So, anyway...I guess I've been avoiding an issue. The human race is currently dealing with a situation we haven't dealt with since 1945. Thousands of people around the world are suffering from a virus. It has affected everyone's lives just as war did eighty years ago.
Back then, the country was caught off guard by an act of war. An event that dragged us into the morass the rest of the world was already caught in. It would be many many years before humanity was clear of it. Even today, almost a century after that global disaster began, we are still affected in ways we can't even recognize. We still uncover artifacts from that time, mostly weapons and machines that are found in remote locations or buried beneath our feet. These things we find can be readily seen and measured. For the most part they end up in museums, some of them even restored to function. They provide a glimpse into a past world few remember. These, however, are only reminders. There are other, far more subtle, remnants.
Our modern world was formed in that fire. Many of our greatest hopes and most terrible fears grew from that time. Our technological achievements, global political structure and societal behaviors are almost direct results of that mad inferno. A Pandora's box, if you will, that was opened and will never be closed.
When this cataclysm occurred, certain persons in various places on the globe became key characters in a drama that no playwright, even in their wildest imagination, could conceive. The forces of good and evil, which are sometimes blurred into a gray background seemed to be clearly revealed in stark black or white. At least that is, on a major scale. On one side you had men who appeared to be the very image of Satan incarnate. On the other, heroic faulted men, leaders who worked against unimaginable odds to stop them. Many of these men were thrown into the cauldron by happenstance. The wolves came to their door and they rose to the challenge. Not necessarily because they wanted to. They had to. I think they felt they really had no other choice. "Greatness", as they say, "was thrust upon them". They could have just said, "Forget this. Hey, how about another round of golf?"
Therein lies an issue.
While some world leaders have accepted their fate, so to speak, some chose golf..Most importantly, for the US at least, ours has not. Rather then face it head-on as Washington, Lincoln. FDR, Truman, Kennedy and both Bush's, the denizen that now lurks in the White House is not up to the task. He never was. Never will be. He's not cut from the same cloth as his predecessors. He doesn't have the "stuff" that great men are made of. Many of us took him at face value, except that he has no real values. All of us are now paying the price for others shortsightedness. Some saw their own agenda in him. He has an agenda, to be sure, but not the one they thought he had. Everything is about him.
He doesn't care about your job, or your family or even America. He said anything you wanted to hear so you would support him. He did it then, he's doing it now. He does not care about abortion either way, he only wants you to believe he does. You say, "He put those conservatives in the Supreme Court". Yes he did, but not because of their personal beliefs. He put them there because they have, as the saying goes, "drank the koolaid". They are devoted to him. If they weren't he would have gotten rid of them, just as he has gotten rid of everyone who has proved disloyal. Speak before the public in some way that doesn't glorify him and you will lose your job. Fortunately at this stage, at least, you get to keep your life.
Today, a century after the second world war, the world faces another disaster of global proportions. Unlike the earlier threat, where dictators and despots tried to conquer their fellow humans with force, we are faced with an enemy we cannot identify. There are no obvious signs that allow immediate identification of the afflicted in our midst. Covid 19, the label we've given to this stealthy horror, moves rapidly through the human population. It appears in unexpected places. It follows us wherever we travel, using its unwitting human prey to further its progress across the globe. It kills indiscriminately. passing over some to take others. It has caused us to separate, isolating ourselves from each other and bringing whole societies to a standstill. Reaching far beyond its grasp, it threatens to destroy the economic backbone of our civilization. So much so that we will feel its repercussions long after we defeat it.
So we sit here on the couch, or on our lawnmowers, or in our yards and we wait. We wait for the dark cloud to pass and the sun to shine upon us once again. We wait for someone with the skills to lead us and respond to this issue in a way that counts. There are some out there, but they are currently shackled by other responsibilities they have taken on. They are often members of the wrong party who do not worship the narcissist who pretends to lead our country.
We should remember Lincolns words at Gettysburg."government of the people, by the people, for the people" when he talked about America and American freedom. Men have died for these ideas, then and many times over.. It is OUR country. It does not belong to Republicans, or Democrats or any other particular entity or institution. The people Lincoln mentions, the "the men" referred to in the Declaration includes ALL OF US. Most of us are doing our part to continue that legacy. Many of us are fighting it directly while a great many more support them, just as in that war long ago. These heroic men and women are just plain folks, your neighbors, your loved ones, your acquaintances. Some of them are complete strangers. Just like the boys at Gettysburg, the soldiers on Omaha Beach, the Marines at Guadalcanal, the sailors at Pearl Harbor. There are countless other places where Americans. believing in those words of Lincoln's, died beside other Americans who felt the same way.
Please don't let these self centered despots leave those heroic deaths in vain. Vote to take OUR country back in November.
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