Many people in the United States are terrified that the new regime in Washington DC, led by Donald Trump as president, will damage many parts of our way of life, perhaps enter us all into wars of adventure, and negatively impact those who are not the top 1 percent of earners in the country.
Well, it is almost 'go' time for Mr. Trump. I will admit that I am not a fan. However, he is the guy who won the job and he is our president for the next four years -- and that is how it is.
If America is going to keep Social Security in a form we are all familiar with, the public is going to have to speak. They did not do it at the ballot box, so the message will have to be sent in all the avenues Americans have open to them in the Constitution.
If America is going to stay out of unwanted wars the next few years, the public -- the people -- are going to have to speak. The last two cost the United States $6 trillion in a Chinese loan from Mr. Bush and America has received nothing for the expense -- not even security. Mr. Obama spent mightily on these fruitless American wars also. God knows what is coming down the pike.
If women are going to simply keep many of the rights they have today -- from rights over their own bodies to closer pay equality, they are going to have to speak in a way they have not spoken for decades -- over the blare of noise at the top.
If the poor are not going to move from desperate poverty to 'on-the-street' poverty, they are going to have to speak -- again, in those ways that are encouraged as part of peaceful dissent.
Most importantly, Americans who are Black and brown are going to need to find their voices. And, whites are going to need to be equal in that chorus. Racism is not simply an issue for Blacks or Hispanics -- it is an issue for whites. People of all color have enjoyed the retreat of ignorance from the bright lights. Frankly, I never believed in my lifetime that a candidate supported and endorsed by the KKK and American Nazi Party would ever win the White House. But, here it is.
As a former soldier, I feel very uneasy about a love-fest going on between the leader of the Russian Federation and the United States. I admit I am biased against that nation, by the proof of its own history in Europe, in its actions against the United States through out the years, because of the state-sponsored terrorism that has been linked to it since its inception as the USSR until this very day. No, for me, these people can never be friends of the United States -- not because of where they live but because of what Russia is and has always been.
Now is the time to hope for the best -- to hope that the aspects of America that are closest to our nation's people are not besieged. But, there is that possibility. Many are holding their collective breath. I hope that science will not become even more banished from public schools, encouraged by an anti-intellectual leadership at the top inspiring intellectually challenged politicians around the country.
My greatest hope, though, is that the American system of government was created with safeguards within it that made tyranny impossible to sustain. I know this intellectually. I hope it is not something that I found comforting without a reality behind it. Draw your breath, America, and I will draw mine too.
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