America is in dire distress today. Within hours, America as I recognize, know and love it, will be over, if the Senate votes to acquit 45. Precedents will have been set that effectively end the separation of powers, and end the rule of law. The current POTUS, and future presidents, will have free reign to be lawless. They also will not be subject to congressional oversight. Our country, the heart and soul of which are the rule of law and the separation of powers, will be effectively ended.
The great American experiment will be over. We had a good run. We had a beautiful run. We had a lot of ugliness and wrong in our history but also a LOT of awesome goodness, high ideals, and much that was so beautiful.
So many gave so much, in so many ways, to envision, create, and continue to try to make America a more perfect union. In minutes, to hours, that will be over.
We will still be in the same physical place. The same beautiful, breathtaking land. We will still be called The United States of America. But it will all be over.
Just like that: no war. No guns. Just like that. Goodbye, my beautiful, beloved country. I'm so sorry we couldn't save you.
Friday, January 31, 2020
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Brave New World
In response to me posting last night on Facebook that I feel I’m watching the end of my country, watching Mitch McConnell and the complicit Republican-controlled Senate refuse to allow witnesses and documents in the impeachment trial, several friends said we need to focus on November. Focus on the 2020 presidential election, they encourage and urge. I started to write a response to them on Facebook, but it turned into this blog entry instead:
By November, long before November, nothing will matter, attempting-to-save-America-wise, if 45 isn’t removed from office by the Senate in the impeachment trial. It breaks my heart to write that, but it is true. Oh, you can be d*mn sure I’ll lovingly cast my primary vote in March for my hero, Bernie Sanders. And you can be (fairly) sure that I will also cast my vote in the November general election, as I have done in every single election since I came of age in 1980. But for the first time, I will agree with people who have always previously infuriated me by saying: “It doesn’t matter”. They always previously infuriated me by saying that because it always previously DID matter. It mattered very, very, very much. Anyone who doesn’t see that now, never will. But by November, it likely actually won’t matter anymore. Because, if 45 is not removed by the Senate, if the senate impeachment trial is just a complicit, rigged exercise in suppression of evidence, our constitution will have been crushed, and we will have no rule of law in this country. A terrible precedent will have been set, that we can never unset: we will go from being a representative democracy to being a dictatorship, in which an American President does not have to follow the constitution or any laws. He or she can do whatever he or she wants. That is called a dictatorship. Let that sink in.
I was lying in bed, in the dead of night last night, realizing that, very soon, by the end of the Senate impeachment trial, we will know if we still have a country, a recognizable America. And, if we don’t, if our country as we know it is about to be gone, that “future” is coming up, as I said, very soon. It hit me: in just days, I could be living in a dictatorship. Right now, it’s still a possibility that might happen “in the future”, yet that future is now just days away! I could, and it is looking like I likely will, wake up one morning very soon and find myself not in my beloved America, but in a dictatorship.
This is similar to Germany in the 1930’s, which was a modern, western country in which, for example, the German Jewish population was very, very, very well integrated. They, rightly, absolutely considered themselves to be Germans. They (and the “they” here is very personal for me, as it includes my Mom’s side of my own family—we are directly descended from German Jews…my Grandma grew up speaking English and German) went back many, many generations in Germany. But suddenly they were “other” and they were the scapegoats, along with political dissidents, homosexuals, artists and other minorities (but Hitler’s main target was Jews). How safe will any of us be in our “new” America, the day after the Senate acquits Donald J. Trump?
I’m scared of waking up the day after. I’m scared of the new America and I’m already heartbroken for my beautiful country. I’m already starting to mourn the America I recognize and cherish with all my heart and soul, which is taking its dying breaths right now, as we speak. The dying breaths are Adam Schiff, heroically arguing on the Senate floor, and the other Democratic impeachment managers doing the same. The dying breaths are us, we, the people, calling our Senators and begging for a fair trial, with witnesses and documents. The dying breathes are us, daring to hope for the 2020 election, when the reality is, it will all be OVER at that point if there is not a fair Senate impeachment trial right now, and if 45 is not removed from office.
Over. No “war”. No battlefield. Just a useful idiot with a dangerous psychiatric makeup, a foreign enemy with very sophisticated methods to pull said idiot’s--and all of our--strings, a decimated government, now populated with a few brave patriots trying to save it but being overpowered by a lot of complicit stooges, placed in key roles, who are now poised on the brink of laying waste to our constitution, our rule of law, our separation of powers, our free press, and the power of we, the people, to resist. And those things I just listed that are being laid to waste as we speak? Those are the whole enchilada, people: those ARE America, those are what make our country our country.
I lay there last night and all of this really hit me. This is happening. Now. America is dying, being murdered in front of my very eyes. We are all witnessing the murder of a loved one. And, we will likely wake up one morning very soon, and our loved one will be gone. Just like that. And we will be left here, in a Brave New World.
