A MOST PERFECT FIT!

 In fact, one could not get a more perfect fit. Every crooked line, every twisted statement, being matched exactly by the slanted and twisted and perverted manner of international politics along with local politics as well. Life imitating art or the other way around? Does the order carry any significance, any effect upon our reality? I think not. The blemishes and defects all lead and contribute to similar endings. 

For sure, most of us, if not all of us, have been reading for months and years of the growing corruption and ugliness in the politics of the world. A day by day ever increasing bloodletting of the blood of democracy, along with constitutional monarchies which "ran out" of their constitutionality. Even in the most democratic of all nations there were shenanigans of massive proportions of ugliness and destruction of the integrity of the body politic. Certainly, in my two countries, the United States and Israel it is so. Worst of all is how the ugliness swamps the remaining goodness within, as the vocal minority outspeak and outshout and threaten the majority of fine folk who live within those two nations and in fact, round the world.

Well, now see what their shenanigans have led to. No more buddy - buddy. No false and more misleading statements of walking together. With hands of friendship between the two nations. Nope. And for sure anyone who believed in that claimed "Partnership”, well see what we have gotten in return. Fooled you once. Fooled you twice. Fooled you so many times that I have lost count. Ever since Trump came on the political radar screen, Netanyahu barely took a foot out of it. 

Their synergy, rather than taking whatever positive aspects of these two and combining them for something good, we had instead a synergy of Evil, of carelessness, of egotism and toxic narcissism. A sheer openness of choosing self over country. Of choosing self over the individuals that made up the population of these countries. However, I must say.   I believe that nothing that Trump has done or said arose from anything other than from seeds and motivations of selfishness. At least even in these delusions of grandeur, Netanyahu did have at least a modicum of concern remaining for his nation, continuing to channel at least some of the legacy of his family. but not enough, not nearly enough. 

As I have stated, warned, screamed so many times over the most recent years, actually a decade, both of these men, all of their adherents, their cowardly sniveling position craving cowardly enablers, had nothing of any worth, of any true quality to contribute to their nations. No notes of lasting    goodness and progress for the people of their nations and the people of the world.

But it is not only these two, and their cohorts. If I were a betting person. I would go on one of those online prediction markets and bet the entire store on the fact that there is not a nation within this world that is functioning with all feet on the ground. Greed, selfishness, a lust for Power and Wealth, and a road ahead seemingly clear of obstacles in the mad lust for these things, even and especially in the Western nations. 

Once people looked to them as role models for nations functioning in democracy.  Where people in leadership positions, for the most part, had the nation's welfare at heart. Who at least cared for and about their nations rather than only about themselves and how to use the nation's politics and worries and ever slackening morals to benefit themselves. And their families. Far too many nations now claiming to be democracies even as they forbid elections and see to the arrangement for their children to be named as inheritors of the nation.      

Yesterday I went to see Disclosure Day, Steven Spielberg's latest movie. A fine addition to the world of thoughtful cinema. It was neither a sequel   to Close Encounters nor action movie alone. It was an excellent mix of all factors and a Go See It recommendation, standing out even more so in a recent time of poor, silly, meaninglessly violent, or hate mongering movies. It is its own self. Yes, there are some aliens in there, but they are almost negligible, serving their purpose well. But no monsters here. Certainly not any other than ourselves. Even as perhaps we can see that monsters can develop even as they claim to be following the righteous path of goodness, for justice, for security. For the positive and necessary for humanity.

The question is raised. Where and when do we reach a point of no return, a point of diminishing value and truth? Will we recognize that line or will we be blinded by something that has outgrown in   negative manner its original motivation? That we had become so invested within that we could not see the wrong turns made and the way to dial back? Or worse, did we know it, but refused to correct? 

Is it in fact permissible and moral to do bad, to do terrible, bad things in the name of a claimed good? Is there no border? A red line which must not be crossed? Do we sacrifice all that makes us human amid the claim that we are safeguarding humanity? But how? As animals? Claiming, wanting, to keep alpha position and doing so in brutal manner. Do we lose our humanity trying to enforce the thought that we are indeed alone in this universe. Other than with those who live Above, the Lord and His Angels, and whomever else has taken residence up there.  

