CHEWING FINGERNAILS

     Whenever we are afraid, worried, torn by indecision, overwhelmed by events, we tend to bring our hands to our mouths and then we bite. We mouth the fingers, bite the nails, chew those cuticles. Why? Who the hell knows, but the fact is - it happens. So now I am wondering if we and our fingers will survive the latest onslaught of can you believe it behavior from that dramatically insane and paranoid Demented Toddler.
     People used to tease and poke fun at George W. for his somewhat awkward sentence structure and tendency to repeat words, but the Demented Toddler has it all over him. In a phone interview with Hannity, the shill of the administration, the Demented One actually spoke in his own inimitable word salad fashion about being the victim of journalists and media personnel who gathered in dark rooms to discuss what word(s) to use to describe him. Huh! Do you think this is what they have time for, when in their otherwise busy lives they have to cover the war with Iran that this man is pushing us into, the cracking economy , going down due to tariffs which have already cost the taxpayer $22 billion dollars out of their pockets, the worsening air and water, the revolving door of appointees, the corruption of appointees, the incompetence of newly shoved through judges, and the horrible, awful and shameful behavior of our government with migrants they seize, the demonish manner in which they deal with the children.
     So chew those damned fingers. Watch your fingers bleed and simply look at it and think how our country is bleeding. We have a demonstrably insane and paranoid megalomaniac in office at a most critical time for the country, a toddler in man's clothing, who hates and despises all who are not his own blood or married to them, and a blusterer in chief who threatens like all bullies but when called on it, from the corner he has been backed into due to his own moronic and dangerous behavior and mouth, he then collapses, the wind out of the sails, the fake toughness gone and so back to where he feels safe - arrest and abuse those with no power to protect themselves.
     Read this and weep.  The Trump administration is arguing in court that it is allowed and acceptable and even desired that migrant children do not need basic sanitary items such as soap or toothbrush in order to be considered being held in sanitary conditions. Nor do they need a warm place to sleep so a stone cold floor with possibly a foil blanket is just fine. And to finesse the whole situation, just keep the bright lights on all night, all the better to simulate prison conditions, my dears.
     Weep for us, for our country, but most of all weep for these poor kids and their parents, weep for the humanity that has gone missing these days. Weep for the realization that we are returning to the past and while we are not yet holding slave laborers nor building chimneys, we are abusing in a most awful manner and how far away is more egregious behavior? Not far in my humble and frightened and horrified thinking.
     We are violating written and codified laws that expressly forbid arresting people as they show up for court matters. Yet, ICE ignores that as well, as they go after the parents, leaving behind the children who await parents in homes, at schools, at activities, as spouses await their partners only to have them disappear into the "nacht und nebel' of the Trump administration's ICE. More frightening than that, tell me how are there so many people who are willing to do this, to see children huddled in fear on a stone concrete floor, freezing, frightened, calling for mommy or daddy, or even being unable to verbalize due to fright or too young an age, not speaking yet. Think of the farcial system of justice when we are told that a two year old who cannot speak is asked if he wants a lawyer! Huh! The kid wants his mommy! Think of the harshness of the government that separated an 8 year old from his father who was then deported and now, finally, in order to return this poor child to his family, the governemnt assesses in its own inimitable wisdom that the kid is old enough to figure out how to get there and pay for it as well. Lovely!! Like telling a victim to pay his robber - but wait, did that not happen already in history, when Jews were constantlyfined by rulers, when the Nazis forced the Jews of Germany to pay the costs of Krystalnacht when they were the victims!!!!!
     Are your fingers bloody yet? Better your fingers than the entire nation. In fact, as far as I am concerned, the only way to stop this new bloody habit is to get rid of this man, out of office, perhaps in a nice cushy insane asylum, or maybe a taste of his own medicine, sleeping on a cold concrete floor, lights on brightly, 24/7, and okay, a foil blanket, kid size, but no other sanitary utensils. Ahh, such an image!
     Why have we reached this point? Because we thought it was funny, the dementia, the word salad, the blustering, the self praise, the constant return to past issues that were never really there anyway, the most ridiculous lies and the lies on top of that. We thought it was funny when he paraded in with his advisers from his family and now we even have that spoiled chip, Junior, trotting the world, acting as an official representative of the President!! But it is not funny. Ask Kashoggi, ask the victims of his awful policies, ask the immigrants who only want what we and our ancestors did and do, ask any decent human being, that is if you can find one as most of us are in hiding and mourning for our once bright and shining Camelot.
     Chew, baby, chew and then maybe think, baby, think and perhaps we can then organize ourselves and truly figure out the best way to short circuit his current term in office through whatever legal means available, or work all that much harder to organize political opposition and a victory in the elections. Time to be America and Americans once more. Time to grow up and drop that ugly habit. I wonder, though, I really do....