As goes the nation, so go I, or that is how it appears. This morning, or middle of the night, I careened around the bathroom trying to get to the right place from my bed. Ouch!! Banged the head, the hip, the shoulder and frankly, was a tad frightened while this was going on. And just as my balance and control appeared to be way off, so too is the balance and control of the state.
America is off balance. We have lost the sanity of balance, the middle that keeps all in order. Remember the see saw from the playgrounds and how it needed balance to be fun yet safe, easier to operate? Well, the see saw of public life here in these States is off. There is too much weight on either sides and the middle has no control, and cannot be attained either.
We have wonderful screamers and shouters on both sides, the chief screamer being the Trump guy himself. Never before has there been a president who shouted insults at people, live or via Twitter. Never before have we had the Merriam-Webster people take a president to task because he could not get the right word so they defined 'pore over' as distinguished from 'pour over' and threw in 'comb over' for free! Funny, but sad too.
I think second grade spelling lessons are in order for this man. I am sure that any number of schools have an extra spelling workbook around. As far as manners and emotional balance, well, it might be too late for him on that!
We have lost ourselves in a war of extremes. We have lost our balance as we damage our ears and our hearing, as we become deaf to the damage we are doing to the people and the body politic. But where and how to stop? When it appears to be that the head of state is destroying that state along with the help of his minions, how does one get attention or get to be heard, or save the country?
Lies and lies and lies. Now we are being told, or rather not being told, the truth about the numbers of our soldiers deployed where they are fighting and getting killed and wounded and maimed. Since when is this right? Since never - until these miseries we now have in office came along. There is no civility here anymore and the chief violator of it, the leader of it, is the man himself. There is no longer any dignity coming from the White House, as he lies and they all swear. They have given up their souls in deals with the devil for power and wealth.
Balance is gone, especially when war is waged on children and there are those in the country who defend this abomination. And yes, it is an abomination and stop blaming parents for taking their children on this desperate journey. To get them away from violence, from threats, from civil war, from domestic abuse, from gang threats or whatever, no, they will take these kids along and take them to that golden state, that golden country, the goldeneh medinah, that the Irish, the Italian, the Jews, the Chinese all flocked to - legal and not. They will send for the children that had to be left behind, to bring them together as a family once more, to give them the opportunities that this country has for all - or is supposed to!
Balance is gone when we do DNA testing on these kids and their parents, without consent, without stating plans on the collection and what will be done with this DNA, all on the stated implication and accusation that oh, these kids are being trafficked, these parents are not the parents, these kids are all victims and is it not so special the way we treat these so called victims - we rescue them by throwing them into cages!! Trump's disparagement and dehumanization of them, turning them into untermenschen, is horrific. There is no balance.
Industries and jobs are being decimated by Trump's trade policy, dangerous in its very wackiness. We are embracing enemies and distancing allies. We allow enemies to interfere with our elections, the very heart and soul of democracy, and Putin is gleeful at how he has managed to weaken his enemy by subterfuge rather than by open warfare. Balance is missing once again when we allow countries to nibble at others, especially Russia, while our President has a love fest with him.
Balance is gone when we call police on all sorts of 'crimes' that black people seem to be doing such as a 7 year old selling water at her 'stand' or a state representative canvassing homes and constituents, or a student sleeping in a college lounge, of barbecuing in a park. What is this? From where has this nastiness come? And where will it go?
Balance is gone when extremist judges are to be appointed, when a Supreme Court Justice might be one who belongs to an extreme right wing organization or a weird Christian group called People of Praise which advocates women remaining in their place, extreme views on hot topics and the candidate herself has stated that Catholics must take into account their religious beliefs when they judge. Really? Thought we had long ago separated religion and state, kept it in balance! So what the hell are we allowing to happen all over again.
The balance is also out of whack in Nature and it derives from the imbalance of the body politic. Shakespeare would have a blast here what with the longest eclipse coming up, that huge asteroid flying right near us, the weird and strange weather with its dangerous storms and heat, the floods and the drought, the fires and the destruction wrought by Nature - and encouraged by our poor behavior.
It is bad enough when one's own balance goes awry, but quite another when it is the state's that goes off. That is truly dangerous to us all. Edward IV of England saw three suns in the sky and assumed it was for the three brothers - himself, George, the Duke of Clarence, and Richard, eventually Richard III. The Plantagenet brothers would rule and the future of England bright and yet, after him came the Tudors, Henry VII, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and it went down from there. Nature and life again yoked together.When states lose their balance, when they rely on imbalance, there is danger ahead.
I will be more careful about walking when half asleep and we will need to be more careful, especially with our votes and our actions. Will we? Dear Lord, I hope so.
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