I sit here, this early Wednesday morning, all at sixes and sevens. What to write? Can words even express the situation at all, or is it a lost cause? The worry, the confusion, the danger, the shock! Not even during the awful 1968 riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago was there this depth of a raging war within the country itself. Yes, the younger generation found their voices and some degenerated into violence. The nation was split, violently at times on Vietnam, but always, we were the United States of America. No one had any words to say that we were dissolving, that we were walking step by step, running, step by step, into the world of degenerating democracies, emulating the fall of nations, the downslide into banana republic behavior and status. They certainly have those words now, today.
Today people are stating this more and more. They are coming out of that closet wherein we hide the truth, where truthsayers are locked in, jeered at, but - the truth will out. For years, years! I have been warning about this and it is only recently that we have all reached this conclusion. It is now up to us as to what follows.
We have a president who is truly not the legitimate one. I believe he stole the election, used fraud, disruptions, intimidation, and more, to earn his outmoded Electoral College win, losing the popular vote, the way the election should be decided. Yesterday there was a strong essay re the status of the current presidency and the fact that Trump has abdicated his presidency, refused to bear up under its burdens, refused to understand that his needs, his twisted needs, are so far down the ladder that one cannot see them. The country comes first. The citizens come first. Not him.
International leaders are either confused, as is Trudeau who could not answer right away as to his opinion on military usage in the USA, but who then answered honestly and openly. Others are laughing away as they watch their enemy self destruct. G-damn!! What are we doing? What have we allowed? What are we continuing to allow?
Yesterday we had a courageous turnout of voters. Faced with Covid danger, with bad weather, with challenges to their right to vote, with voting places which were disappeared, moved, canceled, with awful lines, with curfews, with polls placed in police stations - and just imagine the feeling as armed police, garbed as the military, and/or the militarized SWAT teams, walk in and out, as you, a young black woman or older man or whomever, stand there waiting to vote, afraid to move a muscle, lest you be accused by an instant kangaroo court and get tased.
And the so called president? He falls into the last resort of the scoundrel. He has his armed soldiers and police push back non violent protesters, clear a brutal, tear gassed path for the coward - guess his bone spurs were acting up once more, poor thing - and he walks through holding a Bible! A Bible! When was the last time he opened one? When was the first time even? Could he name any principles of life found in that book? Did he even know enough to hold it right side up and stop posing like a girl in her graduation cap and gown? The answer is a profoundly loud NO!! To all.
The question now is this: can we survive to November without a loss of democracy? Can we remain a country, united, though shaking and fracturing? Can we hold on and can we be sure of a peaceful transition of administrations, not destruction, no refusals, no civil war. In fact, I have lost count of the many people who tell me that now they are carrying their pistol with them, wherever they go, or keeping it on hand in their homes. What have we done? What are we doing? How low have we fallen? How have we agreed to destroy our own country? How have we allowed this awful monster into office, allowed McConnell to expose his inner ugliness as well, refusing to condemn Trump's use and threats of soldiers? How? For how long? Or is this the now new normal. G-d forbid. and g-damn all who have allowed it.
Go, all of us, and look into that mirror, Peer not at your hair or clothing, but at the inner being of the person standing there. Can you honestly say that you have done the right thing, that your initial desire to vote for that destructive man was genuine, or useless and even dangerous, and what have you, we, us wrought!!!
There is some hope, There is a light still gleaming in that fog of tear gas and pepper spray, in the abuse of our press, in the suppression and muzzling attempts on the press. There is hope that the broken pieces of the GOP can be glued together, and as the bone is stronger at its point of healing, so too can we, the people of the United States also become stronger.
But it must happen now. NOW! There is no time to waste. There is no more escapist fantasies of that man riding to the rescue. All he has done is make the situation worse than ever, allowed a vile hatred to ride to the surface, forced bubbles of acid onto the fabric of our nation and is too damned close to destroying it all.
Be Well? Be Safe? How?
Read this passage from Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms and perhaps we can get some comfort and understanding from words again, some inkling of hope, a glimmer of light.
"If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."
"They say it makes you stronger, but first you gotta survive
What didn't kill you, it will make you wish you died.... (Cory Branan, "Survivor Blues")
Recovery will be hard. We will lose good people along the way as we slog now in an uphill battle, on a very steep slope. But we can do it. And we must remember that the longer we delay, the harder the task. We must start now. This very minute. No, this very second. And there is no room for anyone to sit this out. No room for supposed neutrality for it does kill all.
The sands of that hourglass are swiftly sliding through, counting down the optimal moments, the few, that are left. Danger is nigh. Feel that. Hear that. Know that in the very marrow of your bones, with every beat of your heart, and every breath that you take.
No being safe now. No holding back now. No more being part of that herd of lapdogs who vie for the master's favor and live in fear of his disfavor. Time to grow up, become men and women of valor, of courage, of morality, of truth seekers. And put down that upside down Bible until you understand its true import. Trump and the hateful 'religious' so called leaders who follow him, who prepare the path before him, who endorse and encourage his hate, are the least religious people I know. If one cannot love one's fellow man, then at lest treat the others as you would wish to be treated. Fairly. Decently. Simple as that.
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