AMERICA, AMERICA

  Apparently not the country paved with streets of gold- for me anyway, as I unfortunately did not have the winning numbers for yesterday's gazillion dollars lottery. Such a shock! All my plans, right down the tube. Oh, well, there's always the next one. Dreams do not die here in America. So our ancestors who immigrated here have been told. And we believed. In that belief we strove mightily to build that dream. Brick by brick. For the country and for us.

Well, apparently somewhere along the line our dreams became nightmares. We began to think otherwise, to believe that the golden roads, the Goldeneh Medina, was meant only for some, certainly not for all, particularly for the chosen victim of the moment, the flavor of the week in the kingdom of the haters. Worse, we validated that concept and too many of us have chosen to forego the dream and even buy into the nightmare.

America, America.

Granted, the inspiration for this posting grew out of a late viewing of The Capitol Fourth, an annual celebration of the country's birthday. Crowds gather at major DC iconic monuments and places. Considering what had taken place at the Capitol only a few months prior, I wondered. I truly did. I watched it through, singing along to the songs I knew, or hummed, when words escaped me.

 I remarked at the songs, the Army's theme song, the patriotic ones, praising the country, imploring that we remember the vision it was built upon. All the hard work and sacrifices made in its name; the prayers sent skyward for it. Above all else, always, the pleas and songs to encourage love, help others.  Rather than confront each other in violence we must remember we are all Americans. Not red or blue or purple, but red, white and blue, no matter the color of the skin, the language spoken at home, or the country of origin, or the manner of prayer, the name of the deity, or not. The key to regaining and maintaining our beloved country was to remember that above all is the fact that we are all Americans.

Cynically, I commented. Prayerfully, I hoped. Naively, I believe- current tense - even with all that has come upon us - that we can return to our roots, rebuild, restore this beleaguered nation of ours, return to a time when we stood tall, where we did not buy into damaged beings nor distorted beliefs. We strove to do the right thing, picked ourselves up when we strayed or fell, to correct errors rather than enforce them. The vision of that golden land.

America, America.

The words ask G-d to shed His grace upon us. Would that He would shed that grace into the hearts of the benighted, the disillusioned, those seeking to hurt rather than help, or twist this country into what it most definitely was not meant to be.

America, America.

I shed my tears, lose confidence of it ever happening, when I read of a man who should never have been president, a man with lifelong alleged and proven criminal tendencies, cruelty deep within his very soul. A man who rants openly, at a rally for him and his posited future run again; for funding the establishment of a most horrendous vision, to G-d forbid return him to office. Brazen enough to say this out loud, what the hell does he say in private? And who has caused this current state of affairs in this country!

“and be tough and be nasty and be mean if we have to.” ...There is no longer respect for the law, and there certainly is no order. Our country is now a cesspool of crime,” 

And why, why, why, are there those who enabled and continue to enable him to inflict himself and his troubling words and deeds upon us, the same enablers who knew the 25th Amendment was a realistic possibility, even necessary. Yet on they went, and on they continue, tell all books notwithstanding, as they continue to see their selfish version of a future - a distorted dystopian vision of a tortured country, seeing with him their paths to wealth and power. For themselves. Screw the rest of America.

One song sung near to the Capitol, the site of a shocking revolution, had these words for us.

And if we do not reach Heaven, we will walk together in Hell.

WE have allowed our slice of a potential Heaven to turn, to devolve into that Hell, the one we can conquer, overcome, make our way towards that path toa most blessed country, a place of heaven on earth, a path to a positive, successful Camelot invigorated with the enthusiasm of a JFK era rather than the evil, dark, skewed one of DJT.

America. America.

G-d shed His Grace on thee (and)

Crown thy good with brotherhood,

From sea to shining sea.