Monday, January 3, 2022

OY GEVALT! SHREYEN GEVALT!!

 Nope, not a bunch of typos. Rather it is my reaction to reading the news and wondering what the heck is happening. In these times of almost Biblical proportions - perhaps exactly of Biblical import - why we do not have a plethora of sack-clothed, ash on head, criers? Why are they not wandering the streets of America, warning of the doom that awaits us? That doom is no longer positioned off stage, awaiting entry, but is already onstage, inching, crawling, leaping, much to our detriment, ever closer and closer to center stage.

What does the title mean? Gevalt is defined by the dictionary "(especially in Jewish use) used to express dismay, shock, or surprise. a warning of violence." Oy gevalt is "used to express shock or amazement", a step up from Oy alone. Finally, shreyn gevalt is the strongest use, has " a darker tonality. When uttered in a tone of genuine alarm, “Gevalt!” is, "like “Help!” in English, a cry for rescue in serious situations, as when you are being attacked, your house is on fire, you are in danger of drowning, etc."    Now perhaps the title is clear.

We do have those dire warning prophets around, only they are in the newer streets of the time, the avenues and byways of the media, from print to air of various kinds. This crowd of "prophets of the day" is growing, and I have long been a member of it.  However, the question is - is it enough? Was it soon enough? Or was it too late, way too late to do anything other than to wake people up to what is going to happen, no doubt about it? I am increasingly falling into that viewpoint and am growing more frightened every day that passes by.

Every day we seem to do nothing permanent, nothing that has any content or even a connection to the poisonous reality of all the events of the  past five or six years. Nothing that smacks of equality between the severity of the crime and the severity of punishment. We have hauled into court hundreds of the participants in the mob, some egregiously so, crazed, almost like living Zombies, climbing on people, ranting and chanting, determined to kill as many as they could get their hands on. No different than the lynch mobs that stain our national history. They have received various levels of punishment, but there is a glaring hole in the middle of all this. 

Or rather the hole is filled with the images of people who thought it all up, carried it out, refused to stop its violence, even as it grew too truly epic and frightening, life altering proportions. It went into overdrive and that man, that representative of the devil on earth, sat there for 187 minutes, as people were beaten to within an inch of their lives, or even killed by this crazed mob, before finally acquiescing to the pleas of others to call a halt. Who are those people, those aiders and abettors in this monumental treasonous attempt to overthrow the country and install a dictator? Trump, and Jr. and Eric. Bannon, Jordan, Perry, Giuliani, the same old, same names and newer ones, uncovered in the shame on their souls, that come round and round on this ugly merry go round, the one that plays the now offkey, fractured, ear piercing national anthem.

Do not think I am alone in this role, shrieking to the heavens, 'Oy Gevalt!!" I am Shreyn Gevalt with all my heart and soul. Will enough do the same? Will others think the same and say so? Will it be on time? Will the body of the nation finally understand the mess we are in, the quicksand of political throes that has grabbed ahold of us and refuses to let go? No rescuers around? Well, do not take my word for it. Here are the words of others. Read them and weep? Shrey Gevalt! Beg for attention? Hang a head in shame at one's own errors? Whatever works, folks, but it had better work soon. For the sake of all of us. No escape.

“a number of people made attempts to contact” Trump on January 6th, “nothing happened” for 187 minutes.      there was “communication” between members of Congress and rioters at the U.S. Capitol."

"In the words of Lindsey Graham: 'Enough is enough, I'm out of here, I'm done with this, the party's going to move on, Trump's going to be left behind'" "Boy did that not happen. Why do you think that didn't happen?"  “At the end of the day, there's no other option right now in the Republican Party.”  (Frightened yet?)

" Trump floated the option of seizing election equipment in states whose results the former president was challenging with advisers     "These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long."

(Same old fascist theme of the Big Lie.)

"We mustn’t dismiss these possibilities just because they seem ludicrous or too horrible to imagine,” the US could be under a rightwing dictatorship by 2030, a Canadian political science professor has warned, urging his country to protect itself against the “collapse of American democracy”.

"... today we live in a world where the absurd regularly becomes real and the horrible commonplace.”

"Homer-Dixon’s message was blunt: “By 2025, American democracy could collapse, causing extreme domestic political instability, including widespread civil violence. By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a rightwing dictatorship.”


"Let us be reminded that before there is a final solution, there must be a first solution, a second one, even a third. The move toward a final solution is not a jump. It takes one step, then another, then another.”

The normalization of fascism till the rhetoric becomes policy. Think 2024, folks, even 2022. NO time to waste.

"America is now in fascism’s legal phase ...."  Gevalt!!!!!

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