Dangerous Zones

Reading tea leaves is not one of my assets, which makes me recall the Y2K (Year 2000) debacle. Remember that one? It was when “They” – those gurus of all things computerese – said that at midnight on 12/31/1999 a crash will resound throughout the planet as computers and all things dependent on them will come to a screeching halt and we will all suffer the consequences: no water, no electricity, no food, no nothing! Calamity! For months before that so many publications were sounding the alarms and listing what to hoard in order to mitigate the impending disaster. I remember frantically sending out emails to all my family and friends with those lists: nuts, tuna, sardines, freeze-dried foods, hand-crank radio, flashlights, candles, water and paranoia, paranoia, paranoia! Nothing happened! It was all a total dud! Some even said that it was a fabricated hoax. Maybe it was, but so many of us fell for it, and I, certainly, did!

And here we are today wondering whether The Squad will finally be the beginning of our short-attention-span insight as a nation, or, whether all this episode will fizzle out and dud just like the Y2K bug? Or, maybe the dud will be Mueller’s Congressional Testimony this past week which, unable to find a riveting piece of info to feed the 24/7 television frenzy, is, again, refocusing us on Russian Meddling in our Elections? With Facebook ads? Really? Again? And whomever are the geniuses that have an iron-clad proof of this “meddling,” then they should either divulge it or shut up, because in this cyber age many countries are dangerously “meddling” with each other, our US included! Frankly, I am so sick and tired of this banal topic!

Anyway, I wonder: had the MSM ignored most of the The Tweeter-in-Chief’s Tweeting would we have even been here? Would the President have continued in escalating the tit for tat to this ignoble degree? And, now he is denigrating and belittling Elijah Cummings? It certainly reeks of racist undertones, as well as being very Rude and Disgusting! And, would Trump have continued saying and doing what he has been in order to undermine human values, justice and equality simply in order to validate himself, his macho ego and his insecurities, irrelevant of the MSM’s behavior? Hindsight is 20/20, they say, though both Trump and the Media have been cannibalizing each other for the past two years, each for their own despicable agendas. Moreover, would the President have been campaigning for a second term from day one in the Oval Office while abetting the divisiveness and bigotry that he, and some in this nation, have been manifesting? Could this have been his plan to begin with, and the GOP’s complicity to sacrifice our values for the sake of their sick and obsolete platform? I don’t know. It doesn’t sound kosher, though! I just hope that all this hyperbole will not drive us to violence, as it very well could. Again, I am not good at reading tea leaves.

Personally, I was very offended by what our President uttered recently, even though I still support some of his issues much to the chagrin of some of my friends. Recently, he said that the four Congresswomen – Pressley, Omar, Tlaib, Ocasio-Cortez –  even though they are legal citizens – should go back where they came from (to those shitholes that he had previously mentioned?) if they are not happy (meaning: with the status quo) and if they continue criticizing “loudly and viciously” the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth. So, for starters, and since I, too, am a non-white fairly recent immigrant, I hereby voice my support and admiration to The Squad, and I am honored to be included with these brave women, even though I would have taken a slightly different approach to some of their concerns, especially those regarding impeachment and immigration. Nevertheless, they are young, enthusiastic, principled, conscientious, and they are fighting for their future, their children’s future, the future of this country, as well as the future of our planet. More power to them!

And, secondly, I’d love to go back and “help fix the totally broken and crime infested” place I came from. Perhaps Trump can ask Jared to talk to his bosom buddy Bibi and send me back to Jerusalem? I’ll pack my bags right now! Otherwise, I, as well as any citizen, can criticize these United States to our heart’s content on what we feel is wrongful behavior, along with the millions of writers, journalists, actors, comedians, pundits, bloggers, black, brown, and white citizens of this nation who also came from somewhere at one time or another, whether it was in the long ago, or recently. What on earth was he blabbering about then? It’s pure, naked and totally unwarranted provocation! The other totally inane sloganeering he threw out there is that anyone residing in this country has to love it. How does he measure Love? Is it measured by endorsing all his policies? His words? His deeds? The radical Republican Agenda? Is it in being a holier-than-thou white person, a colonist who still believes that we are all ignorant slaves and subjects? The fact is, that resurrecting the past will not work in today’s America, not by a long shot. After all, nothing else unites us denigrated citizens more than when we are being maligned! The Squad, and all of us who support them, love this country very much despite Trump’s put-downs, and that is precisely why we criticize the unjust path he is taking us on.

Incidentally, Bibi is using these exact same tactics. Constant provocation, stoking racism, evoking the Holocaust, fear-mongering, smearing and lying in order to continue with his government’s expropriations, murders, incarcerations, intimidation, subjugation and crimes against the Palestinian people. A pure exercise in a seventy-year reign of terror. That is precisely why I bristle when the US and the Brits talk about the “long-term security of the region,” (meaning the Middle East) because what they mean is that the region should remain under their sphere of influence and obey whatever the hell they ask of it, which is simply: suppression and colonization, albeit under the auspices of Democracy and Freedom! Similar contemptible tactics are being used by many politicians across the globe. After all, divide and rule is a pretty old tool. Hitler used it. Are Trump, Bibi, and now add Johnson to the mix, and all those other “populist” and autocratic leaders Hitler Wannabes?  How utterly vile and disgusting! Black, Brown, or White should be horrified!

Moreover, for Trump to say: “they hate Jews, they hate Israel” is so utterly pathetically reprehensible! Frankly, if I were Jewish I would be mad as hell that he is using me in an environment where racism and bigotry abound; where I can sense that similar intolerant rhetoric which led up to the Holocaust.  None of us hate Jews, Israelis, or Israel. We despise the Israeli Government and its policies. Why doesn’t he get this? Or, doesn’t he want to, because it is another slogan to rile up his zealous Evangelical base, though how that base can get excited about this is so beyond my comprehension! As for the “pervasive ignorance” that he taunted Ilhan Omar for saying, it is very true, because, as one example, if those same Evangelicals were to heed the teachings of Jesus Christ, then, they, too, would condemn some of Trump’s words and deeds.  But then, for those of us, such as Bernie, Warner, Gabbard, the Squad and all those writers, investigative journalists and citizens who would like to see a change in the culture and politics of this nation, one election, or two terms of a Presidency is not the only and ultimate goal. Much as we would like it to happen yesterday, revolutions of thought take time. However, we must start somewhere, and it has started, not only in this country, but in so many other places across the planet where people are in the streets demanding Justice and getting jailed and killed for that human and international value! Case(s) in point: Somalia, Hong Kong, Puerto Rico and now even Russia. It will be getting worse as “meddling” continues!

When will humanity demand: Enough! When will we wake up from our self-induced coma and realize that we are all in Dangerous Zones, and that today it is this Person, or the Other, this Issue, or Another, but that we will All be affected and that we had better wake up Right Now!! Actually, not only Right Now, but Yesterday! No need to read the tea leaves on this one, the stark facts are staring us in the face!