REALITIES

     All of us live in various realities. We have the reality of our personal world, the reality of the community we live in, and we have the reality of the worlds of politics and events. They can run separately yet also intertwine at times and we cannot neglect one for the other. That, at times, creates problems that are almost insurmountable.
     An example? The government makes rules about drugs and their costs. These rules are inadequate, to say the least. The greedy companies go crazy, cut loose from all regulations and the prices rise skyhigh, often out of the range of people who need these meds to survive. And yet, the monstrous prices continue, the government pays exorbitant fees through Medicare, productivity is lost due to improper medication, people pay huge copays, and the economy elsewhere is strangled, robbed of funds that must go to the drug companies rather than to other places. Realities colliding - and not for the common good.
     Often we find that the smaller world of community mirrors the larger outer world, and not for the good either most times. An example? We have all encountered dictatorial kinds in our lives, be it at work, in the neighborhood association, the condo board, or the elected official. Power goes to the heads of people, or rather to their lungs, for they begin to believe they are breathing rareified air that only they breathe, which gives them powers of authority beyond what is truly there.
      So today we have in CV a 'ruler' who has gone beyond the limits of power, and not for the general good either. For the past two years or so there has been a battle - keep Comcast or go to Atlantic Broadband. Numerous examples of the poor service record of AB were given. People were concerned with trading off a huge company for an upstart who appeared to be taking on far more than it could chew. Costs were presented, but now that we are in contract, it appears that these costs are escalating and having excuses. They have hired people who apparnetly are untrained and/or lacking a modicum of intelligence in answering questions about grace periods, billing, service calls and fees - supposed to be free- humph! - and now we have a major issue with the phone service connected to AB. Over and over the vote was to keep Comcast, but the petty dictator here insisted on his way, had vote after vote taken, until finally he got the assembly at a time when there were fewer delegates there - a general tactic of his - and here we are! 
     The reality now is that we are living in a world of deteriorated services, deteriorating roads, obsessive concerns with trees and flowers for a new sign, ugly lighting on trees at the entrances, and a general apathy from within, for people feel that the reins of power here are concentrated in his hot little hands and there is simply no use. He has his trained pet lapdogs in a quantity enough to keep dissenters at bay and fends off pleas and attempts at and for reform. That reality impacts on the reality of our personal world.
     Finally, we will skip the realities of local governments, also rife with overly power hungry individuals, no matter the locale, and head to DC where the worst offender is living. That is, when he is not at his posh resorts - though it seems they are facing financial issues and deteriorating in quality and appearance - hey, just like their owner!! This man, this Party, these deluded people, stole the elction and continue to steal from the American people. Yes, they have lived grand lives, many of them, using our funds to support that life. Yes, they have kowtowed to this dude in whatever he wished for or wanted. They have foregone the rule of law, thinking they and their master are above the law. 
     The members of his administration have forsworn their responsibilites, trading in the ones towards the people of the nation and instead have become the paid servants of Trump, the Demented One and they enable his demented plans, his dangerous plans. Now we have yet another situation wherein this theory of ruling by dictat, by fiat, is the way to go. He tried it with immigration. He tried it with sticking people in cages like animals. He tried it by raising the growls of hatred and violence to an audible roar. Now he is trying to do the same with a fake national emergency declaration re energy. This from the man who thinks that the only reason that wind power is no good is because it might interfere with television reception should the winds die down!!! Such is the level of ignorance, stupidity, and vileness of our nation's leader!!!
     This reality, this style of governing, this blatant spitting at the rules of our nation, leak down from the top to the bottom. People get swelled heads. People begin to think they are above the law and can make their own laws. So women once again are becoming chattels of men, with men deciding what is good and right for them and never mind the wishes and the needs of women. So carry that fetus of incest, of rape!! Carry that fetus that is doomed to die hours after birth or live for a few years as a bundle of pain and anomalies. And while we are at it, let us get rid of voting rights that were so hard fought for. Hey, what the hell!!
     We forget, people, that the reality of that desire, of those new rules of life, flow ever on, not stopping at one group. No, for they expand geometrically, everyone becomes an enemy to a paranoid ruler, rights go by the board and fear rules the land.
     All the realities intertwine, even as they attempt to run parallel. It is these realities which we must fix. It is these realities that we must contend with. It is these realities that we must battle. If we do not, if we remain apathetic, or blind to what is happening, if we think that living in our own smallest reality will keep us safe - well, think again. Quickly!! ASAP!!  STAT!! We are dangerously close to a red line which once crossed will not be so easy to erase and start a redo.
     Executive orders. Threats to allies.  Falling in 'love' with another madman. Praising a dictator steadily reducing his country's rights. Raising the tensions of the world with threats and armed forces, putting all of us on the edge of disaster that we will not return from.
     Realities demand realistic thinking. They demand courage and determination. They demand, pardon me, Marines, as I kind of borrow your slogan - "A few good men and women" to start the resistance against all these negative realities. But are they there? If so, where? Come forward, please. Please. Inspire us. Give us courage. Lead us properly. Let us be true Americans, proud Americans, once more, and thus set the world back on its own proper axis of reality.