and people die and starve and freeze and ail and are denied an education and a chance to succeed in this world, when the world and our allies turn a cold shoulder to us for what we have done - this, my friends, this, is evil and there are no redeeming features or sparks of good.
    Those who voted for this are ecstatic, they won, they think, they roar, they pound the table. But what have they wrought???? The very vote, the reasons and the greed behind it, permeate the air of Congress. But we do have a chance to possibly, eventually, fix some of this evil. By one vote in Virginia a House overturned the Republican majority. With anger and upset, parents in Connecticut protested that their children were subjected to a surprise unannounced visit by Ivanka to their high school, not what they want their kids to hear. By the hundreds of thousands Americans have protested this tax bill and other infamies of this administration and one hopes that payback will be seen in 2018.
     Choices have been made. Some are irredeemable while others might be ameliorated, with difficulty and with time. But in the meanwhile the results of those choices will resound and people will be hurt, our nation will be hurt and so will the world. Good and evil are not archaic no longer relevant terms. In fact, they are among the most important topics of the day even as they permeate the very air we breathe.
     This is the time to choose. Are we going along with the corrupt, the expedient, the evil, or will we remember that we the people have the ultimate power and must guard it assiduously or we will lose it. That must not be. Choices. Make them the right ones. Choose to leave the evil out, behind us and make sure there are consequences for those who choose the evil. We the people must make the right choices.
We the people. WE THE PEOPLE.