... and several butcher's aprons.: Death of a Nation

“We are all outlaws in the eyes of America

In order to survive we steal, cheat, lie, forge, hide and deal

We are obscene, lawless, hideous, dangerous, dirty, violent and young

But we should be together

Come on all you people standing around

Our life's too fine to let it die and

We can be together” – Paul Kantner

Today, I desperately need someone to remind me why my country is, as we annoyingly proclaim to the rest of the World on a daily basis, “great” and “exceptional,” for, to be perfectly honest, I’m just not seeing it. Is it because any sociopathic billionaire, child rapist, confessed sexual assaulter, con-man, incest proponent, grifter, liar and thief with a criminal record can grow up to be President? Or, is the justification that anyone, even with a diagnosed mental disorder or incarceration record, can easily purchase automatic weaponry intended solely for military use and designed, not for hunting or self-defense, but to quickly and efficiently slaughter as many people as possible? Now, sure, the nation, the ideals and values set forth by our brilliant and worldly Founding Fathers were both “great” and “exceptional,” but we have strayed shamefully and dangerously adrift from those ideologies and intentions. The present United States, currently piloted by an ignorant, sexist, racist, hate-filled enemy of America, installed by a hostile foreign power and supported by 62 million equally unenlightened and bigoted traitors, has as much correlation to the principles promoted in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, as Donald Trump’s gold-plated, 5^th Avenue, towering bordello has to Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello.

And, lest ye forget, those flag waving, bible thumping, paradigms of perfect patriotism, wrapped in the stars and stripes, topped with a crown of thorns and devouring a super-sized Big Mac, declare us not just “great” but also, “the greatest country in the world!!!” Now, mind you, the vast majority of Americans possess no passport, consider those of us who do to be untrustworthy Communists, and have never traversed beyond the borders of Mayberry or Hooterville, finding even Toronto far too exotic and threatening. As an avid traveler, and a believer that doing so enlightens, educates and only serves to open one’s mind, I’m curious to hear from the xenophobic amongst our uninformed populace, what isn’t “great” about England or France or Holland or Canada? Does the lack of weekly mass shootings somehow make them inferior? And, monosyllabic babbles from Sarah Palin or Sean Hannity in response, means instant disqualification. Even as much as the illegal, illegitimate, Putin-puppet and posterior puckerer Commander in Thief denies the decency of any non-English speaking, non-USA born, skin-tone darker than Powder individual, the reality is, most of his fortune is on loan from Russia, he owns unsuccessful hotels and chapter 11 resorts throughout the globe, and he almost always buys his wives on the foreign exchange.

While well-intended, thoughts and prayers both amount to the same thing,
talking to yourself to make yourself feel better.

It takes a country that can rationalize electing a dangerously insane person President, to rationalize selling a dangerously insane person guns. And so, here we find ourselves in 2017, a once great nation on a rapidly, very possibly, irreversible decline; with an enemy, grievously bereft of decency, morality and sanity, now in charge of the government, buttressed by a citizenry lacking character, judgment and knowledge, both, derisive of the rights and protections of the First Amendment, while devout to an unwavering worship of the Second.

The daily escalating madness of this increasingly, uncivilized country is depressing and exhausting. I don’t know if a future for me exists here any longer. I may be ready to escape to a humane, compassionate, tolerant and mature nation. I believe in the Constitution. I believe in America. But progressively, more and more Americans do not, and the federal government undoubtedly doesn’t. Remarkably, in less than 10 months, Donald Trump has demolished traditional democratic institutions, philosophies and practices that took 241 years to establish. The Republic, this vision of our Founders, is trapped in an accelerating death spiral. Our nation is on a clock now. It cannot and will not endure a long-term Trump presidency. And the survival of civilization hinges on one overriding question - can Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller prosecute Trump before he destroys the United States, if not the entire planet, with his nuclear objectives? As is common among the privileged top 1%, Donald Trump has flaunted a "get out of jail free" card his entire life. It's time for Mueller to revoke that privilege.