THE FILTH BENEATH

     It is true that people value their privacy and use the statement 'none of your business' to avoid answering questions and much of the time the attitude is proper, for people need not know everything about someone's personal life. Where the buck stops and where that sentence carries no weight is when the 'business' is tainted. Plain, simple, and when a public figure refuses to answer questions, when that same public figure is trembling at the thought of his dealings being exposed, well, we got troubles, right here in the Potomac city and evidently elsewhere as well.
     When one becomes a public figure all bets are off. Transparency is the only way to go for secrecy only provokes more curiosity, more suspicion. While we may not have any right to ask about Barron Trump, a child of 12, or even demand answers as to why Melania's clothing bills could support a small country, for that is truly private and as long as she pays the bills or Donald does, no harm, no foul - just a lack of sense.
     But when that curiosity leads to the uncovering of a dump beneath the oh so pretty lawn, then uh oh, that smell, that filth then overcomes all. Why is Trump so adamant about his tax returns? Why does he have a person whom he calls his own fixer, a la Ray Donovan, a man who does much to fix his clients problems? The reek grows ever deeper in its stench when it is revealed that there are ties between Sean Hannity and Cohen the lawyer and Trump and it stinks!!! 
     Trump rants against the media and yet here is a true bad, bad connection. And why is everyone so afraid of what the records reveal? It only raises the level of suspicion and the level of concern. Just what do we have here in the WH? Do we have a major crook? Do we have a business idiot, a personal moral failure whose misdeeds and errors in these fields constantly get him in trouble? Is that why he needs a 'fixer'?
     The growing garage dump beneath the lawns of Mar a Lago and Bedminster and even the WH is shocking to us and the world. It is shocking that we have allowed the master of this dump to climb so high on its rolling hills of trash. That, my friends, is on us. And it is on us to push the investigation, to allow nothing to lock it, to dig into those reeking and  stinking hills of trash, to dig beneath the fancy cars and the big mouths and dig out the filth beneath.
     This attitude of 'I can do anything I want and then call foul if someone demands the details' has affected much of the world. Dictators in Europe, especially Eastern Europe, are beginning to take over. The garbage, the bloody garbage, of their past is being dug up, given fresh breath and new life and why? Well, one reason is that they see the USA going the same way and certainly not objecting. And business is going the same way in nasty actions as well.
     Oh, they push ads on us, send us emails, inundate us with paeans of glory over how much they care for us, their customers, the people they claim to serve and yet, with this administration in charge, these same companies are cheering on the dismantling of all the regulations that have been put in place to protect the people. Banking rules. Environmental rules. Legal rights to sue a business in court. Economic protections for the workers and consumers. Proper and proportional taxes. Proper and safe work rules and spaces.
     And most of us go blithely tripping down the primrose lane, so satisfied that we have found bargains, that we know how to shop Amazon for the cheaper price, yet beneath that sense of accomplishment, that oh so kind to consumers with their lower prices, there is that filth beneath again.  In fact, some of it goes back to times when workers had no rights, when they were locked into their place of work, when they were treated as wage slaves. So ask Amazon why in some of their warehouse centers their workers are peeing in a bottle at their station in order to fulfill ridiculous quotas, afraid of losing their jobs? Wage slaves, no basic human rights. Are we willing to have this happen so we can shave a dollar here and a dollar there?
     We need to dig deep, to go thru the trash, to look beneath the pretty but shallow outside coverings and find the truth beneath, the truth that tells us that we must ever remain watchful, for if we do not, we will lose it all. That is on us.