EVERYWHERE ASND NOWHERE

     I saw that line this morning on an article re Mueller and his investigation. It is so true, as he keeps finding more and more, uncovering other misdeeds and yet keeps going with no official announcements as to the status of the main issue: just how deeply is Trump himself enmeshed in this whole disgusting mess.
     But this phrase also describes our country. We are everywhere yet nowhere. We cannot seem to find a solid base for ourselves, a solid core of beliefs that will sustain us through these hard times. It is a shivery process indeed when we read of ICE raids in five states, when we hear the President call immigrants "animals" and then say it refers only to gang members. Puh-lease!! What it means is that the president is a total racist and is comfortable with the idea of 'rounding' people up like cattle, with focusing on a class of human beings and treating them like dirt. How many more times are we going to see a situation like this? Have we not seen this enough throughout history, then and now, very much now, all over the world and why not? The very country that is supposed to welcome people is making them 'cattle'. And that there are so many willing to do this job - worst news ever.
     The White House sends out rants and raves, threatens one and all, but for the wrong reasons. Never mind the acts of alleged criminality. Never mind the acts of indecency uncovered, the gross mismanagement, the incompetence and the list goes on - but never mind them, rather mind the one who leaks. See, it is not the wrong deed, the misdeed, the criminal action, but the fact that someone tells on it!!! Don't get caught and utmost - do not leak about it. It is disgusting, to say the least.
     We are very close to ceding the end of our system of government to a malicious and evil minded man and his henchmen, ceding control of the judiciary, of the legislature, of everything becoming part and parcel of the executive branch. And why? Why are we willing to do this? I believe it is a deep and tiring malaise that eats away at us, at our inner core, at the inherent optimism of the American people. In fact, the very idea of the American people seems to be fading away, dissolving in the acid baths that this White House seems to be giving it. 
     So we look to other places to give us joy. We are enmeshed in the fairy tale story of Meghan Markle. We are consumed by the ending of the season of NCIS and Grey's Anatomy. We find enjoyment and see it is not all bad, in the story of a couple who found a buried safe in their yard and returned all the treasure inside to their neighbors who had been robbed of it lo these many a year ago. We find happiness and laughter in the stories of cute kids on Facebook. We send each other messages, the modern day version of the good luck letters that used to go around.
     But what we do not do is sit down and take a deep and long look into the present and future and not  everywhere yet nowhere. We need to be somewhere, soon. We need to reidentify ourselves with the traditional American values, and not the new ones of tribalism and hatred. We need to value competence, honesty, morality once more. We need to stop this "Christian" identity that is everything but Christian in the truest sense of the word and the people who have hijacked the term for the bad. We need to stop the indecency of extremism, be it religious, political or otherwise. We need to find our somewhere and very soon or someone will be putting us in a place we do not want to be. The End.