"JUST A NIBBLE"

 Really? Is that okay? Guess one might have to ask the one who has been nibbled if it if 'just' that! Personally, I believe that anyone who has been served up as a nosh to a blacktip shark might feel otherwise. Certainly, anyone familiar with a noshing appetite knows that a tasty nosh leads to more and more noshing.  Soon enough, the original piece is long gone, consumed and digested within the nosher.

Noshing is dangerous. Anyone with a taste for chocolate knows that. Once noshed, it does not end there, with one itsy bitsy piece. Rather, it goes on until the total entity is nearly or all gone. Like it or not, the same thing happens when a nation's appetite is whetted by a taste, a reward, so to speak, for its imperialist designs and criminal invasions all due to satisfying a craving for "just a nibble". A nibble which eventually leads to bloodshed, horror, catastrophe, and finally, to the loss of that noshed upon country. Yes, the noshing appetite having been tempted, nibbled away until finally sated. Now that iconic statement "I can't believe I ate the whole thing" takes on a bloody, terrifying smug expression on the face of the nosher. Not good. To say the least.

Nature is actually much the same for animals and humans. In fact, it is truly difficult at times to distinguish between the two, even at times having the animal come out on top. A better being, so to speak. We humans have crossed the line in Ukraine and other places, too many places, with the slaughter of "others", be they different due to color, religion, origin, whatever suits as an excuse for the bloodshed. It really makes no never mind.

Russia, that great big bear of a country has nibbled and nibbled in all its border areas and even beyond. Apparently, it has an insatiable appetite, one nosh never being enough, one nibble most manifestly insufficient to satisfy that appetite. Not at all. Worse, the people of the world have not tried to get it into an 'overeaters" mode, standing aside, for they were not the noshed upon, until they were. That noshing temptation never truly is sated, hence the entire dieting industry! Unfortunately, the dieting industry for human country noshers is greatly underfed itself, weak and almost useless in its response to that great big noshing bear.

Nor does nibbling end there, at the country noshing level. There is also an interior noshing, within a country itself. The constant nibbling at its integrity, at its loyalty to its original ethos, weakens it, as it rots away, losing structure and foundations until there is no more to lose. The result? 'We got trouble; right here' in our personal representation of River City. Bah, humbug, to city, for it is our entire country being nibbled upon, serving as fodder for those who would tear it open, restructuring it in an unrecognizable fully digested nosh, much to the detriment of its citizens, of, in fact, the entire world.

"Respect my humanity" is the request of a government figure. A useless request, a spit into the wind, for the opposition within our country has turned vicious beyond words, morphing into an egregious state of nibbling so that we are crumbling away, being consumed, as the very basis of our country succumbs to the "just nibbles" of the foe. We have met the enemy and he is indeed, ourselves, our co-Americans and our grossly limited response.

 Too little, too late perhaps, as we are warned by one analyst (and me!) of dangerous pressure on the American democracy, from a crazed, false, filled with liars - surprise, surprise -Supreme Court, most assuredly supreme in its treasonous behavior re the Constitution, re human rights, re its vile politization of what is supposed to be "justice"! Good morning, America indeed as suddenly some are just 'shocked' at the behavior of the troglodytes of Trump nomination, confirmed by GOP collusion, complete with dirty faces, the stains of their noshing quite visible. The pressure and sedition of those trying, with violence, with malice, with a goal of overturning this country, bears down upon our ship of state, keeping it underwater as the attempts to destroy our democracy multiply across the country. 

We have lost our way. Our ship cannot stay afloat in a desert of no paths, no haven, no refuge from the consequences of our own actions. We ignored the nibbling, even endorsed it at times in foolish thinking. Too late have we come to realize the error of our ways. Now we come from behind, the sharks nibbling away, firmly attached to us. Defense is difficult but must be undertaken before we can go on offense, to save our democracy now and for the ages. To be, as Schumer says, "On the right side of history", the one of progress, of humanity, where nibbling is discouraged, defied and defeated.

We need a world, a country to lead that world, which prevents bloody fighting a la Ukraine, or Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, from taking place. We need a proactive government, honest, good public servants who know their true jobs. How to fulfill their responsibilities, who control their own noshing, fight, resist, the temptation to "just nibble" a tad.

Once, there were enough of those very people in our governmental bodies. Today, now, ....... 

We are at great existential threat. No more noshing. No more catering to those appetites. The only noshing allowed is for inanimate, tasty things, like, say.... chocolate? Most definitely. But keep in mind, that chocolate is not a country. Chocolate is most definitely not candy in a political interpretation and delineation. Rights are not chocolate to be consumed. Now where the heck is the dieting brochure? You know, the one with a great big bear and an orange person on the cover. Ugly cover!