SHAKEN TO THE BONE

  

 For almost a decade we have publicly been exposing the rot that festered beneath the surface. The surface itself was aboil all by itself, but little did we know, or want to know, or expose what we really did know, re the horrifying consequences of the path we were on. Where was it taking us? Why were we allowing this to happen? Why was there so much denial and why so much support? Was this a new trend in this country or merely the outing of an ugly truth? 

For the same amount of time, I have been writing of the crisis facing us here, of the dangers of extremism, first mainly from the right and now unfortunately from the extreme left as well. Both extremes of the political world wish to destroy this country. Oh, the name might be the same, or not, but certainly the body, the ethos, of this America will be no more. There will be no room for dissent. There will be no room for the dissenters. In fact, we will or can expect to have a repeat of the worst aspects of humanity. We will have our own Hitlerian era and folks, I am shaken to the bone.

Why so terribly shaken now? Because it has gotten much worse with a statement by a Senator, a SENATOR of this country, numbered among the members of Congress, the ruling legislative body of this country. The body which has the power to change our world - and it already has, not to the good either. But to have a Senator, Ron Johnson, state this so clearly, so blandly, so nonchalantly, well, folks if your bones are not rattling, if your radar is not glowing then I can only say that you, and we, are lost. Totally and completely.

Read Johnson's words, his statement of what should be, should already have been in place. Understand the hatred within, the attitude, the knowledge, the knowing that he can freely state this, will not have to retract, so poisonous is the air in our country today. No, instead he will have those who will cheer him on, who will take his most egregious vile statement, dilute it for the present, and over time, and not too much time, the idea will seep into the consciousness of the electorate, of its 'rightness' and there we will be. Get on line, get on the train, get in the chamber, for you do not deserve to live. Not among us, not away from us, not at all. Shaken yet? Read his words below.

"is angered Democratic voters are allowed to go to church, college, and be employed by those institutions and even the federal government, saying they have “infiltrated” these essential areas of American life and many others... "what this entire election is about is fighting for freedom.” (and whose freedom is that, I ask)

"...liberals, Democrats, and anyone on “the left” as he put it, do not have an inherent right to participate in American life on an equal footing as Republicans."

"And he accused Democrats of “infiltrating” American life four times."

“The press is so unbelievably powerful and the left has infiltrated every institution of this country,” Johnson told Levin.

“They started with the college and university system. So they control college of education and journalism and law. And they’ve infiltrated every agency. They’ve infiltrated religions. They’ve infiltrated everything and now we’re seeing the results of that.”

“That’s why our nation is literally on a precipice. We’re at a hinge point in history,” Johnson declared.

“We have to win this election and we have to win many more because we’ve got to push them out of these institutions and return some normalcy, return the values that made this country great,” Johnson, echoing the trumpist mantra, concluded.

Yes, this man who has celebrated with Russians on various occasions, including on a July Fourth, this man who was not supposed to run again, but has done so as he saw the changing, more receptive electorate. He has decided to inject more of his venom into the nation. And succeeding.

 There has been no denunciation of him by any Republican spokesman or member of the Party or Congress or anywhere. Nowhere! I hope that today there will be a reaction, at least one, somewhere, anywhere? But I doubt it. It is the same as with Trump.

There will be excuses. There will be the acknowledgement of a man gone derailed, along with the "but...." as some obscure point is made, thus excusing his words and praising some manifestly unimportant something or other. Yes, Mussolini made the trains run on time and Hitler rejuvenated the German economy. At what cost? Are we willing, even wanting, to pay that cost, that possibly unrepayable, unredeemable cost?

The most frightening thing about this is that I am more and more hopeless of any possibility, probability, that we can avoid this. The momentum has grown in strength, openness, and duration. That ugly snowball of hate and repression grows daily, hourly, and for every 'spokesman' who refuses to speak, well, we know the rest.

I have been told by some that I was out of line, exaggerating, over the top. Well, do you think that any longer?

Shake, my friends, shake hard and long. If you do not hear the rattling of your bones and the bones of your neighbors, then perhaps you are a part of the problem rather than a hope to solve and resolve this mortal enemy -of our own, within and among us. The rot from within, the poison preventing a dream for our children. Existential, real, ugly, bloody, unthinkable, yet here we are with his words. 

Understand the consequences of "not allowing Democrats among us", not anywhere, nowhere! And where do the 'nowhere' people go? What happens to them? Think it impossible? Ten years ago, would you have predicted our current state of being? Would you have expected, foretold, the invective within, the deep chasm separating Americans, one from another, the real live possibility of the demise of this country, no more an America.  

And yet, here we are.

Shake, my friends, shake.