Peace of My Mind

"Don't worry about me, Dad.  This is America, right matters."  Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman to his father before the Impeachment Inquiry

Hey, Colonel Vindman, or maybe by now Private 3rd Rate.  Can we chat a bit.  Sure, you came over from Russia with your folks when you were 7, and speak several languages, and oh, hey, you even earned a Purple Heart.  Very accomplished, both you and your twin.  Way to chase the American Dream.  You guys won!

But I have to tell you, your America is so hopelessly outdated and naive.  "Right matters?"  Yeah, right.  So you listened in on a conversation where the President tried to get a foreign nation, at war with Russia, to find dirt on one of his political rivals.  It alarmed you so you ran it up the chain-of-command.  Turns out everyone agrees with you.  Even the Republican cult.  Everyone, it seems, agrees that it was alarming, wrong and perhaps un-Constitutional.

So, Alex, where are they throwing a hero's welcome for you today?  Where is your parade this weekend?  Have we promoted you yet for your act of heroism and bravery?  What's that?  You were fired?  The President said he thinks the military should consider disciplinary action?  Well that's kind of a sucky parade.

See, Alex, we don't live in that America anymore.  We live in an America being re-shaped by Trump.  On the same day the Pres said he thought the Army should punish you further, 4 lawyers in the Roger Stone case resigned.  They quit their jobs in protest for Trump's pet monkey, Attorney General William Barr, you know, the top law enforcement official in the land, for intervening to lessen his prison sentence.  Alex, you remember an America where our Presidents told us straight what was up.  An America where we were respected in the world, and tried to influence geo-political event for the good.  You recall an America who revered its institutions, a free press, a system of checks and balances, and its Constitution.  It was an America who knew who its enemies were and its friends.  All that seems to have evaporated.  

It is a new America where truth-tellers are banished, our leaders brazenly lie daily, where we are now laughed at, where we cozy up to dictators and bully our friends.  It is an America where we no longer have checks and balance, deride the press, bastardize our institutions, and thumb our nose at the Constitution.  It's now a place where someone like Devin Nunes gets a standing O among his peers.  

It is also a place where the opposition party is on its way to nominate an avowed socialist to go up against the driver of all this madness.  A socialist who had a heart attack two months ago.  A guy who honeymooned in Russia.  A guy who has never done anything of note in 30 years of service in Congress. 

Alex, go tell your Dad you and your brother need air fare to get home.  Your service is over to this America.  Maybe someday, we'll welcome you back to that parade we should have for you, but not now.  Not for another 4 1/2 years probably.  Maybe we can find that America you love so much, that place where right matters.  But not now.  That place is gone. 

++++++++++

One of the most vivid memories of my childhood is my grandfather sitting in an old hard simulated red leather chair at the grain elevator.  The leather or vinyl or whatever it was had become cracked with age and the white cotton batting was exposed on the arms and seat.  The old man would come down to while the time away.  Occasionally the farmers would walk in and, to get him going, would bring up politics.  The old man would start in on a rant, slamming his hands down on arms of the chair and the batting would fly.  Between the slamming hands and the farmers hidden giggles were the shouts from the old man, "Goddamn Democrats!"

Now I don't know how much of this is actually true or whether the tellings and re-tellings from Bro Phil and others have created an image in my mind's eye that is more funny than real.  This voting Independent, your editor and CEO of Existing in BFE, will not become a carbon copy of that old man.  I will not become a caricature, a joke or image of intransigence. I'm going on to other things, I've done all I can do.  The rest is up to you.  What America do you want?