FAMILY QUARRELS

     Oh, how we all are familiar with these spats. They can lead to splits within families that last through generations, until the original reason is lost in the past. They can be solved with a simple apology from the wrongdoer and a casual acceptance and moving on by the offended. But that does not happen too often, does it? We all get stuck at times in our own anger and hurt.
     So do nations and so do citizens of a country. We here in this country are doing exactly that and so are the peoples of so many countries around the world. The family unrest has spread unchecked and attempts to check those growing divides are failing manifestly, only exacerbating the situation rather than calming it down. Use of police and military. Use of imprisonment. Use of disappearances and trumped up charges. Death. Where does it end?
     Apparently we have all lost the knowing that we need to tone things down. We just keep on ranting and raving, mouthing lunacy, and the ugliness that pours forth is not only ugly, but dangerous as well. Yet, within these events and speeches, truth also appears. One takes it from whence it comes.
     Trump had an interview during which he rambled and roamed all over the place. Unfortunately for him, none of the places he reached made any sense. Half sentences. Jumbled thoughts. The words of a man whose brain is in the throes of a growing dementia, descending further into that long, dark night. I can feel sorry for him, for it is a horror to contemplate, but why must he be inflicted upon us during this deterioration? Has the world not known enough of the catastrophic outcomes of having a madman as a leader, a person who takes others down, even unto an entire nation, as he deteriorates more and more?
     Yesterday's Rose Garden supposed press briefing was anything but that. It deteriorated rather rapidly into yet another mad ramble through the dark lanes of dirty politics. This is not worthy of a nation's attention as it is mislabeled so drastically. Yet more garbage. Yet more lies. Yet more avoiding truth.
     Even as this distortion continues, we see the nasty heads and fangs of other disasters of hatred growing ever bolder. There is a growing intolerance from all sides to free speech. It is being bruited about that if one's speech or thoughts offend you, shut the speaker down. Only allow free speech, no longer actually that, to be used by your 'side'. Term anything that opposes your take on life as hate speech and ban it, riot against it.
     Well, that is wrong. America grew and thrived on varied opinions. At times these differences were tragic, allowing for slavery, be it by actual "ownership" of a physical body or by slavery via economic twists, such as poor wages, slave hours, company towns, threats by the scab police. There was certainly no shortage of wrong doings in our country as we grew. There was violence, with riots and civil war. There were great upheavals and sometimes great indifference to sufferers of disasters. 
     Jews were banned from properties. Irish were  relegated to maid positions. Blacks were held to certain areas and rights denied. The Chinese were considered good only to dig canals and train tracks, alongside the Irishmen, and were denied the immigration of their wives and women.
    In fact, every group of immigrants, as they fled to a better world through our gates, faced backlash and hatred. But there were always those few who set up settlement houses, clinics, educational and vocational aid. Doing the American thing. Following the American credo. But now, now, we have a great problem. We have a leader who cynically and deliberately uses hatred as a political tool and a moral vacuum has been filled with immorality, that, belonging to racial and religious hatred.
     Nick Cannon stated  "the truth of a number of conspiracy theories in the episode, referencing “the Rothschilds, centralized banking, the 13 families, the bloodlines that control everything even outside of America.” Cannon insisted that the conversation was not hateful, because “Semitic people are black people.” “You can’t be anti-Semitic when we are the Semitic people,” he said. He also voiced admiration for Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
      At least ViacomCBS has the decency to fire him.
     Yes, the old canards, the ones that cost so many lives are back and out. What is worse, is when the very people who were befriended and defended by so many Jewish people, by their organizations such as the ADL or the ACLU, or by simple everyday people who had enough of this garbage, ignore the truths of the past and fall prey to the lies of hatemongers.
     Trump spouts about the fine people and the nice people. They are not. I could care less if people will offer a fellow believer a cold drink or a snack as they protest. That is not a fine person. A fine person seeks constant improvement - in oneself and in the nation and people around oneself.
     "Racism is a scourge, and racism is growing, and it is up to you... who have the young children...to impress upon them that racism is murder. Words can kill....I think for the sake of humanity, and that includes everyone: racism, hatred is a horrible, pervasive thing, and we all have to be alert to it, and we ALL have to address it, otherwise we are all indifferent bystanders."
   So speaks a Holocaust survivor educator, and so warned us Elie Wiesel, and Hannah Arendt - all about the hurt and harm, the slaughter and savagery that is allowed, the murderers who are empowered, by those who simply stand there and do nothing.
     We are all guilty of backing away. We are all guilty of looking away. We are all guilty of saying that we are lucky it is not us. But that is the point. It is US. It is US. For we are all standing in line, awaiting our turn to be the enemy, the untermensch, the ones not worthy of anything but death. And yes, while hatred is there in the basest of society, it is also there in the so called leaders, in the presumed elites, the A list elite, the secret haters and the not so secret ones.
     Family quarrels get ugly real fast. They have their own growth food that needs nothing at all to flourish, only time and the faults of humanity. We are all family here. We are all subject to the dangers of our world and the hurt from being targeted by haters. Let us remember the strength that family gives us, the love it gives us, the acceptance it gives us - and become the family of Americans we once were and need to be again. 
      Let us all wish each other to be well, to stay safe and to think carefully as we vote - but do VOTE. That is the path to righteousness, justice and safety, to America once again.