500 MILES

      Remember the plaintive tones of that song, a man longing for his home, its comfort, yet so far away, almost unreachable. 500 miles in a time when people did not hop on planes so easily and finish a journey of 500 miles almost with a snap of a finger. Seems laughable, quaint, but today we have other distances that seem to be almost as unattainable, if not even more so.

500,000. Dead. By February. If not more. 23 billion plus. Infected. Countless others. Families and friends of the victims. Trillions and trillions. The dollars lost in our shattered economy. Millions. The unemployed. More millions. The number of American children going hungry.

500 miles? A mere drop in the bucket. But is that really so or is that merely a metaphor for hopelessness, despair, giving up? See, it matters not the mileage, but the attitude of the driver or the pilot or those looking, needing, to make a journey, to complete it to its end. Once, once upon a time, not that long ago, we, in  America, had a can do attitude. Strained in recent years, it was torn to shreds during the corrupt and corrupting Trump years and that 500 miles before home is reached seems nigh unto impossible, a pipe dream of the truly idealistic.

Where do we go from here? Where is the path to seek and follow? In fact, is that path a figment of wishful thinking, or is there yet some hope left in the heart of Americans. I do not know. I waver between the idealism that has stuck with me through the cynicism, through the despair, through the desperate times when it appeared that all was lost, and would continue to be so, and between the more realistic and sour position that we are never ever going to be America again. Too far gone. Too enmeshed in our own selfish goals, too brainwashed, too twisted to ever untwist and find our way home.

Caught up in the winds of a broken world, too many have given up and turned to the scapegoating of timeless history, finding the 'guilty' ones, truth having nothing to do with it at all. It is simply a way to throw off guilt and give way to the most base of human emotions. We demean those scapegoats, make them untermenschen, less than human. They are not to be considered of any worth, of any import, and thus open to hurt and violence and even extermination. All without any guilt. Free for all. Guilt free mayhem.

This is what has led up to the insurrection on Jan. 6. This is what has led to the ridiculous beyond words and dangerous beyond understanding, statements that all of those present were actually anti Trumpers in disguise and if not, were the deluded Trump followers who were apparently too stupid to once again realize they were being led by the noses. Really now? How can anyone believe that and yet, unbelievably so, fantastically so, they do believe.

The investigators arrest the insurrectionists, and find the military connections, the infiltrators of the current armed forces, most frightening indeed. Those 500 miles from home grow exponentially to trillions of miles, too far to ever overcome, too far to defeat, too far for hope to keep up with us. But wait. When Pandora's box was opened, the ills of the world flew to freedom, to plague humanity, but - hope remained with us.

So despite the defeating numbers, despite the crap, the ugliness of some, the worry that not only can it happen here, but that it already IS happening - despite all that, we can shrink those 500 miles to a walkable distance. When the current slimebag of history is ejected from the WH, when he departs without fanfare, the biggest sore loser of history, a traitor to his own country, we will have our opportunity to make it right. Despite his disgusting and most cynical pardons, a wave of them at the last moment, of crooks and criminals, all with gain for him and his equally sleazy family, we can stomp on that, make it unimportant, and go on from there.

That will take a giant effort on the part of the American people. We will have to put aside the venom of recent years. We will have to reconcile. We will have to overlook the dangerous brainwashed feelings of too many and hope they will see the light. We will have to reach out, to build new and sturdy bridges to family and friends who were so mistaken. We will all need to return to sanity, no more plans to assassinate public officials, no more over the top demands and tweets. No more induced bitterness that played so well for Trump et al.

Only with a massive self examination and national healing process can we take all the numbers found in this posting and turn them into manageable figures. Only then can we be America. Again. Always. My country once more. Your country once more. Again. For always.