By November, long before November, nothing will matter, attempting-to-save-America-wise, if 45 isn’t removed from office by the Senate in the impeachment trial. It breaks my heart to write that, but it is true. Oh, you can be d*mn sure I’ll lovingly cast my primary vote in March for my hero, Bernie Sanders. And you can be (fairly) sure that I will also cast my vote in the November general election, as I have done in every single election since I came of age in 1980. But for the first time, I will agree with people who have always previously infuriated me by saying: “It doesn’t matter”. They always previously infuriated me by saying that because it always previously DID matter. It mattered very, very, very much. Anyone who doesn’t see that now, never will. But by November, it likely actually won’t matter anymore. Because, if 45 is not removed by the Senate, if the senate impeachment trial is just a complicit, rigged exercise in suppression of evidence, our constitution will have been crushed, and we will have no rule of law in this country. A terrible precedent will have been set, that we can never unset: we will go from being a representative democracy to being a dictatorship, in which an American President does not have to follow the constitution or any laws. He or she can do whatever he or she wants. That is called a dictatorship. Let that sink in.
I was lying in bed, in the dead of night last night, realizing that, very soon, by the end of the Senate impeachment trial, we will know if we still have a country, a recognizable America. And, if we don’t, if our country as we know it is about to be gone, that “future” is coming up, as I said, very soon. It hit me: in just days, I could be living in a dictatorship. Right now, it’s still a possibility that might happen “in the future”, yet that future is now just days away! I could, and it is looking like I likely will, wake up one morning very soon and find myself not in my beloved America, but in a dictatorship.
This is similar to Germany in the 1930’s, which was a modern, western country in which, for example, the German Jewish population was very, very, very well integrated. They, rightly, absolutely considered themselves to be Germans. They (and the “they” here is very personal for me, as it includes my Mom’s side of my own family—we are directly descended from German Jews…my Grandma grew up speaking English and German) went back many, many generations in Germany. But suddenly they were “other” and they were the scapegoats, along with political dissidents, homosexuals, artists and other minorities (but Hitler’s main target was Jews). How safe will any of us be in our “new” America, the day after the Senate acquits Donald J. Trump?
I’m scared of waking up the day after. I’m scared of the new America and I’m already heartbroken for my beautiful country. I’m already starting to mourn the America I recognize and cherish with all my heart and soul, which is taking its dying breaths right now, as we speak. The dying breaths are Adam Schiff, heroically arguing on the Senate floor, and the other Democratic impeachment managers doing the same. The dying breaths are us, we, the people, calling our Senators and begging for a fair trial, with witnesses and documents. The dying breathes are us, daring to hope for the 2020 election, when the reality is, it will all be OVER at that point if there is not a fair Senate impeachment trial right now, and if 45 is not removed from office.
Over. No “war”. No battlefield. Just a useful idiot with a dangerous psychiatric makeup, a foreign enemy with very sophisticated methods to pull said idiot’s--and all of our--strings, a decimated government, now populated with a few brave patriots trying to save it but being overpowered by a lot of complicit stooges, placed in key roles, who are now poised on the brink of laying waste to our constitution, our rule of law, our separation of powers, our free press, and the power of we, the people, to resist. And those things I just listed that are being laid to waste as we speak? Those are the whole enchilada, people: those ARE America, those are what make our country our country.
I lay there last night and all of this really hit me. This is happening. Now. America is dying, being murdered in front of my very eyes. We are all witnessing the murder of a loved one. And, we will likely wake up one morning very soon, and our loved one will be gone. Just like that. And we will be left here, in a Brave New World.
I Feel I'm Watching The End of My Country
McConnell is refusing to allow witnesses and documents. And the Republican Senators are complicit. I feel I'm watching the end of my country.
Sunday, January 19, 2020
Bending Toward Justice
Tomorrow is a national holiday to honor the life, work and accomplishments, and teachings of Martin Luther King, Jr., who is one of just a handful of people I call a hero of mine.
I have been working since the 1980's, so since before there was a federal holiday honoring Dr. King. In all these years, decades, of my working life, which include all the years that have had a federal holiday for MLK, I have never worked for one organization that gave that day off as a company holiday. To me, that is but one small sign, among many, many signs, small and huge, that we still have much work to do, re bringing to reality the totality of MLK's dream. No, he didn't dream of a day to honor him, but of a country that lived by his (which are really our, as a nation's, highest) ideals. And such a country, in my opinion, would have more workplaces that actually closed manana to honor him. Anyway:
Tomorrow is the first MLK Day that I happen to be taking the day off. I have a dentist appointment early in the a.m., and I hope to be done in time to make it to meet up with members of my church, who will be departing from my church to head over to the city's MLK Day Parade! I've never gone to one before. It's about time.
Martin, America is in dire trouble right now. So many of us, though, so many of us who were the black children and white children you spoke about in your "I Have a Dream" speech at the time, are carrying on your work and trying to make the dream come all the way true. Much has happened that you dreamed of, maybe even some that you didn't even think possible, yet so much more is still yet to heal, yet to get to that mountaintop. But tomorrow, those black children and white children, all grown up now, will indeed join hands as you dreamed for us in 1963, when we were just babies, and we will commit ourselves anew to fighting for justice for all, and we will sing together, with the children of today, let freedom ring.
