Skip to main content

Utter Dismay and Disgust

Most of my news and current events coverage comes from my remarkable group of friends on Facebook. I realize how absurd that sounds to put out to the world. I am fortunate to have a strongly academic and well-read group of friends on FB and their posts bring to my attention an excellent array of articles about what was happening in the US during and after the 2016 election. Not to mention that I am a Wellesley alumna, so I'm tapped in to all those "secret" Facebook groups in support of our famous alumna sister, Hillary.

I find myself more and more frustrated, dismayed, and outright disgusted by what is happening in the US. Part of that is my bubble - the limitations of what I hear and read and with whom I interact. And part of my attempt to avoid too much bubble-time is to work with the materials I have been reading and work to connect the dots myself.

I'm struck, time and time again, by the utter chutzpa of the Republican party (which one can very well argue has been hijacked first by the Evangelical Right and then by the Tea Party) and their current Congressional leader - Mitch McConnell. Gosh, if I were his mom, he'd be in such a time out he would never make it to another vote, being buried under all the apology notes he'd have to write for his poor behavior.

We see today that not only is the Republican President, Donald Trump, working tirelessly to dismantle the government, he is also using it as his own money tree. How many of our hard earned, and hard paid tax dollars are going to Trump properties when he or his family are there on vacation or when foreign dignitaries or secret service agents are forced to use those properties? I hear they are paying inflated prices, but I haven't had a chance to fact check that. Adding insult, how many of the programs we are hearing are to be defunded (Meals on Wheels, Planned Parenthood, PBS, NPR, etc) receive the same amount of Federal Funding as Republican President Trump spends on a weekend at Mar-a-Lago? Strange math, for sure. Thankfully at least Meals on Wheels and Planned Parenthood aren't dependent on the US government for their budget, but the cuts will hurt.

Before we can simply point all the blame at Republican President Trump, we must first step back a phase of leadership and look at how the Republicans treated President Obama. The subtle and constant disrespect and derision that was shown President Obama needs to be called the racism that it is. It is simply remarkable that President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama could "go high" when others "go low". Such dignity and composure in the face of hatred and racism in 2016 is commendable.

So we can connect the dots from the Republican treatment of President Obama, the racist and bigoted treatment, to the current dismantling and raiding of the Federal Government and coffers, by Republican President Trump. They are together, behaviors cut from the same cloth - the hatred, bigotry, and racism (not to mention the misogyny) are so deeply ingrained that we cannot even see them much of the time.

How dare Senator McConnell think he could violate the spirit of the Constitution and not at least offer Judge Garland a hearing? Because Senator McConnell is so deeply buried in this malicious mind-set that he could not see the harm he was doing. His narrow-mindedness and lack of foresight in his treatment of both President Obama and Judge Garland set the stage for our reality now. His unctuous behavior created a template of validation for what Republican President Trump (and his puppet masters) is doing now. Alas, if only Senator McConnell's mother could send him to his room, grounded until he wrote apology letters to all those he has hurt or offended.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Macher or Schmoozer?

I'm working my way slowly through the book Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam . In a nutshell, which has to be pretty big because it's a hefty book, it's about social behaviors and the decline of them in the US - things like voting and participating in the political process at all levels, and engaging with volunteer and community efforts. Chapter six looks at Informal Social Connections. At paragraph two of the chapter he mentions the Yiddish words macher and schmoozer . That stopped me in my tracks for a moment. He continued to explain that fundamentally a macher is a doer, someone who makes things happen in the community. Whereas a schmoozer is a talker, a person with an active social life, someone who focuses on informal connections to others. And while it is certainly nice to sit and talk with someone, at the end of the day that's all a schmoozer does. Alternatively, the macher will sit and visit with you and then either your roped into helping or the macher...
Post a Comment
Read more

Taking the time

Last night I went to a talk given by Dr. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg last night. She spoke about guilt, atonement, and intimacy. My takeaway from this evening, even as I am still unraveling what she laid out for us is as follows. Elul has been described as like a bird hovering over a nest - waiting, ready to arrive, not yet there, but at the same time present. From this point she moved to the relationship between G-d and Moshe. After all of Moshe's hard work to build, carefully, diligently, the Tent of Meeting (אוהל מועד), Moshe remains outside, as if hovering over the nest, waiting to enter, unable to enter. Calling to others - as G-d calls to Moshe - is our way of calling attention to the other with whom we want to speak. Saying a person's name indicates that we have a desire to speak to her and elevates the communication, adding impact and intimacy of the conversation. Interestingly when Israelis talk to each other there is always a great amount of time asking each other...
Post a Comment
Read more

A very fine line

There is a remarkably fine line between making excuses and offering explanations. It can be quite challenging to know the difference and that confusion can lead to difficulties. We work hard to help our children learn the difference between making an excuse for behavior versus offering an explanation to help figure out how or why something happened. Sometimes it is helpful to get the background but sometimes it just confuses matters. The balance between excuse and explain is similar to the one I have been pondering between blame and responsibility. Sometimes when we are trying to assign responsibility we actually end up placing blame. Both are a bit of a slippery slope that we should only start down with great caution. Strangely the challenge of excuses versus explanations is more easily addressed with children, which also tells me that it's more commonly understood as opposed to blame versus responsibility. We'd all do better to see the fine line between the two.
Post a Comment
Read more