WILL IT, CAN IT?

     It is hard to hold on. It is easy to give in to despair and think the situation will never improve or even if it can, have we reached the tipping point? All one has to do is look around and see all the deficiencies of society, large and small, and wonder if there is a way, a vaccine, to combat this corruption, this uncaring, this nastiness.
     Roy Moore refuses to concede and in adding to his creepiness, has gone after the gay son of his victorious opponent. What has one thing to do with the other? And what is it with people who cannot accept another who thinks or feels or acts differently than they do? Why does Roy Moore think it okay to molest and establish sexual relations with young girls while being gay is wrong? And then again, we have Steve Bannon, the ultimate creep, hate monger, mulling over a decision to perhaps run for president in the next election!!!!! President of what? The hateful people of America? The crude knights of society? If the consequences were not so frightening, it would be ludicrous, but then again, so was the image of Trump as a victor in his race!!
     Honor and courage and virtue, public service have gone down the drain and people openly indulge their own biases and benefit their own wallets. So with this new tax format Trump will save $15 million while his family will also save millions as will members of his administration such as DeVos, Mnuchin, Tillerson and others. And along comes Ivanka with her "postcard" return, an impossibility so far from the reality of this complicated and corrupt tax situation that one wonders what the hell she is still doing there in the administration.
     The hatred in the air seems to grow stronger every day. Evidently some creeps cannot deal with the fact that some of the leaders of the Rebels in Star Wars are women, or  are black or Asian or anything other than white male. So they troll the Internet, mouthing off, writing screeds of hate, of prejudice. What has gone wrong with our society and can it, will it, ever return to a more progressive, searching one? 
     In Congress we have the same disregard of people and their needs. In the haste to avert a shutdown, at least temporarily, Congress passed a wholly inadequate bill. Yes, they included temporary funds for CHIPS, thank G-d, but where are the disaster monies for Puerto Rico? Have not enough people died there? Has it not been three months and still people are living in the dark in various areas of the island? Is it that they are brown people and hence not as valuable as others? And what about DACA? That seems to have been left and these poor kids, fellow Americans for all intents and purposes, are left precariously hanging over an abyss.
     What is worse, is that when we look around at the rest of society, at other levels of government, we see the same corruption, the same selfishness and what is more frightening than all of that is the fact that there is a growing ennui, a growing, shall we say, hopelessness, at the thought of the possibility of ever fixing the mess. Take the whole #MeToo. Some people are actually angrier at the women who complained, who finally had the courage to speak up, rather than at the guys who violated the women!!!! If they wished to enter the entertainment world, well, that was the price they had to pay!!! Really, what is wrong with people? What is wrong with society.
     Here in Century Village we also have an administration that is not good for us, not serving the people of the Village, but rather is serving the petty needs of David Israel and his crew of sycophants. I have ignored him for quite some time, but must speak out at this point. The new election grows closer. More and more we are seeing roads and pavements that must be fixed and piecemeal we are spending money that should not have been expended if, a big if, we had done the job right in the first place. Now we have the possibility of the man who championed moving monies against our bylaws actually running for Treasurer, all the better to get hold of more monies? We have the wasteful spending of funds on things we do not need, spend monies that would and should be placed in reserve for other expenses. We have an administration that cannot seem to get together to update by laws and are desperately trying to place new ones that would guarantee Israel and others of his ilk almost a permanent berth nigh unto death. Theirs or the Village? Who knows?
     We need to do a clean sweep of most of the administration. There are some good people there, but for the most part we have retreads who are circulated amongst various committees and hence we have people who vote several times over on one issue, relegating the whole process to a joke. We have half dead people as delegates, a whole bunch from associations that do not have functioning boards so who appointed these delegates? Good question and have never been able to get the answer as the papers and info are hidden behind a seemingly iron curtain.
     The worst thing now is the fact that people are tired. David Israel and crew sit there in glee as they see opponents drop out, tired of his garbage, and intent on living now without him in their lives, concentrating on that which will make them happy, rather than taking on the abusiveness that comes on board as soon as one speaks out opposing him and his proposals. He rules like a tinpot dictator at Assembly meetings, speaking out against all rules instead of behaving in an impartial manner as Chairs are supposed to do, makes nasty and crude comments from the podium and is altogether just a nasty piece of business.
     So are there people out there, residents who have the energy and the optimism to oppose him, to take on his abuse, his nastiness? Are there new residents who have not yet lost their energy and strength? I, for one, will support them, but personally, I am tired, Trump is the larger danger, and I have other things in my life that are far more important than this petty man and his petty machinations of life here in the Village. So I will step over the cracks, look at the garish lighting of the trees, wonder how net neutrality will affect us with this Atlantic Broadband as Comcast promised to keep things as they are but this one? Who the hell knows! I will look past the business of the buildings and refurbishment and the smoke around the deal, try not to worry about what else we will be giving up and away in the new agreement for David seems not to worry or has his plans as the end of the Millennium Agreement draws nigh and we sit on or hands doing nothing.
     We the people have lots to do and must pick and choose our battles. We cannot and must not neglect any area but some demand more attention than others. I will periodically return to the Village business, especially as the elections get closer, but my main focus is on the danger of Trump, his followers and his philosophy of greed, me tooism, and hatred. If we do not battle this and never give up, then Century Village and David Israel will not matter. Not if we the people give up and allow the crude and the rude, the selfish and the greedy, the haters and the polluters to take over. We the people have a huge responsibility to all segments of time - to honor the past, watch over the present and keep faith with the future we want for the next generations.
     We the people. WE THE PEOPLE