A PLETHORA OF RICHES?

     No, I lie, or rather I speak facetiously, unfortunately. The only plethora we have today is one of worry and of pithy sayings that demonstrate the toxic environment we now live in. Dang, but it is one of the most depressing morning reads ever! So much choice, and so much agony, worry, distrust and disgust!

I wondered where we were living yesterday as John Kennedy - Lord, what a misnomer in our history! - asked the most inane, yet telling questions of the confirmation joke hearings. You should excuse me, but Barrett could have stood on a desk and did the proverbial action with a goat, and the Republicans would still all line up like the good little wimps and valueless people they are, and confirm her.

 No answers worth anything. No commitments. No honesty. Only a peek into the gloomy future, the next four decades of the USA and perhaps its end, as four decades of benighted thinking are not so easy to overturn and fix. The damage will have been done and often, what is done, cannot be undone. Too little, too late would be the sitrep!

Back to Kennedy, a typical prejudiced, misogynistic Republican, who asked such deep questions! Oh, yes! "Who does the laundry in your house?" and "Do you hate warm little puppies?" Really? Are these existential, constitutional questions, or are these mere representational questions that demonstrate the contempt that the Republicans have for their own candidate and the horrifying demonstration how useless this hearing is, and how much they expect to fall by the wayside with her in the seat honored by RBG. The contemplation of all this, the reality of all this is ....I have no words to express the depth of my horror, my angst, my concern, my fears. What have we done!!

Sen. Leahy called it right when he told Barrett that she lives under the "orange cloud", that poisonous cloud that has enveloped the country from border to border as ethics go by the board, as cronyism, nepotism, incompetence, corruption, and tyranny all raise their ugly heads and the future becomes ever more orange. Unless we all vote - the right way, the way to insure survival of the America we know and love, and criticize, and improve, and backslides and climbs up again. That is the America we need, the cloud of red, white and blue that fills the air, yet keeps it clear for purer visions, clearer and more defined acts of hope and for building a better future.

"It's not one that I can offer a view" is what she said and what she did. That alone is suspicious. Or does she have no independent thinking cells and must consult with her sect leaders as the good little handmaiden she has always been. Shudder! Shudder! Will we all be wearing red voluminous cloaks and vision impairing bonnets in the near future? Literal or figurative? Does it really make a difference?

There are record numbers of early voters, waiting for over eleven hours to cast their votes, overwhelmingly Democratic as far as can be told, even as the Republicans continue to try to block the very foundation stone of our democratic country, the right to vote. One Senator is convinced that the "antics" of Trump after the election to overturn his loss will matter not at all, so great will the victory be. Amen, to that! From his mouth to G-d's ears! To the minds of all the voters. Because, ladies and gentlemen and all in between, there is a great deal to worry about should we not win, should we allow this man to overturn our democracy, to make a dangerous farce of our election process, win in his attempts and goals, and  bye bye, not blackbird, but America.

All this, as the post office says it will undo, reverse, all the changes that have slowed down the mails, imperiled the mail in ballots. Uh huh! When the people are not there. When the machines have been disabled, destroyed, sold off for parts or scrap. When I get a notice that my package is late, but will be delivered on time, I wonder, I really do. Then I try to track it and find that it is traveling around, seeing the country, and the post office consistently lists it as unknown as to its location. Huh! Beats me! And that is why I worry re our once vaunted postal system. Does anyone remember when there used to be two deliveries a day, especially at businesses, or during the holiday rush season? What a difference!

Finally, hear the words of an up and coming tyrant, an American Hitler in the making, one Charlie Kirk by name. 

‘Be not afraid of the accusations that you’re a voter suppressor’

In closed door meetings he speaks in shocking words. "Please, keep the campuses closed," he says. It is a great thing, he says, for it keeps all those left wing students from voting. Orange clouds anyone, or red, or whatever color you pick other than American? He is just so delighted about the pandemic, all those bodies carrying no weight for him or his conscience. A battle of good and evil and they, we, have to do all that must be done, everything, to win. Shuddering yet? Frightened yet?

People, we have to choose our future now, for there is no more time left. And contrary to that demagogue to be , Kirk, and his ilk, it is time to be afraid, very much afraid. Time to turn the plethora of evil riches, of pithy sayings that warn of doom into a treasury of hope, love, unity and humanity.

Vote. Please, vote. For your sake. For my sake. For the sake of our kids and their future. For the future of this country. For the future of the world. For the future of humanity.

 That is how important it is to VOTE.