Today’s date is March 22, 2021. The headline in the Houston Chronicle reads, “Another migrant surge building at the border.” Four months ago the Southern border was closed, migrants seeking asylum were forced to remain in Mexico while their claims were being investigated and the drug cartels south of the border were being controlled to an unprecedented extent. Now those drug cartels are in control of the border. Not my words but those of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, President of Mexico. By his own admission he can no longer control the cartels. What a difference four months can make.

In just the past few days China has openly insulted our diplomats during a meeting in Alaska and Iran has threatened harm to the Army’s vice chief of staff and has discussed plans to blow up Ft. McNair in Washington D.C.. In a rapid turn of events America has come to be perceived as weak and is the laughing stock of the world. Four months, and a Presidential election has made quite a difference in our nation.

The humor is gone, the comedians have all exited stage left and the haters have replaced them. The late night shows and that god-father of comedy, Saturday Night Live, no longer offer up the deep belly laughs they were famous for. Dark political “comedy routines” have replaced the writing of those comic geniuses whose work used to hold sway on the evening TV tubes.

I realize that those who engage with WordPress prefer a lighter fare. This is a site better known for pleasant anecdotes, poetry and floral images. I too would prefer to consume from that dish but the times have changed. We have serious problems, life changing problems, and each of us must decide whether we keep our heads in the sand and merely hope that things will improve or do we seriously discuss how to make a difference.

The unpleasant truth is that the oligarchs have taken over the federal government. We can blame the Democrats, we can blame the Republicans but neither approach goes to the root cause of the problem. Deep State, The Establishment, Big Tech, The Oligarchy, Socialists, Communists, RINO’s Tree Huggers, whatever label you like, it’s all rhetoric.

The problem is that there exists a loose affiliation of disparate interests who have as their only point in common a desire to see the American system of governance fail. There is no need for a conspiracy, each branch of the Destroy America Tree will follow the same path out of self interest. That path is to control the narrative by controlling the media. Jeff Bezos didn’t buy the Washington Post because he liked the smell of printer’s ink.

Another truth is that we had the closest thing possible to an effective President in Donald J. Trump. Just compare the events of today with those of four months ago. The media as a monolithic structure was told to destroy him and they succeeded in creating a hydra-headed monster of misinformation. It should be obvious by now that no amount of hating Trump is going to put this country back on a path to prosperity. That will require an honest government free from outside interference by those interested in shredding the Constitution.

You can’t hate away the pandemic but you can claim that the simple act of calling covid “The China Virus” is powerful enough to gin up hatred for all Asians. You can say that uttering the words, “peacefully assemble to make our voices heard,” is sufficient to start an insurrection but you can’t hate the man enough to cause the current administration to pull down the razor wire surrounding the Capitol and send the National Guard home.

It may be that we have already burned the final bridge, that it is too late to wrest the reins of government from the hands of the special interests. Money talks and politicians generally listen. All one needs to do is examine the revolving door between government and the K Street lobbying industry to understand how deeply in the pocket of the special interests all of government has volunteered itself to be.

I realize that I am a voice crying in the wilderness. My greatest hope is that perhaps my words will inspire one person, that individual who has an idea of how to grasp this sorry scheme of things entire and mold it closer to the ideal of the America we used to have and that he or she will step up to the podium and become another voice crying in the wilderness and that this might be repeated until we make a noise that cannot be ignored.

And then I would like to go back to posting excerpts from my poetry books.

If you got this far, thank you for reading and please consider adding your voice to the search for viable answers. America needs you.