OK, So Who Are We?

So, Joe and Kamala become inaugurated in a few weeks. It’s all over but that final counting, but still, yet, people are pressing Mike Pence to do the wrong thing. They want to overturn the election, discard the votes of millions of people, and give in to the Nazi’s and KKK’s of our world in order to keep this deeply flawed, corrupt, ignorant pseudohuman, Donald Trump, in office.  I wonder whether even Donald Trump understands what this group wants. See, he isn’t too bright. And he is a Compleat Narcissist after all. All he understands is that he does not want to allow people out there in RealityLand to disrespect him.  It really is all about him. There is no world of other reality out there. Only him and his reality.  So, if Nazi’s/KKK’ers want to install White/Christian Rule in America, create concentration camps for those who don’t fit, and then slowly kill off those “others”, Trump neither knows nor cares, cuz he’s only about himself.

See, I think now that we may have had it wrong all along. We don’t have a Mafia Chieftain ruling America. Instead we have a KKK/Nazi clan ruling America with their pseudo-President ruling at their command.  Yes, he acts impetuously, and stupidly, and corruptly, and dangerously. But that’s just him. He neither knows nor cares what he is doing. So long as he can yell at people and fire them at will when they displease him, he is happy. If people get killed in the process, that’s life in the big city. Folks die.

But the real power behind the throne here is that group of KKK/Nazi clansmen, who remain busily organizing for the revolution, when America becomes Full-On Nazi.  That’s their real goal. At some stage, I imagine, those folks will kick him out into some golden dustbin. Then they will reveal their real ruler, whoever that might be. Rupert Murdoch anyone???

And then how will his followers, those MAGAHead, KKKNeoNazicultische clansmen feel about their new world?  Will Mitch still be a high muckymuck?   I assume Marco, and Teddy, and Newt, and Bannon, et al, will become barons in the new Land of GreatAmerica.  I assume this is the stage his current followers are awaiting. They desperately wish to live in the Land of the Almighty White PureMan.  Only then can they feel safe and secure. Their churches will abound in glorious song to their almighty God of Whiteness. People will cheer in the streets, as they round up all the normal folks throughout America.  And then King ??????Whoever will assume the throne of White Greatness . . .

Ohhhh . . . what is happening? Oh, my goodness, that was an awful dream I was having. I wonder whether it was that last glass of wine I had before bed time.  Ohhh, maybe I should return to sleep, and I can erase those dreadful thoughts.  No, I know, it’s morning again, and I will get up, shower and make us a couple of nice cappuccinos, and we can again toast, “To Us”, and then resume real life.

Has he left yet?? Hmmm, no, he still seems to be hanging around. His Nazi’s are still making noises, but they’re really just farting noises. Hey, the sun is arising. Life is beginning again. We have to stay strong people. Humanity is arising all over the globe. People are looking at their world and thinking, we need to be kind today, because Donald Trump and his clan of Mafiosa’s will soon be leaving for MaraLago, where the local folks plan to ban him from the premises. Maybe they’ll place him and his family on a boat and make them sail off to the Antarctic, where he will build a new casino that will fail. Then he will be happy again.

And then, we can all become normal folks again, you know, people with all kinds of problems, but who work hard to stay afloat and try to dispense some kindness each day.

So, smile people. Soon, soon, they will be gone, and the decent folks, Joe and Kamala will take charge and we can straighten our course and begin again trying to operate this country on sane principles again. It's coming. Hold tight.  Remain fast. Think kind thoughts. It’s all we have at the moment. Hopefully, it will be enough.

Be Kind, please.

Dreaming

I dreamed last night. Well, I always dream. But I had awakened and then fell back into a dream-sleep. I was standing there and then I looked up and my Mother was standing there looking down on me.  I don’t mean that she was floating in the air or anything. I was just sitting down on the ground, and I looked up and there she was. I said hi to her, but she didn’t really reply. She just said. “It’s raining out”.  And then she just stood there. Then I awakened.

Now, I’m in my 86^th year, so I’m sort of past my sell-by date.  I don’t think this was some signal that I’m heading out the door soon, but who knows?  This pandemic has an effect on everyone, I realize. I’m no exception.  Awaken in the morning and I realize that another day has begun, but that’s all. Nothing else. If I’m in good shape, I realize what day it is.  Not that it matters what day it is.  Oh I guess it matters a little bit. I mean, Sundays we eat a bigger breakfast. Oh and then the Sunday New York Times is delivered. That’s a good thing. I get to read something other than Facebook, or my e-mail.  And on Wednesdays and Fridays I have to walk out the front door and go pick up the Tribune, our tiny local paper.  Then, typically on Friday afternoon, I have to drive out to one of our Harris Teeter supermarkets, where I park the car and then press a call button to announce my presence. Then a helper from the store will come out to the car with a few grocery bags of stuff we have ordered on line.

