DUDU DUDU DUDU DUDU .....

  Listen, not even carefully, and you, too, will hear the iconic sounds of the Twilight Zone theme song. It is growing in volume all around us, and quite frankly, I am beginning to feel that this sound has no turnoff knob, button, nice lady living inside some device or another, just about nothing that will stop it in its tracks. It grows exponentially: dudu  dudu  dudu  dudu  dudu  dudu  DUDU... It invades every aspect of life, pervasive and invasive. 

It is the glee of the foxes as they revel in their growing, almost unstoppable in access into the hens' house. All the while, the farmer, the last defense of the hens, stands there just about helpless, with rakes and hoes minus their tines. Just about useless, even were the  confused, discouraged farmer to raise his damaged weapon of cracked and rotting wood. Perhaps even unwilling or incapable of mounting any defense effort at all anymore, let alone coming up with a workable, successful offensive. All the while, the screams of the dying hens tear at the souls of all farmers worldwide.

What are the ingredients in the deadly mix of kickapoo juice the Republicans are imbibing at every possible moment? This juice that developed a momentum of its own, led to a mass hysteria, a mass false belief system with the strength, the staying power necessary to defeat all oncomers.  

One hen says, "now we need them to do their jobs.", all the while urging the chief farmer to wield the bigger, stronger hoe that he has. Another plaints, “Go to Texas, and meet with a diverse group of people on the ground to put a face on this issue. Then go to Arizona. Go to West Virginia,” “There ought to be a speech from the well of Congress.”    The response, almost a helpless shrug of shoulders holding the useless, rotting stick, even as the clucking of the hens reaches new heights, new levels of panic and despair, perhaps the beginning of understanding that their very house, the shelter of long duration, is now  foundering, toppling, the 'parking garage' beneath it, with its sturdy supporting pillars, now spalling, breaking, crumbling and the house trembles. The hens tumble and fall, some never to regain their footing at all. 

When the farmer is questioned as to why this has reached this existential point, he responds,  "why doesn’t Biden get this done? “Well, because Biden only has a majority of, effectively, four votes in the House and a tie in the Senate, with two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends.” Then adds "they are hard at work bringing together voting rights advocates, poll workers and others who can tell them more about problems on the ground.  .. Enough? Or, tragically, too little too late?

Huddled in the corner, now daring to venture out, emboldened by the tactics and success of their allies, the restive population, the whiners, the naysayers, the haters, and the masses of deluded, the frightened and the weak, well, they begin to cluck in an obscene replication of the 1812 Overture, claiming victory - even as the house tumbles, the brave hens crushed beneath. 

 Suddenly, it is no more. Suddenly, what had been a successful house, underlaid with principles of justice, concern for hens, advocating for rights of all hens no matter the color, ethnicity, religion, country of origin, whatever point was used to build  upon, well, it is all gone. Gone.

Everything had failed in a last hail Mary attempt. The Democratic hens refused to allow representatives of the GOP who had supported the first open and violent attempt to take possession of the hen house to participate in what would have been a useless 'investigation' into the event. The naming of these hens, the obvious rejection of them by the chairman of the hens, the expected self removal of all GOP hens, a cynical action,  hastened the destruction, the final fall of the hen house. The proposed plan, of meetings, plans for ground campaigns, was simply not enough to overcome the stifling results of the GOP and its denial of voting rights for too many hens. What was left was  hate, ugliness, an abandonment of so many of the hen house Rules of Foundation. What was left was this recognition: " We’re going to have to meet this challenge in the courts, in the halls of Congress and in the streets.”    

Was it not soon enough, timely enough, for that hen house? The question remaining, is what about our hen house? Have we left it too late? Has the split grown to impossible to repair depths and widths? Are we to destroy the hen house of our pride, our struggle, all the years we fought to improve upon its what we thought to be, solid, unbreakable foundations and principles? Frankly, at this point, I am almost at the same level of disbelief and faith of that beleaguered farmer with the useless hoe.

Have we come to that same point? Are we too going to have to fight in the streets, all other routes unsuccessful? Is that a point of no return, no positive rebuilding? All I know is that all farmers need to check, repair and replace where needed, hoist up their overall straps and gird for an existential battle. The hens are at stake - and the farmers too. Go, quick, look in the mirror and see that the hens and the farmers, well, they are us.

Twilight Zone? I am not so sure.