AND AWAY WE GO!

          And exactly who is going and where? Us. We, the people of these United States, are going to a place of no return. We are going to a place of the Imperial Presidency - or monarchy, whatever he wishes - and unless we wake up and act soon, there will be no return. We are already well down the road and well into future problems what with the so many unqualified backward thinking Republican judges jammed through the process by the Senate, all to maintain the backward thinking they espouse.
     We have lost control of government spending. The tax cut was disastrous, as the national debt increased by over a trillion dollars, if you can even conceive of such an amount; only the rich and the corporations benefitted and that saved money of the corporations did not wend its way back to the people, but rather into buybacks of their own stocks, and we, the people, well, we just ended up paying hundreds and thousands of dollars in  taxes that we never had to pay before. But, oh, you deluded souls, just keep on blindly following this man and his troglodytes, until you reach the point of no return!
     The wall, which John Kelly has said would be of no use, dumb, even, is now going to have the funds from military pay and pension used to pay for it. And this man and his minions shout out how they love the services, hug flags - but never mind that, just use the money that should be safe for them!!
     Trump is going nuts with pressure and fear that at least some of his zombie voters are going to defect on the emergency resolution and threatening galore! It is actually quite funny at times, though sad, too. As for the future though, I hold out no hope, for these same Senators are still pushing through those bar association deemed as unqualified to be judges and are planning for many more. They are along the lines of the Texas judge who told the jury that they need to reverse their guilty verdict because G-d wants them too!
     And here we are with the religious issue and the danger it poses for us. It has long been a standard American principle that religion and the state are separate. That separation has been weakening greatly over the years and certainly even more so since Trump and that ass, DeVos. And that, in turn, has led to religious interference with right to choose, with contraception, with embryos, with safety for women, with interference in schools, and yes, to the explosive growth of racial hatred and anti Semitism in particular.
     It seems simple. Just vote on a resolution condemning anti Semitism, tropes of which have survived over the milleniums, and condemn those who espouse it. I had no quarrel if they wished to add in a phrase or sentence re all racism, but what happened is that they watered it down, adding in so many terms, that I am surprised that PETA did not get a word in there. In short, the resolution was weak and yes, even cowardly. It did not do what it should have done. It should also have taken Omar to task, to strip her of her seats, just as Steven King was, though so many years too long in the doing, so Republicans have much to answer for there.
    In the meanwhile, we find swastikas all over schools, in synagogues and on their walls, on tombstones, overturned or not, in prestigious private schools, schools of the wealthy, schools which are supposedly founded on tolerance as a part of their mission. The latest? The Sidwell Friends school in DC, the same school which often hosts the children of the President and other senior pols. So if they can project swastikas during an assembly supposedly raising fund for immigration, then what the hell!! It seems that there is a separation of racial hatreds and while all are wrong, anti Semitism is deemed another category and allowed, continued to be cutting edge.
 Folks, I admit openly, I am afraid. I am afraid not so much for myself and my generation, but for the upcoming generations. We seniors have lived, but they have not. Their lives are supposed to be ahead of them, but will they? There are such echoes of the twentieth century 1930's era Germany along with the return or exposure of virulent anti Semitism all over Europe, that one really must take stock and wonder. Do we leave our country yet again? Do we stay and hope that this time sanity and justice, humanity, will prevail? Do we go to Canada, to Israel, that endangered state, victim of such hatred as well? What do we do? Where do we go? Where, indeed, has the world gone lately?
     So, away we go? You answer with your thoughts for you know mine - and remember, the infection of hatred spreads, a virus with evidently no cure. It is the same hatred that puts Venezuela into the dark, with Rakhine and Rohingya slaughtered, with Syria bombed to rubble, with Buddhists and Hindus killing each other, with sects of Islam killing each other, and always, always, ends with slaughter and the scapegoating of Jews. And make no mistake about it. Proper criticism of a country is okay, encouraged so as to allow for growth and improvement, but do not say that the anti Zionism we have now is not anti Semitism. It surely is and is surely and manifestly unfair. The state, the tiny state so small that it can be driven across in two hours and down by five, whose airport is subject to close in missile attack, whose borders are attacked violently all the time, this state which encourages Arabs to continue their education, where Arabs are at work in hospitals, pharmacies, the sciences, in business, in the hospitality industry, whose women are being encouraged to also get education, to recognize their rights, this state is always being blamed for the violence that arises, mainly from the Palestinian side. No one notices that Palestinians moved into the Israeli side of Jerusalem during these years so as to retain their citizenship and residency in Israel for it is better for them there!! Does the world mourn the Israelis stabbed, blown up, shot, attacked, rammed, stoned? No, only the attackers are mourned and condoned. So where do we go? 
     Away we go....and I hear the strains of Anatevka from Fiddler on the Roof. I hear the sobs of the Jews burned in the Tower of York in England. I hear the bewildered cries of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews as they were hunted and killed and hanged as punishment for the founding of Israel and as they were thrown out of a country where ancestors had lived for thousands of years. I hear the cries of Jews as the Crusaders slaughtered them on the way to slaughter Saladin and followers, but first - the Jews. I hear the screams of pain as they faced the fires of the Spanish Inquisition which even followed them to the New World. I hear the screams and horror of Jews slaughtered by the Cossacks, under Imperial orders. And I hear the cries of Jews killed so recently in France, a Holocaust survivor beaten and thrown out a window, a young man tortured. And yes, I hear the struggles of Jews here in the States who also faced anti Semitism in the professional schools, on Madison Avenue, in universities, in business, but who maintained a steady progress, for at least here there was hope and no violence. But then again, things changed in Pittsburgh. And now? Away we go? To where? And why? For how long? And why? And why? And when? To where? And why? Ad infinitum....