I have been working since the 1980's, so since before there was a federal holiday honoring Dr. King. In all these years, decades, of my working life, which include all the years that have had a federal holiday for MLK, I have never worked for one organization that gave that day off as a company holiday. To me, that is but one small sign, among many, many signs, small and huge, that we still have much work to do, re bringing to reality the totality of MLK's dream. No, he didn't dream of a day to honor him, but of a country that lived by his (which are really our, as a nation's, highest) ideals. And such a country, in my opinion, would have more workplaces that actually closed manana to honor him. Anyway:
Tomorrow is the first MLK Day that I happen to be taking the day off. I have a dentist appointment early in the a.m., and I hope to be done in time to make it to meet up with members of my church, who will be departing from my church to head over to the city's MLK Day Parade! I've never gone to one before. It's about time.
Martin, America is in dire trouble right now. So many of us, though, so many of us who were the black children and white children you spoke about in your "I Have a Dream" speech at the time, are carrying on your work and trying to make the dream come all the way true. Much has happened that you dreamed of, maybe even some that you didn't even think possible, yet so much more is still yet to heal, yet to get to that mountaintop. But tomorrow, those black children and white children, all grown up now, will indeed join hands as you dreamed for us in 1963, when we were just babies, and we will commit ourselves anew to fighting for justice for all, and we will sing together, with the children of today, let freedom ring.
Wednesday, January 8, 2020
Praying for Tikkun Olam
They (Iran) are being reasonable and measured in their response (see CNN article linked at bottom of this blog entry) to 45's provocative, unconstitutional action last week. They also sent a very clear communique afterward, stating that we can let this be the end of it, they don't want war.
I pray that 45 will not do what he previously threatened, namely striking 52 targets if they retaliate for what he did. If he does, they have now said they will strike targets in other nations, such as Haifa, Israel. I fear, if that happens, not only will we be at war with Iran, we will be witnessing the opening salvos of World War III.
On a personal note, my heritage on my Mom's side of the family is Jewish. The Israeli people are my people. I have been to Haifa (it is actually my favorite city in Israel...that is probably how you can tell I was not raised Jewish, as most people who were would immediately say Jerusalem, if asked which city is their favorite in Israel). My heart stops in its tracks when I hear that Iran has said it will strike Haifa.
I remember how I felt when Iraq sent SCUD missiles into Israel. Indescribable feeling, like the hairs standing up on the back of your neck, only magnified a thousandfold. I'm American to the core, yet also Jewish (and Unitarian--hey, it's complicated...and wonderful...many Americans are individual melting pots unto themselves), so today I feel concern for both of my people: my American people, and my Jewish people in Israel. I also feel concern for the Iranians, the Iraqis, the Palestinians, and everyone in the region and, frankly, our world.
I know 45 is a sociopath, a mercenary, and a Russian asset on top of all that, so he doesn't care. There is absolutely no point in anyone attempting to appeal to his humanity or his "better angel", as he has neither. We don't have a President. We have the three items I just listed in sentence number one of this paragraph. No one sane or moral is steering our powerful ship of state right now. And I'm seeing something far more dangerous than an iceberg (which sounds so peaceful and beautiful compared to what we are looking at here) ahead.
I pray for tikkun olam (Hebrew for: to mend, heal and repair the world).
I pray that 45 will not do what he previously threatened, namely striking 52 targets if they retaliate for what he did. If he does, they have now said they will strike targets in other nations, such as Haifa, Israel. I fear, if that happens, not only will we be at war with Iran, we will be witnessing the opening salvos of World War III.
On a personal note, my heritage on my Mom's side of the family is Jewish. The Israeli people are my people. I have been to Haifa (it is actually my favorite city in Israel...that is probably how you can tell I was not raised Jewish, as most people who were would immediately say Jerusalem, if asked which city is their favorite in Israel). My heart stops in its tracks when I hear that Iran has said it will strike Haifa.
I remember how I felt when Iraq sent SCUD missiles into Israel. Indescribable feeling, like the hairs standing up on the back of your neck, only magnified a thousandfold. I'm American to the core, yet also Jewish (and Unitarian--hey, it's complicated...and wonderful...many Americans are individual melting pots unto themselves), so today I feel concern for both of my people: my American people, and my Jewish people in Israel. I also feel concern for the Iranians, the Iraqis, the Palestinians, and everyone in the region and, frankly, our world.
I know 45 is a sociopath, a mercenary, and a Russian asset on top of all that, so he doesn't care. There is absolutely no point in anyone attempting to appeal to his humanity or his "better angel", as he has neither. We don't have a President. We have the three items I just listed in sentence number one of this paragraph. No one sane or moral is steering our powerful ship of state right now. And I'm seeing something far more dangerous than an iceberg (which sounds so peaceful and beautiful compared to what we are looking at here) ahead.
I pray for tikkun olam (Hebrew for: to mend, heal and repair the world).
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