AND HERE'S ...........

     Here's.....exactly who? Last night's debate and tonight's have been and will be dissected beyond the most intensive surgery one can imagine. Gestures, energy, body language, and sound bites. Splits - real or imagined - between wings of the Democratic party. So where is here for those who need to have a candidate for us, for Americans of all ilks and classes, not just the fatcats? Who can safely set out on an election campaign and bring back the flag for us? After last night I cannot say with any sure confidence.
     As far as I am concerned, the entire group was progressive, but do not blow up here, please. They are progressive in the fact that whatever their policy, they were in it for the people. Unlike someone else we all know and certainly do not love!! Our medical policies must change; we know that. We must gain some control over the drug companies and their horrendous jumps in prices for drugs for which there is no excuse. We must police our donors, and had done better on it, until the backwards Republican party took away so many safeguards, especially with regards to where is that money originating? Who is giving it - and what are they getting in return. The blatant mixing of policy and private business amongst the Trump administration and especially the Trump family, is particularly concerning.
     What I did see last night was a definite winnowing out of some candidates and a hope and wish that even as some go, that some of their passion and ideas are held onto with strong hands and determined minds. The "yadda, yadda, yadda" of Williamson surprised all, just as did the rest of her presentation. She was back from the kumbaya affect of the first debate, speaking firmly and with some good comments, but again, she will fall out, though again, we need not lose ideas from people for this is ONE party and must remain so, watch their comments so as not to give Republicans, and especially that awful dude, any openings for tropes and memes or anything else they can find to be nasty about and with.
     We have so many problems that need fixing. Regulations that have been shredded, much to our detriment. The growing lack of morality in the administration The growing nastiness of White House communications and the implicit permission this language gives to the hatemongers, the extremists, to behave wildly and violently. Violent words lead to those violent deeds and I cannot stress that enough. We need only turn to history, and not distant history, to see the truth of that and the frightening consequences of it as well. The Democrats must stand up to and root out the hatred that is found in some of their own for they, too, must answer for it and for what it provokes.
     Now we are sending more soldiers off to Saudi Arabia. We are trying to gin up cooperation from former allies, those same countries we have denigrated, to join in a military mission in the Straits of Hormuz. All the better to start a war, my dear!!And at home we are picking on the wrong things. A patriot need not place a hand over heart for the national anthem. We never used to. We stood silently or sang, but only did hand over heart for the Pledge. So leave Ryan alone. Go for the important items,and figure out how all this will have to mesh into one agenda and platform for the Democrats as time grows short. I hope there is someone taking notes!!!
     Domestically we have so much to fix. Medical care. Environment. Abortion or right to choose for women, a right that is under vicious attack and contains so many dangerous tendrils The rights of ALL within this great country. A decent and humane border policy. Even after the ban on family separation, we have taken over 1,000 children away from their parents. We are still at it and I say we because we are aiding and abettig this by not demanding that this policy stop right in its tracks. Put the biggest brainiacs on this problem and solve it!! But not on the backs and the necks of little kiddies and anguished parents who have undertaken an impossibly long trek in the name of hope, in the fleeing of despair and danger.
     We have not given even one, ONE, person a granting of asylum since we made all those who apply for it wait in Mexio. What a rotten policy. What an oppositional stance this Trump and his rotten crew have taken. The nastiness of it all should make all want to cringe and regurgitate on all its proponents!
     The pastors of the National Cathedral ask, echoing another bad time in our history, a time we appear to be greatly replicating, the McCarthy Era, ask strongly, "Have we no decency?" That is a question we must ask of ourselves and with great intensity and honesty. This hiding of the truth from the public and thinking that the hiding, the opaqueness, makes it all okay, well, that is a policy that must go. What is the Trump administration so afraid of once the curtains are drawn back and all open to the bright light of day? I believe they are afraid that the stench of all that is behind that curtain will overwhelm us all and lead to their drowning in that sludge. So be it.
     We are in desperate need of decency, of hope, of respect for others, a need to stop our selective deafness, our apparent mutism on problematic areas and topics. We need to be able to talk with each other once again. We need to be a united United States of America and that begins with a united Democratic Party and an intensive effort - a successful one - to defeat the hatred and the racism and the nastiness that Trump signifies and represents and promotes. 
     As an op ed in a Baltimore paper wrote: Better to have some vermin around, than to be one. Oh yes!Now we need to be able to say - lesson taken. Can we not all join in and get an A on the next rating? We so desperately need it, must do and achieve. The right way. That is where here needs to be.