Ever since I arrived to the United States in 1981, every Mid-term, or Presidential Election was the: Do, or Die Time! The constant message has been that we either elect this, or that, or the other candidate or else we are done for, the country will collapse and all hell will break loose! The Sensationalist Yentas of the Mainstream Media hype up Election Events – as they do all other Events – and become agitated, breathless and hyperventilating all over the place. Meanwhile, most people are just going about their lives oblivious to the resounding alarms that this is it! This is: Do, or Die Time! Actually, it is Not! Throughout every Election that I have witnessed, most of the Candidates remain the old, fossilized Politicians, entrenched in their Capitol Hill Offices with hardly Any Change other than the Superfluous in their Policies. How on earth do we continue to reelect them? One President Exits the stage after enacting some New Laws, Rules, or Regulations, another one from the Opposing Party Enters and Upends most of what his Predecessor had done and so it goes! Taxes Up, Taxes Down . . . who the hell knows anymore? Round and Round while the Real People’s Concerns and Issues remain languishing, festering, unresolved! If that wasn’t the case, we wouldn’t be in this conundrum that we are in! And, barely is the Election over when the Politicians retire under the Capitol Hill Dome and begin divvying up the Spoils of War: raising their wages and perks in the middle of the night while we are all sleeping; huddling with the thousands of lobbyists clamoring at their doors waiting to write the three and four hundred paged bills that hardly any politician reads (I cringe when I think of how many trees are sacrificed!), but simply signs off on as they watch their coffers expand and as they call up their financial advisors to buy the stocks that the upcoming bill will benefit; giving talks, writing books, schmoozing with the influential, making those coveted television appearances! I guarantee you that there would not have been so much discontent in the nation from both the Left, the Middle and the Right had they been paying more attention to the People’s Issues rather than their own Selfish Concerns! It is quite sad!
Frankly, I think this nation owes Donald Trump a Debt of Gratitude for managing to uncover the lid and unveil so much scum that has been swirling about for decades, and that none of us paid any real attention to, especially the Mainstream Media that is supposed to look out for the People and hold Politicians to Account. Fat chance that this would really happen! Moreover, as long as Money is the Corrupting Driving Force behind our Politics – the amounts that have been poured into this election are nauseating! – the People will be left behind. All The people! It is not that No one should be making money. Certainly, we all need to make money: Corporations do; Politicians do, Everyone does! However, there is Reasonable and Acceptable, and then there is Merciless Greed and Profiteering at the Expense of Everything and Everyone Else ensuing in Political Corruption; Proliferation of Drugs and all aspects of the Drug Trade; Trafficking in Humans, Guns and Everything Else! The Motto seems to be: I’ll do Anything for Power and Money. Ethics and Morality be Damned! And thus it plays out touching and contaminating all of our lives. The Fact that Climate Change does not affect Blue States more than Red; that Pandemics do not attack Republicans, but not Democrats; that Poverty, Joblessness and Homelessness are not hallmarks of the Left and not the Right; that this deep sense of Insecurity that we are All feeling is not Socialist, or Capitalist; that we have been let down by inept leadership is not a question of which Party we belong to, but that All of Us are targets for these adversities and societal ills.
However, they are saying that this Mid-term Election is different; that this time it really is Do, or Die Time; that the choice is between a Democratic Republic or an Authoritarian Regime. Honestly, I don’t know about that. There is no doubt that the White, Christian, Supremacist, Greedy, Arrogant, Power-hungry contingent in our nation, as well as their ignorant, malleable minions, has never been as overtly virulent as it has been recently. Will their version of the US of A prevail? We will find out soon enough. However, even should they succeed, the American People, as a whole, will eventually – eventually, eventually! – find their Mojo, realize that they were used and demand a Democratic, Just government where there is Equality and Fairness in addressing All Citizens’ Concerns. How long will it take for this to occur? I cannot read the tea leaves. I simply know that it will, because, I guess, Hope Springs Eternal? Although judging from our human traits since Abraham, nothing much has changed, except maybe, we have become even more vicious! Quite terrible!
Meanwhile, Vote! Vote for Ethical, Moral Humans not only for the Mid-term Elections or Presidential Elections, but for Every Election from your School Board to the Sheriff to Every Single One of Them!
Good luck, America! You, and all of Us, are going to need a whole lot of it on every level, plus a massive dose of Chill Pills to get us through all this horrible mess!
My Seventy Year Old Eyes 