Are we so afraid for ourselves? So much so that we sell our friends and allies down the river. A Creek without a paddle. Wandering among weeds, which threaten their very stability? Are we seeking to trip them up? Keep them down? And eat them up? Are we so much of ourselves that we could possibly be thick enough, foolish enough to believe that within this vast universe creation of the Eternal One there would be no other creatures, no other living beings that have our level of intelligence. (Probably much more) and then, deem them as inferior, even as we hold them in brutal captivity, to dig out, literally and figuratively, all the knowledge they have?    

The question here is what is upon the leaders of the nation, in accordance with legal and moral strictures, its policies and actions, to do in such circumstances? What does it entail? Are there decisions and actions beneath which we can draw a line? Understand that beyond is where the true monsters live - and then find out the monsters are our reflections? Can the government operate in secret, claiming to keeping possibly harmful, hurtful things away from them? Yes, at times it is correct, but in others we leave aside our humanity.   There is certainly a limit and crossing the divide is where we must not go, no matter how we think we can justify it. 

It is also a dismissal of the intellect of the populace.  Thinking they could not bear up under possibly frightening news. Yes, for sure there will be some outrageous reactions. After that, simply look to the world today. People going crazy because some team won the championship? What does it do for them? Does it get rid of hate, of the homeless problem, the hunger?   Finally fund the food pantries? Nope, nothing. But we do know that the reactions can be properly managed and the immediacy does die down, to a point where humans can become sane and reasonable again. That has always been the hope. Even if at times it is overlong in arrival.

So yes. The arrogance of thinking that we are just below God.  Right in how we exercise intellectual, moral and physical powers. Our abilities to unlock the mysteries of the world. Use them for benefit. And whose benefit would that be? Are there limitations upon the cost in so many ways? In the movie we find that in the name of good, the government and the civilian counterparts have done something massively drastically immoral.  Certainly. in any righteous world, it would be illegal. To hold living beings in captivity for almost a century. To torment them. Thinking at one and the same time conflicting thoughts. That these beings held in captivity know technology. That it is upon us to dig it out of them, literally and figuratively. Accepting their superiority and at the same time we deem them less than a human. Even as their appearance is not so different. Eyes and ears and nose and mouth and arms and body and soul. Able to fear pain and a terrible unknown ahead.

In a tossed off sentence of dialogue, we find that empathy, feeling with others is one of the highest, if not the highest level. To attain, to reach and internalize that realization, declutter it from falsehoods and excuses, all that would seemingly excuse the outrage of awful excess they have perpetrated on others, others of their own kind, let alone aliens - that has been the conflict within this movie, all caught up in a story of humanity - or not. Positive in the midst of horror as we see and understand that humanity, as it should be, is an achievable goal, that we can change, can improve.

In the closing minutes we see a nation which knows deep within its guts, with every brain cell possessed that something is going on, something is so terribly wrong in the nation. And suddenly the impetus to clean out grocery stores. To fill up their cars. Do what they can - but for what, exactly? Something is rotten in this version of Denmark. Then the ultimate clash between two groups, two schools of thought. One abhors what has been done, ashamed of their own complicity. and they attempt to right the wrongs done. To rectify the matter, taking terrible risks and challenges to their own survival. 

On the other are those persisting in their delusions that they are indeed protecting the people, those who cannot deal with what is upon us. The parent unchallenged. But the populace of this nation, though often shocking and disappointing, are not children. When given opportunity to come to their senses most often they do. Hope. The saving grace of humanity.  They can see through the obfuscation of lies and gross errors. They can react properly.

They did so in the last moments as the truth was revealed. No riots. No screams other than from that team so invested in their own thoughts and needs, crippled by it and unwilling, perhaps unable to take the corrective steps and correct their pathways.       

People watch. Their faces show their emotions.  Then a major female character steps up to the podium to talk to the nation, to the world for that matter. And what we hear, spoiler alert. Is one word.

 Listen.

In all our yesterdays and all todays. Hopefully in tomorrows to come. We, the people of the world, will indeed listen. We will listen to the internal mores and morals. We will listen to the better side of ourselves. We will listen with hearts and souls and minds and bodies. No manner of escape for what we should have done, should be doing and hopefully will be doing in a more perfect future. A tomorrow of Golden Hue.