It hit me like a powerful blow to the gut. How could this be, a world seemingly turned upside down, where the quirky foes of Superman would feel right at home. Are we truly, irreversibly, on the path to perdition, to a world where sanity is insanity and the sane are demeaned, punished, even killed. A world where opponents are mass poisoned. A world where infants go to bed hungry, thirsty, and die, and then their mothers.
The angst that I felt yesterday arose from the fact that my new baby great-grandson had ONE can of formula left in the closet. True, the formula is being used as a supplement, but the fact remains that he needs it - to live - to live!!! An expedition to find some resulted in finally achieving - one can from a locked now to be empty display case, at a 'bargain' price of $45. A national search via friends and relatives succeeded in finding two more cans, giving us some breathing room to score others.
This is America! America!! How could this be? Are we actually turning into a Western version of the hunger driven water deprived citizens chased from their homes in countries where the ranter whose voice is the loudest wins, where there is perpetual warfare, where the sane are drowned out by the insane? Well, look around. See the growing encampments of homeless, with their tents and skimpy belongings. Men, women, children. Families. People who are employed but cannot afford a home. People who cannot afford proper food for themselves and their dependents. Elderly whose social security was already long ago inadequate to sustain them.
How does one possibly explain toa future planet traveler why and how it came to be that we headline the insane rantings of a visibly insane angry man, a man who poses a danger to himself and to others. How do we then point to another visibly fascistic inclined man as a replacement for the original one. Where a third option is a man who is openly campaigning for yet another insane man, most probably damaged by consistent violence in his game of football, a vicious, insane, hate filled man who does not even know for which house of Congress he is running.
Yet another - an extreme, conspiracy spouting mad vicious antisemite woman, once an outlier of the GOP is now touted as the unofficial voice of the GOP in the House, an influential 'adviser', if you will, to McCarthy, to be the new Speaker, a dangerous, cowardly man himself.
There is so much more, so much that I could write a book but so many have already done that! Yet the criminals, the traitors remain free, while others are imprisoned for minor offenses, unable to make bail, or caught up in the cages of desperation and hopelessness. Where there is actual sabotage of the electric grid in North Carolina! How have we allowed this in the first place, let alone enabling its continuity and threat??
We are no longer on the cusp of failure. We have massively failed in our duty as guardians of our own democracy, allowed threats to destroy it or change it so much as to be unrecognizable. We have failed to rise to the standards necessary to keep America just that, where futures can be hopeful, where encampments and hunger will no longer be - period. Where cans of baby formula are not locked up and sold at exorbitant prices. We have fallen short by a great, long distance. That distance is growing at a rapid pace.
The future is now unless we put an end to it by raising our voices, let our legislators know the truth and make them hew to honesty and morality - for all, not a select few. We need to move forward, not undo the guarantees we now have in place.
Otherwise, our future will be one where there is no future, where there will be many of this:
Brittney Griner.
32 years old;
a mother;
a wife;
an athlete;
a person;
persecuted for being American, Black, Gay, woman;
Condemned to a hellish freezing penal prison;
known eyewitness reports of:
torture;
slave labor;
starvation;
no medical care;
little food;
inadequate clothing;
inadequate shelter;
zero life expectancy;
a plaything caught in a maelstrom of other's creation.
TIME TO BRING HER HOME.
WAY PAST TIME
IT IS UPON US -
RESCUE THE CAPTIVE
SAVE A LIFE
BRITTNEY GRINER CALLS OUT TO US.
HEAR HER CRIES.
FEEL HER PAIN.
SHE IS US, YOU AND ME
AND WE ARE HER.
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