OVER IT?

  Apparently, according to a restaurant owner, people are "over it". They are over the whole shutdown, mask up, virus frightened world we have been living in for lo these past two years. Regular life has drawn an attractive beckoning to the people to just get over it, jump in, the water is fine. I hope so, I really do, but are we, as a nation, truly over all that accompanied the virus, sickening our nation in more ways than one?

Of late, a few Johnny come lately GOP Senators have conceded: the election of 2020 was legitimate, Biden won, and Trump needs to get used to losing, a sharp blow to his misbegotten, overblown ego. They have even conceded that there is no presidential protection for a former president. Whoa!!! Unbelievable, yet even after all this, admit that he is liable for criminal prosecution, they continue to state they would support him as the GOP 2024 candidate. Would that hold true were he to be incarcerated? I wonder. How "over it" are the American people of that sector of society? How much harm can they continue to inflict upon this country, our embattled democracy?

We need so much fixing of America. We are 'broke' and we do need fixin' in so many areas. Take our medical system. Obama tried to reform it and was obstructed by the GOP. These shenanigans of theirs continued, stalling Biden's ambitious much needed reforms in so many areas. So, medical. Here it became very personal to me. 

A medication was developed to combat a dangerous aspect of Parkinson, wherein severe drops in blood pressure caused many a dangerous fall- and lordy, but do I know about those! Broken bones, fractures, permanent damage - and yet the copayment for this essential drug is now, for me and the dosage I require - wait for it - $800 a month. A month. On top of all the remaining co-pays for other needed medicines. No can do. The day I warned about has come to be. The day we would find ourselves unable to afford me! And think of others forced to either come up with the unthinkable copays - if they even have insurance - for cancer and other conditions. So now it is legitimate for Big Pharma to tell so many to go take a hike. Really? Yes, really.

Over it? No, I do not think so. Over what, exactly? Over the attempts, already succeeding to a frightening degree to manipulate the system and deny voting rights to so many? Over it? As we are now being warned by distinguished historians about the demise of democracy for us in our time? Through the delegitimization of elections. A victory for autocracy, fascism, racism, all the ugliness that goes along with that.

Over the defiance of the law by those who are supposed to uphold it? As Senators and Congressmen, deeply enmeshed in the Jan. 6  debacle, refuse to obey subpoenas, block the inevitable, their guilt exposed? Over the awful exposure of Trump sitting gleefully, for over three hours, as our country teetered and tottered, as heroes were battered by deranged rebels? As Trump reran segments that he loved, the more violent the better? Giggling all the while. You try avoiding a subpoena. See what happens to you. Evidently some people think they are indeed above the law. Not over that, I tell you!!!

Rioting. Revolution and Civil War. Loss of democracy. Re-education camps, forced labor, hatred galore. No, not over it. We should never be over all that. Over the attempts to render this country's history moot, refusing to learn from history, discount what we do not like and indeed, make it his-story, the version of Trump and his fellow traitors.

Maybe we can soon be over the terrible days caught within a deadly pandemic, as we learn to live with it, develop better vaccines, medicines, and a growing herd immunity. Maybe. But life will go one - we hope. We must learn to distinguish that which we can indeed "be over' and that which we must never ever be "over". If we do not, well, as they say - the rest is history - or will be.