HENCE, WHEREFORE?

  Hence, where do we go? Where do we go as a nation, as a people? How, exactly, are we going to face the future? Are we going to lose all we hold precious, or much of it, or can we perhaps turn the clock back, reset to the point where sanity, usually, reigned? Where people did not push others to the brink - and then over the edge. Then smirk. That is the current state of affairs in this once shining example of bipartisanship. Once people were able to disagree in a civil manner, dial up tension as expected, but omitted personal, venomous insult. Science was accepted as fact when proven and no one tried to push false and dangerous beliefs on others, in a most deranged manner. Ahhh. the olden days.

We have reached a crossroads, a major fork in the road. In fact, we already have walked down one side, seemingly choosing one option, and it ain't a pretty one. We have placed ourselves in a position of coming from behind in a search for a better world, one of progress, hope, and positive movement. Where has that world gone?

It has morphed into a splintered world, one of sharpened edges, able to cut one's throats without any warning. Suddenly one wakes up and realized what the combined efforts of authoritarian supporters has wrought. Not pretty at all. Not at all.

Hence, wherefore?

There is some wiggle room - we hope - some signs that some people have seen the light. However, the signs are still weak, still outshouted by the raucous noise of crowds who know not what they do, what they are enabling, what will be their fates if their shouts become realities. They know not at all what awaits them in that ugly, proposed world.

These supporters do not like when we rail against the politization of health measures that benefit the nation's public health. Instead of science, of research, of proven methodology, they support absolute lies and most dangerous ideas. Take Viagra and avoid COVID. Better yet, drink your own urine and lo and behold all will be well. Inject yourself with poisonous drugs not even meant for human usage and the stars will shine brightly above, though eclipsed by the brilliance of the fire burning down your homes. A fire lit by one's own thoughts and willful behavior. Self-immolation. Nothing but.

The sane are just beginning to realize that the golden boy of the fake gold plating is tarnishing quickly. Only the most extreme media report on his rallies of the crazed, those actively seeking their own death, though when COVID hits, they run to the strained hospitals, endanger the health workers, beg for relief and cure, forgoing their precious Viagra and urine, seeking life, seeking real cure possibilities. Draining the nation's resources. Delaying its recovery. Damaging all in their selfish, deluded advocating for the dangerous lies pushed by that malignant crew of power-seeking fascists. 

My home state of Florida is endangered by an evolving DeSantis, actually, devolving, as he and his crazed GOP legislators push through law after law, act after act, openly, viciously, taking away rights, cramping the freedom in which we are supposed to live. Evidently, he and his fellow fascists, supporters of authoritarianism, under their rule as the authorities in power, are flying high.

DeSantis is running to be selected as the GOP candidate for President. More appropriately, he should be named as the candidate of choice of - here insert the name of any white power, fascistic, crazed group, proud of its hatred for all other than themselves and I'm not sure about that last part. One cannot be a hater of humanity to such an extent without being a hater of oneself as well.

He says Florida is the "freedom state". Others beg to differ, amend that statement - "free to do as you are told". Well, hell NO! Most definitely so.

His freedom?   A slew of bills has advanced attacking everything from diversity rights, abortion protections and free speech in schools, in addition to a proposal that would legally shield white people from feeling “discomfort” over the state’s racist past. Not to forget his "election police". G-d forbid!

Amanda Gorman, that brilliant young woman who read her "The Hill We Climb" at the Inauguration, has the best encapsulation of what is going on. "I'm a firm believer that often terror is trying to tell us of a force far greater than despair ....a call forward, a summons to fight for what we hold dear. ... hope isn't a promise we give. It's a promise we live. ...the rest is history."

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." So, who is it that we will allow to control the history of America, the history of mankind? If we are not them, then we are lost. Most assuredly so. A point emphasized in many dystopian novels and many essays. We must grip the fear Gorman writes of, hold it tight, use it as a hammer, an incentive to take back the world for the sane, for those who value progress, for those who actually are not self-haters and inflictors of all that is wrong on anyone they deem deserving of it.

Finally, here is a thought that has come to us, unknown as to author, nevertheless a most profound statement.

"From invention is born progress

  From reinvention is born freedom."

Let us reinvent ourselves as we should be, as we once strived to be, and have left behind as we career down a most dangerous choice of road.