Despite GOP hypocrisy, Wells Fargo top executive’s shell-game and Mafia family like coup at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, no one is about to stand over America singing, Oh Danny Boy– unless We the People, forgetting horrors of war, elect administrations that neither know how to count, nor the history of gas warfare or the demons of chemical weapons.
It is for us whether to empower those who neither know nor care, elevate alternative realities centered more on the art of the deal than the democracy of the humanities – or prevail as the United States of America, albeit inconsistently.
However, ignoring national lessons in international history, most recently we have damaged the infrastructure of our constitutional foundations by electing an insulated gang with limited vision, walled in by narrow ideology failing both past sacrifice and future promise.
When too many Americans turned their back on our electoral process, the fix was in for America First, white-washing our responsibilities, whether to the great barrier reef or humanity’s historic loss in wars inflicted on innocent millions by the infamous. Yes, charity begins at home, but humanity is our home.
So, placing our trust in the hands of leaders for whom sincerity is a well scripted prompter performance, is not only, the Emperor has no clothes but his friendly relative support, pickpocketing our national conscience and international memories.
When our Holy Week faith is corrupted by those who ban children begging for help, in the shadow of a despot’s scythe, we welcome moral decay -- worshipping an impulsive grim reaper more politically opportunistic than product of epiphany.
We know even a WWI weapon of mass destruction can be conveniently manipulated to raise unprecedented presidential poll numbers – breeding faith in false prophets, reducing otherwise discerning adults into children blissfully gullible to a pied piper defaming humanities holy history with the sarin clouds of Reactionary Nostalgia.
Our Vital National Interests are not in nighttime streamers, but in realizing demagogues, Putin, Assad and Kim Jong-un are more transparent than the red glare of Trump’s Tomahawks.
Questions…
How did Assad’s April chemical attack threaten U. S. Security? With rebels all but defeated, why would he choose such an unnecessary public display of his power over defenseless women and children? What message was Assad sending and why?
Why would a president inspire anti-NATO and anti-U.N. suspicions in America?
How could the communication conduit for president, press and public be so utterly oblivious to war crimes that devastated generations of humankind?
Why is it the Trump team can’t claim success without denigrating Obama?
Isn’t American greatness measured by how well all Americans progress forward in an ensemble of diversity and intellectual curiosity, or in insisting future greatness is reviving the past with selective memory.
Is there greatness in repetitive pre-emptive invasions, violating programs that feed hungry children, assailing security of the elderly and enabling domestic violence, while covering up Russian digital intrigue?
Is it possible, revering people like, J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Nixon, William Rehnquist, Clarence Thomas, Grover Norquist, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Jack Abramoff, Bernard Madoff, Stephen K. Bannon, Jeff Sessions, Rex Tillerson, Andy Puzder and Scott Pruitt endangers us constitutionally?
Aren’t there better lessons from Douglas MacArthur than a president thinking bombing North Korea, while dining with China’s President would intimidate a world power deeply rooted in history?
On April 9, 1865 Generals Grant & Lee met at Appomattox Court House and wrote their individual versions of a peaceful end to America's Civil War. Each then exchanged their 'treaties,’ and with a parting handshake, Lee’s troops lay down their arms and headed home, while Grant’s troops saluted them.
Honor & war are comparatively rare bedfellows. Thankfully, however, most days, both Main and Wall Street produce Americans more like Martin Sheen & Don Siegelman than Karl Rove & Robert J. Bentley – and at least as many pilots like, Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenbergers, than presidents like, Trump.
Amidst the cheers celebrating the end of our Civil War, Lincoln was assassinated, dying Easter Sunday April 15, 1865. So why are we now settling for impulsive discord and inept historical consciousness, while the foundation of America’s greatness is in our civility, unity and reason?