CLAP YOUR HANDS

  There are times these days when it feels as if we are living in a land based on wishful thinking, all of which opposes everything in its path. If one says white, the other says green; if one says yes, the other says no. Automatic, robotic responses, particularly as the GOP members of Congress run under obedience either to Trump or McConnell. Adding up to the same result - a stall in the attack on desperate situations that need fixing: infrastructure, sane economic policies, preparation for a changed working world and the jobs to be available, a climate that will need to be pushed and shoved back into alignment, and yes, a chicken in every pot! 

Never forget the voting rights debate going on. Imagine! 2021 and we are once again debating who can vote, who can be squeezed out of that right and make it impossible for the opposition to vote in the first place. This is all led by McConnell and company, a man who says he will no longer talk to Trump but hell, he sure as shootin'  backs him up in every repressive, retrograde bill and proposal.

So where are we? We are at the point where Peter Pan asks the audience to clap if they believe in fairies, if they wish to rescue Tinkerbelle. We are just about there, though I hear no clapping! The average person, thinking person, in America, realizes that we need real action rather than wishful thinking. There is no more faith in the reality of fairies with their magic dust. There is no more positive response to "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands ". The clapping dims by the day. The fabled optimism and "we can do it" attitude of the American people are fading away in the distance.

Nevertheless, there are people who insist on holding on to that impossibility, who have an impossible dream. Manchin insists that by holding on to the  filibuster he will convince GOP Senators to see it Biden's way, the sane way. He bases this thought on the past, one which is truly over, down the drains, and relies on "7 brave" GOP members who oppose the behavior of their GOP clan. That number has shrunk from 10 to 7 and shrinkage is not protected against, but rather pushed, encouraged and demanded! 

You choose now: DNC Chairman: I know he wants to protect democracy but there will be no democracy if we don't protect the rights to vote of all Americans," "This is not a both sides issue," Harrison said. "Either you are for protecting voting rights and protecting our democracy or you're against it. We have to focus and do all that we can to ensure that all Americans, regardless of whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, get the opportunity to exercise that right."

Now McConnell: "an atrocity" that no Republicans would support.

"This bill obviously is designed to make it easier to cheat,

Furthermore, do not think this is only on one issue. It impacts all issues and the more Manchin holds out on his own Party, the more he encourages the GOP to stand firm, determined to turn back the clock, to better the lot of the wealthy and screw the middle and lower economic classes. Ignore the more and more frequent extreme weather events, the changing climates, enough to have physical evidence, wherein flora and fauna are adapting or dying to and with these changes. And folks, we are no different, as we die, fade, struggle and try to cope with all this. Not to forget the melting of the Poles and the consequential flooding of the world's lower areas as the waters of the oceans rise.

We have lost our way. We have lost sight of the fact, the desperately needed to cling to fact, that we are all Americans, thus deserving of the same rights and aiding in their ability to obtain them. We have rhetoric, acidic, destructive rhetoric, eating through our Constitution, through the noble plans of the Founding Fathers. We have allowed societal offenses to impact on our very fabric of country and citizens, defaming all in the path to a better society. That is wrong as well. 

Destroying that society, destroying the steps  already taken, demeaning all that brave people did because they were human, had faults, believed in the mores of the society of the time, destroying all in a massive, extreme, even offensive drive that smashes all in its way - why then, we will have a smashed America. Extremism, contrary to Barry Goldwater, is never a virtue. It in effect actually pushes the hope further and further away as the language grows harsher, the demands grow, and the impossibility of maintaining a democratic society, of compromise, under such conditions grows in leaps and bounds.

No, unfortunately we cannot recall Tinkerbelle even though she is revived nightly in book and play. Clapping our hands desperately, manically, will not change that truth. Nor will a louder, more desperate truth denying clapping of hands to prove to ourselves and others that we are happy. We can delude ourselves only so long before the truth slaps us in the face and then, well, the solution is way above my pay grade.

What I do know is this: We need to stop shouting at each other. We need to stop taking and maintaining unrealistic stands. We need to remember whether GOP, Democratic, whatever Party name one chooses, we are all American, committed to maintaining, perpetuating, the America "of, by, and for the people". Errors and all.

What is a virtue is some increased patience, a demanding one, but still, patience. We need to work with each other rather than fight each other. We need to stop the ramping up of the bitter acerbic rhetoric. We need to understand that no matter how righteous the grievances, we can never succeed for if we refuse to hang on, talk it out, the world will once again resort to its perpetual tool - war!

The groups that say enough already, well, while I empathize and agree, for almost 3,000 years the Jews have been chased from Pillar to Post, denied humanity membership, taken three steps backwards for every forward one, yet, today, we are in the midst of yet another epidemic of anti Semitism. It cannot be stopped with masks and vaccines. How to stop it? I am just as clueless as we all seem to be. How we stop many and all prejudices due to religion, nationality, ethnicity, race, skin color, and any other stupidity that inhales people into its savage maw - beats me, but we must, we desperately must - figure out a way. We have all been patient, those suffering under the bloody, greedy hand of hatred. So can the rest of humanity put aside the killing swords, the illogical hatreds, the nastiness, the genocidal excuses and horrors and simply sit down and figure it out?

Clap your hands loud and strong if you agree.

Who knows? Maybe Tinkerbelle is nearby in hearing distance. Who knows?