Never before have we lived through such times. Yes, there have been times of crisis, some pretty bad. The country rocked back in shock with Nixon, older times had the corruption of the Harding administration or the incompetence of that of Grant as President. But never before, certainly not in modern times, have we had such a crisis. And worst of all is the fact that the taint and darkness of it all strikes from top to bottom.
Actually, worst of all is the fact that we are finding out how much dirt and darkness have been hidden, willfully hidden beneath the surface. We find out the depths of the hypocrisy and cynicism as people in authority forgot their responsibilities to those in their charge or their duties and others were just after the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and G-d help anyone who got in their way. And all thought they would never be found out and yet here it is, all the filth coming to the surface but, a great big but - how to deal with it.
The sports federation, USA Gymnastics, expressed horror and shock at the disclosures of the molestation of so many young girls and women. Oh dear , oh dear as they acted as if they had never known and yet we now find out that they not only knew, but worked desperately not to protect these kids but worked oh so hard to - keep it quiet!!!!! The hypocrisy. The lack of caring as these girls and young women were molested, affected for life, trust betrayed, evil alive!
We have the shouts, the frenzied charges of the alt right, particularly those in the world of media. How they ranted and raved against policies of Obama or threw charges at the environmental and business regulations that protected the country and consumers and wow, who'd a thunk, huh that such darlings as Sean Hannity would be proven to have benefitted from the very same policies he insulted, made money off the woes of so many during the real estate crisis and even now has a huge real estate empire, including slum properties. Huh! Just like his buddy, Trump and Kushner, who mistreated tenants and/or workers.
We have Secretaries of the departments that run the country, that should be serving the people and instead we have a bunch of characters who think they are the reincarnation of Saudi princes who have a non ending spout of money pouring out just for them. The open greed, the secret greed, and the nonchalance about it, the 'who me' attitude that they oh so innocently display as if they never would have known that what they were doing was so, so very wrong, so very immoral.
And of course we have the wonderful leader of it all, Trump, who gives the okay to do all this, to live the wrong way, to ignore their duties, to turn their responsibilities upside down, to ignore conflict of interests and in fact, it seems as if the more there are of those, the better one's chances of getting affirmed!!! And now a question remains to be answered - how much did the rank and file of our representatives on the Hill know about the truth and if so, if they actually knew then why did they allow this, vote to confirm, shout, cynically and dishonestly, their oh so justified rants at the Democrats? It boggles the mind.
But they knew that THIS president would allow it all and in fact approved of this behavior as he was the paradigm of it. He has made the act of hatred, crude statements and dishonesty out to be the right thing to do. He has brought the level of government down to the level of rewiring adolescents who tweet their lives and brains away, ignorant or uncaring of the mess they leave behind and the disaster they are making of the future.
And the crap just pours down as lesser levels spout the same stuff and the same behavior. Brian Mast in his tailored short pants sends out emails that purport to show how people oriented he is and yet he consistently states that he is a Trump man all the way. His votes prove that. We have the politicians who still kowtow to the NRA though at least there is some light there. We have bribery scandal, misdeeds in the Sheriff's Office and in police departments around the country. We have citizens who feel disenfranchised and others feel disillusioned and even hopeless.
And it gets no better here in CVWPB. We have a supposed leader who is cynical, unbalanced as he waltzes through the workday singing Gilbert and Sullivan songs out loud, constantly voices insults and crude nicknames - hey, just like you know who - and whose business workings are veiled in silence and denial. Oh, so you think there is something wrong with a multi million dollar one page contract or one which does not have liability clauses or managers of projects? Silly you.There is always a catchup for him and his. When there are issues, such as with this ABC installation, it seems to wait to be caught out, for someone to take notice and then, and only then, is action taken. The status of our reserves? Who knows? How is it being spent down? Who knows? How will we pay for needed big capital expenditures? Who knows? Just make sure the snacks are in place and ignore the growing buzz of dissatisfaction, of growing apathy as people feel that we have to let nature take its course if we are to get anywhere, to rumblings of rebellion and to growing inertia as if to say nothing can be done.
The world outside is breaking into a tribal mentality, the country is doing the same thing and we are apparently not immune to it either. We are now composed of not so much CV residents, but of CV residents who belong to this group or that and who see the Village thru the prism of their tribe. It is nasty. It is counter productive and it is wrong. If it keeps up then it will prove to be the undoing of our wonderful home.
So where is the light in all this? Simple. It is in the innate goodness of people. It is in the hopes and dreams and actions of the young. It is in the revived efforts and interests of the old and in the powerful growth of women in and on the playing field. It is in the push for voter registration. It is in the determination of state's attorneys general to use the courts to fight the darkness that is Trump and his cohorts. It is in the simple goodness of life, in the smile of a friend, in the hug of a child, in the enjoyment of a show, or a good read and certainly in the victories we can achieve over the forces of the dark.
What we must do is hang in there and strive, always strive for the better part of us. It is the only way.
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