WHAT TO SAY

     To say or not to say? "These are the times that try men's souls." With deference to our great authors throughout time, we need you - desperately. We need an inspirational writer, a thinker, one who can rile up those despairing souls that know that there is much work to be done but who are, at present, stunned, hit by that poleax, in awe at the nastiness, the depth of it, as men go in search of power, and of the moral cowardice of some women who still squat and bend and bow and concede all to the men, even going so far as to make ridiculous 45 minute speeches which amounted to this hill of beans - I am giving in to the pressure and hereby announcing and acknowledging my moral cowardice and my emulation of men in power.
     Yes, I know. Revenge will come, I am told. The Republicans will get their due. Every dog has its day. What goes around comes around. Any more I should quote? But the point is that we are ruined for decades to come. We have a boor of a man, a man who lied throughout his hearings, who had the Senate Judiciary Committee complicit with him as they hid 1000's of papers from his career, as the men, 27 years after Anita Hill went right down the same path and this man now will control the decisions that women can make over their own selves, will control the travesties of justice that are planned for voting rights, will encourage the right wing bigots, the misogynists, the ignorant and the nasty and along with him go the biggest throng of unqualified judges in lower Federal courts.
     For all this we have to thank that chinless wonder, McConnell, who has singlehandedly taken giant leaps and bounds on the road to perdition, who has forced the United States to go down a pathway that will doom its democracy, that will force it to join all the dictatorships of the world if we do not do something. Anything!
     Listening to McConnell's speech on Friday I had to control the rising nausea. How that man stood there and lied so blatantly, so openly is beyond me. And the ever more demented and characterless Republicans sucked it up as nectar from the gods, with Graham, and shame on him, invoking the name of McCain who would never have stood for this.
     And meanwhile the media goes into fits of what? Glee? Criticism? Nonsense reporting? I could care less about Melania in Africa, that continent of s...hole countries according to her husband. So she took off her heels and put on a colonial hat and then dressed as a man with oversize fedora type hat, a jacket and a tie So she fed a baby elephant even as her husband encouraged the killing of them for their tusks, even as her husband tweets away his dementia, his nastiness and spreads it thickly over the country. She is a nonentity who was bought and paid for, has a son in payment, and a fortune to spend on her 5 inch heels and ridiculously expensive clothing whose cost could feed a world of kids and certainly help them to BeBest, her ungrammatically phrased supposed program.
     We, in America, have allowed the Republican party, even as the Nazi party, or any fascistic party - and yes, they are right there on that same road - to subsume our government into their selfish and most undemocratic plans and ways. If votes mean nothing, then what does a legislature mean? And if justice is partisan then what is a court for? What is a judge? The judges of Germany claimed they were following the law, their job, but is that really so? Have we forgotten morality in our law? Have we forgotten justice is not necessarily legality in certain times? Have we forgotten that we need to have inner courage and strength?
     This whole confirmation process was a sham from start to finish - and we are not at the end goal yet. There are far more nefarious and dangerous plans afoot and read the essays of so many who are warning us of the impending death of democracy in America, of the danger we are allowing, of the injustice that pervades the very air of the country, of the prejudice that is growing apace and the violence which accompanies it. Read them and weep. Read them and worry.
     I am not so worried for myself and my generation for our lifespan is on the down side and if the medical coverage gets any worse via the Republicans and their plans, hell, we will not have to worry for long. But I am worried, terribly so, for the kids and their kids. They are young with full lives ahead of them and those of you who think you have elected a prize in that demented , angry and hateful man, those of you who think you won a victory for men, for the submission of women - think again. Anger tamped down explodes and the result is not pretty. Look at the way one writer has phrased it and tell me you are not frightened at what has been wrought by us.
      
       But despair often turns to rage, hopelessness into a thirst for vengeance, and a small spark into a raging inferno. Republicans just gave Democrats lighter fluid, a match, and a reason not to care about how many blocks of this democracy get burned down.

What have we done? What have we wrought? We must get out there and vote and take our country back, for greatness is certainly not in its mirror now, not looking forward anyway. We must improve on that and the only way is to get Democrats into office and then guide them to the right path, to put away violence and revenge and just do things the proper way. If so, it will be good. So go and VOTE!! Work for a candidate, Donate money - even for an opponent of Collins! Against people who are so power hungry that they say they would leave a daughter's wedding to vote!! Where are the values of family? Why have we arrived at this extreme end of nastiness?
     I do not want to burn anything down. I just want to impeach a few judges, recreate protective legislation, cancel the tax cut for the rich which is swelling our debt by crazy numbers, have a sane and humane immigration policy, cast out the enemies of mankind from the government and recall those decent souls who left.
     What do I want? What should we all hope for? 
   A return to sanity and decency. A return to America.