ILLUSIONS AND DELUSIONS

     Over the past few weeks, and especially this last week, it has been my privilege to attend some wonderful performances. The talent, the cooperative spirit, the variety, the salad bowl of performers - wow. And perhaps it was a delusion, but it appeared to me to be a wonderful display of multi origined people coming together as one. The most striking and impressive performance was the African American singer presesnting a heart wrenching "Old Man River". Heart, soul, mind and body were all there. The standing ovation was simply automatic.
     So where is the place of illusions and delusions. It now feels as if the delusions and illusions are in the political world, rather than in the theatrical one. We simply cannot accept what DC says anymore. Truly, the supposedly drained swamp is now overflowing with garbage and yet, the delusion that it is not is believed by too many.
     And so, what the hell are we doing here in this country.  I saw a famous comedian strike out as he veered off path to political lecture and lies. We have Omarosa on TV talking of the dangers of the White House and the worse version awaiting in the wings should Trump be impeached. Pence, she says, thinks Jesus talks to him! Reminds me of the sentence on a church bulletin nearby. "G-d wants spiritual fruit, not religious nuts." Oh, yes and that goes for all extremists no matter the religion.
     So we have weird things going on and one wonders if the White House is just another performance arena, demoted from a place of thought, of national care and concern, of deeper thinking and responsibility to the people. Never perfect, it now is a  perfect disaster.
     We have an administration of 34% turnover and that does not include the vacant positions that run a government. We have a President who is just a numbskull, changing his words and statements from minute to minute, literally, and has a memory like a sieve. One wonders if his brain is full of holes from whatever disease is affecting him for how else to explain him - but then again - how to explain those who shore him up, who lie thru their teeth, who stumble and fall in their eagerness to be his lapdogs. Who get kicked in the rear and then kneel and present themselves for another kick. 
     A budget of enormous additional debt, one that gives the man his military joys but cuts out the social safety net is prepared to leave the elderly, the poor, the sick, the needy all behind as these cuts are eagerly planned. We have a man who cherishes domestic abusers and sexual perverts - perhaps because he is a self admitted pervert though he now denies the tape of his own self talking. We have a budget that gives to the Fat Cats and takes from the rest, a reverse Robin Hood behavior. We have illusions of a caring budget even as the truth is that it is not and we will stand around and watch our country fall to pieces because the money is not there. Watch the debt grow, the social spending wind down and then - will it be delusional as we see people in the streets, hungry, sick with the air in a perpetual smog. Will we be deluded that we are still in the democratic country that America once was?  Illusions and delusions.
      We need to examine these illusions  and delusions, check their origin, their purpose and the harm they are doing to the country. Where does it end. We are in a war of words and weapons with North Korea. We now have killed Russian servicemen, put in a place where they do not belong and where we no longer belong either, if ever we did. We have deserted our allies. We present an illusion of being willing to cooperate on trade but actually are not willing at this point. We present a tormented illusion of what America is, what it was and what it is supposed to be.
     We are the country of the free, the brave, welcoming all to its shores and yet - our freedoms are being challenged as never before, our "welcomed" people are being hunted and chased down, thrown out of the country, ripped from their families, their jobs as teachers, nurses, students, repairmen, small business owners, parents, children - whatever -.
     To read a list of politicians who have accepted huge funds from oil companies now means one is to be dragged out of a public forum. To not show approval of Trump's speech is now considered "treasonous". And our children, the leaders of the future are confused. What is the illusion? What are the delusions? How do we separate them from reality, from eternal truth, from true national pride and history? How do we build a better world when the very leader of our country is just nuts and nasty!!
     Illusions and delusions. What a miserable situation.