THE BURN OF SHAME

      Wednesday was a bad day to be an American and it just keeps getting worse. Instead of having pride in one's country and leaders, person after person reflected the feeling of shame and said in so many ways, "I am ashamed to be an American today."
     How can one take pride in a government that is replete with liars, with common criminals, who, no matter how disguised they and their deeds are, are no better than common criminals on the level of the street. Greed is greed, corruption is corruption, no matter how dressed up it is. And cowardice is still cowardice. 
     There used to be a feather handed out to young men in Britain during the time of WWI if they did not serve in the army. A dangerous thing to do as it many times targeted men incorrectly, but I am thinking that perhaps we need to hand out these yellow feathers to our supposed representatives, remind them they are there to serve us, the country, and not thelowest common denominator of their district. If one caters to hatred and corruption, then one has fallen into a trap of quicksand from which there is no escape.
     The news of Trump's misdeeds, alleged criminal acts are not new news. People knew that open and public confirmation was going to happen as soon as the Democratic Party won the House. And the Republicans did not challenge Trump's misdeeds, only trying to challenge and demean the truthfullness of Cohen, a man badly debased in life and already going to prison for lying so what would have been his motive to lie any more and get a longer term? In fact, there was no motive and the man told the truth, confirmed by many other sources. But the Republicans chose to ignore the misdeeds of their leader, their rotten, miserable, demented leader, and behaved as he does - bluster, lie, lie, lie. Cowards, one and all, for not facing up to the truth, for accepting it, cutting their losses and maybe, just maybe, remembering that they are Americans, not Trumpians.
    What I, and most others, consider most shameful, in  addition to having allowed such a corrupt and incapable administration get into place, is the racism that was revealed in both Trump and the Republicans. It was along the same lines of, "Oh, my best friend is a Jew so I am not anti Semitic." And I think of the so many "friends" who cheerfully and greedily dumped their friends onto the cattle cars, stole their belongings, even turned away from spouses and children. People often have nasty motives and showing that there was one woman of color on a staff, and forcing her to stand there to be 'proof' - I can just about throw up!
     And the Democrats do not seem to be able to stand up to the shenanigans of the Republicans. The House bill on gun control, so necessary and needed, was tainted by the last minute amendment of the GOP that gave the whole border gang the ability and right to medicate the chilren they rip apart from parents. So much easier to just shoot up a kid with sedatives and other meds than try to treat them correctly, and hey, here's an idea - return them to their parents!!!! And approximately 26 'moderate' Democrats voted to allow that to remain in place, citing concern over their borderline districts. 
     And here we go again, retain the seat being the mantra, not do the right thing. How shameful it is that we cater to this lowest form of hatred, the actual physical harm to those we demean and call 'others'. How nasty, how so wrong, how so shameful. Perhaps if we held ourselves to higher standards, the voters would also follow along in time and we could become the better people, the better nation, we are supposed to be.
     Our 'leader' praises the dictator Kim who thinks nothing of killing his siblings and members of his country, of lying that he never knew of the American kid in custody who was eventually returned basically beaten to death, and Trump praises him!!!
     Trump is so embarassed by his own lack of intelligence that he has a canary at the thought that his grades from high school!, college and SAT scores would be revealed thus allowing people in on the fact that he has no brains and never did, only lying genes and the luck of being born into a wealthy family. He lies about the caliphate, he lies about everything and anything. Greenspan warns us about the dangers of the massive and mounting deficit, and yet the dangerous Trump continues to pressure others for his damned funds for his damned wall, his monument to hatred, to a return to barbarism, to the worst of mankind.
     Today I am ashamed to be an American. Why? Just read the above and see if you can find justification for any of it. I cannot, nor can many others. I yearn for the day when I can stand tall and proud, proud to be an American, proud to be a standard for the world. But now, shame makes me hang my head.