Rethink It!

These past two weeks I have been feeling as if I am one of the thousands of Extras cast in an Epic Movie, although while watching the ugly Hordes of Attila’s Huns storming our Capitol, I was helpless to rewrite the awful script, recast the horrid actors, or fire the Producer and Director! It has been quite surreal!

The whole world was watching in disbelief and alarm, and I wonder what World Political and Corporate leaders were thinking behind the scenes, away from the microphones and photo ops? Were they worried that the Trump Virus will cross the Atlantic and infest them while anticipating their own Zealots aping the US events? Might any one of them say to themselves: Let’s Rethink It? Let us Rethink that corrupt script with which we have been conducting our affairs on our Nationals, as well as Internationally, for far too long? That script which is causing so much turmoil, anger, insecurity, and inequality all over the world? Yes, different people may express their protestations in different ways; in other parts of the world they might rally under a different umbrella; they might have varying mantras and reasons; but, at the heart of what has been going wrong and driving people to act out in ways that are threatening all of us is the fact that the Political and Corporate Leadership of the World has been failing us dramatically thus leaving the door wide open for Opportunistic Strongmen to step in and pretend they are White Knights! It really is high time to Rethink It!

The demands of people all over the world are really simple:

1. A Decent Job that can provide them and their families with Dignity and Self Respect.
2. Short of a Decent Job, providing a Living Wage through which human beings can pay for sustenance  and a roof over their heads.
3. Guaranteed Medical Care.
4. Equality and Justice across the board.
5. An Environment that provides clean air, clean water and organic sustainable foods so that they won’t succumb to avoidable diseases.

It is Really, Really Simple and Achievable, if only there was a moral Political and Corporate Leadership with a willingness to serve the People before they continue serving themselves and the institutions they have erected to support their selfish, greedy and arrogant endeavors.

As Attila’s Huns went on their anarchist rampage, I thought of all those other Protestors worldwide. Throughout our modern history when People’s Discontent flowed onto the streets there were those with pure intentions and valid demands who were inevitably joined by those with bad intentions, with infiltrators, with rebels-without-a-cause who are in it for the thrill, and with other hangers-on and bad actors. It has happened in all the protestations and revolutions that I have been witnessing throughout my life. What happened in Washington, DC was no different. I am absolutely certain that of the 74 million (or so) who voted for Trump – whether it is because they are die-hard Republicans, or Conservatives, or because they approved of some of the things that he said and did – most were appalled and repulsed at the horrific nightmare evolving in the heart of the democratic world. Nevertheless, it is the nature of coexistence and the essence of conciliation not to exclude them from the nation’s catharsis going forward, despite their misguided, racist, supremacist and fascist thinking.

At the end of the day, the democratic world has mostly embraced multiculturalism rendering extremism and extremists out of fashion and not tolerated anymore except by dictators, strongmen and the henchmen that advance their sordid agendas, such as we have been witnessing in Washington, DC as well as elsewhere. Ordinary people have had enough violence and hate in all their wicked forms. More than at any time previously, it seems that this is becoming a lawless world, a dangerous world, a world where many are in it for themselves regardless of consequences, and their role models, unfortunately, are the corrupt leadership on every level of society! This has to change right away, because, obviously, corruption has been trickling down!

Last weekend, my daughters, granddaughter and I took a drive down to Washington, DC. We drove all over so excited by landmarks that we used to frequent, places we used to work, or have activist meetings and events at, and the theaters and nightclubs that provided terrific entertainment. We were feeling nostalgic for a past during which we enjoyed so many aspects of our Capital. We felt pride in belonging at such close proximity to what has become the world’s symbol of freedom and democracy, a symbol that  the glaringly immature Attila’s Hordes wanted to eradicate in order to replace it with a racist, fascist, uncivilized regime. How embarrassing! How shameful! How very sad! For myself, and the many immigrants like me who had self-exiled due to strife, insecurity and lawlessness in our home countries, it is even more sad and disconcerting.

Lastly, let me just state that I hope Amtrak-Joe (one of Biden’s aliases according to some who have witnessed him riding the train – and not a limo – from Delaware to DC for umpteen years) will disappear from my television and just do his job as humbly and unobtrusively as he rode Amtrak; that he will Not Twitter at all; that he will do something about the inexcusable Supreme Court decision that “Corporations are People” which has corrupted and tainted all our political process; that there be no scandals, or dramas to raise my blood pressure every morning while giving the MSM actors and stuffed shirts – who have been royally profiting from Trump’s Presidency, – ammunition with which to continue bombarding me with their emoting, sensationalism, bias and feigned indignation! I hope Biden will just continue being a Nice Guy and play Nice with the rest of the world, because the whole planet needs a reprieve; a recess, a pause to recuperate while it heals itself from a draconian climate onslaught; a lethal Virus that is continuing to ravage it; and a whole lot of mourning, grief and insecurity that is gnawing at its very core, as well as an unsettling sense for its billions of humans that Equality and Justice are only meant for the Chosen Few! That’s just not right, not fair, not moral, not humane, not democratic! Unacceptable!

From Palestine to Kashmir, from Venezuela to Lebanon, and from London to the US human beings are simply exhausted by not being heard, acknowledged, addressed. It is reprehensible, unfathomable and uncivilized. It has got to change! I cannot change it. You cannot change it. The Power of Responsible and Ethical Political, Corporate, Religious and Media Leadership must lead the way and Rethink It! Rethink the whole way we have been dealing with each other as people, as nations and as a planet. They must have the Courage to call out Corruption wherever they see it – and we have had quite a few Brave and Moral Heroes and Heroines who have done exactly that recently. May their numbers multiply! Meanwhile, let us all Rethink It while fervently hoping that the next week in our nation will go by without Attila’s Huns bloodying us all!

Stay Safe and Stay Strong!