Then once a week, generally on Friday, we get to go to our local Barbee’s Farm Stand store to pick up some veggies we have ordered on line.  Then come Saturday, we drive out to Davidson to where the Farmers market used to be. But now, we head to the parking lot of the closed Davidson library. And there a couple of farmers will arrive, stay for an hour and have available the meat and eggs we have ordered also on line.

So, exciting huh?

Now I haven’t mentioned my every other day walk on Union Street, and my workouts on our home stairway or with the little weights. That’s exciting too.

So, with such a busy schedule, is there any chance my body would be telling me that it’s time to go?  Well, “to go” is a euphemism for cease existing.  But who knows? Even The Shadow doesn’t know the answer to that little life question. When it’s your turn, you simply stop existing. It isn’t pleasant or unpleasant. Your brain just stops working and when that happens, you are blissfully unaware . . . of anything.

So was Daisy trying to tell me something? Hmmm. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe I simply conjured up her image, because each day I get a little bit closer, and my mind sees her as an image of no longer being.  Or maybe I’m feeling sorry for myself for having this unexpected way to close out of life. I don’t know what I expected, but this social isolation thing definitely wasn’t it.

Now I expect that I should just stop feeling sorry for myself. I mean, I’ve lived pretty long. The Great Depression was still on when I was born; then World War II; then schooling and college, and marriage, and all those other wars—remember Korea and Vietnam?? Yeah, they were fun, huh?? And then a really long, really happy marriage, with kids, and kid marriages and grand kids and all those nice things.  So a pandemic ending is at least interesting huh?  What would I be feeling were I our grandkids who are poised to graduate, one from high school and one from college?  Hell of a way to end those life stages I think.  Bet they had alternative conclusions that were a bit happier than this thing.

But, like all things, I assume this pandemic thingie will turn out to be one of those life experiences our grandkids will use to regale their grandkids, like I do about growing up poor in Manhattan during WW II. They can milk it for all its worth, just like I do.

So, now we can get on with things, except for the going out and socializing thing. And the hugging and kissing thing. And all those old fashioned socializing things. Yeah, they are sooooo 2019.

So, hang in there. This too will end . . . maybe.

Thinking About a New World

I wonder if we shall ever return to a period of relative comity in this country. Perhaps it is “the times” in which we live. Perhaps we have never lived in a period of harmony. I keep hoping that common sense, or perhaps a seeking of the greater good will arrive, or return(?) to the country to allow us to manage these troubled times without shrieking at one another.

I have given up watching televised news altogether, mainly because what passes for news on any of the main media channels is content-free. As old Will said, it is all “full of sound and fury, and, in the end, signifying nothing.”

But it is not simply the dreadful talking heads of the Fox media pseudo-news outlets. I read recently of a suicide bomber in, I think, Pakistan (but it matters little exactly where). The bomber was a young teenaged boy. In an interview, his father acknowledged his role. He had oriented (brainwashed?) the son, and had strapped on the dynamite vest. He had sent his son off to die, and, more to the point, to kill more innocents. And I sat there listening, beyond belief. It requires a theatrical suspension of disbelief to listen and pretend to understand how a father could raise a child so as to die in the cause of some irrational belief system. How could anyone do that? And how could any religion sanction such an action? Are we in some kind of time warp that people would act this way toward one another?

And how do we reverse such an awful trend?

The talking heads don’t personally strap dynamite vests on young children. That requires a sacrilegious madness. And we seem to have a never ending supply of such madmen. But the talking heads do inspire fear, and they inspire anger toward, in our case, the people at the top of our government who actually are attempting to solve the mess created by the prior ideologues of the right. Whether they will indeed succeed, or the world instead collapses of its own debt load remains uncertain. But somehow, we, the world at large who sit by daily and watch and listen to the madness around us, need to consider how we can begin acting in an enlightened manner towards one another.

Morality does not mean bending others toward your will. Morality requires listening to the grievances of the poor, the sick, the children, the elderly and then thinking about what mankind can do to alleviate hunger and disease, and suffering. Morality does not involve telling gays and lesbians that they cannot and should not live like the rest of mankind. Morality requires that we attempt to understand rather than condemn them. Morality does not require trying to convince non-Christians to become Christian.  Instead it requires us to rejoice in the knowledge that others have found for themselves their own paths to enlightenment. 

Before George Bush and his supporters, the United States was the wealthiest nation on earth. Should we ever return to such a position, perhaps we should consider how to use some of that wealth to alleviate distress, rather than using it to build bigger and faster bombers. It is not that bombers will never be needed, but that they should be the last resort, rather than the first.

And the make-believe news media. Ahh, yes the media. They make too much money and spread too much distress. They are our Chicken Littles. We need to switch them off.

Yes, that’s it. The little channel changer, or maybe even the off switch.  Go get a book instead, preferably not one written by that Coulter creature.