Just Be There Blog

My present shame as an American

To begin with the inspiration of what follows the opinion column. Not my words so I have documented the source I have taken them.

Also, what follows this short excerpt are my own conclusions from what I've watched unfold in recent US political events. It is difficult to be a marginally poor female liberal American citizen and not have any power to do anything to stop the madness because your voice is ignored.

• A Jewish philosopher and mystic understood Trump’s Achilles’ heel Opinion by Robert Zaretsky • The Forward • MSN News

•...To fully grasp the effects of power, though, Allen’s now-ancient comedy is insufficient; we need to go back to ancient Greek tragedy — namely, Homer’s Iliad.

This is the same text that the French Jewish thinker (and, yes, Christian mystic) Simone Weil went back to in 1940. Part of the massive exodus of French civilians fleeing south ahead of the German invasion — in this instance, the proper use of the word — Weil began to draft an essay on her experience, one that she saw through the prism of the Homeric epic. The essay — “The Iliad, or the Poem of Force” — was published the following year in France’s unoccupied zone, but under a pseudonym since Vichy forbade the publication of works by Jewish authors.

Ask someone who has read the poem to name its hero, and the reply will probably be Achilles and, if not, his friend Patroclus or his enemy Hector. But Weil replies that the true hero is none of the above. Instead, it is force or power. It is this that “enslaves man,” it is this “before which man’s flesh shrinks away,” and it is this that “alters the human spirit.” For her contemporaries caught up in the events of 1940, Weil has a warning: If you thought that force, thanks to progress, would soon be a thing of the past, think again. As for those who are paying attention to events, they understand that force “today as yesterday is at the very center of human history and that the Iliad is the purest of mirrors.”...•

Just a long-winded intellectual way of saying "Total Power Corrupts Totally" and always will.

So, when I watch what is going on and my brain is overwhelmed by the magnitude of the chaos ensued, I think to myself; Who, really, and I mean for real, who really saw this coming? Certainly not any of the people who actually voted for the winners of this current narcissistic, sycophantic government.

Even the most fringe MAGA crazed right-wing believers didn't see this coming. Although, I'm sure there are a few piranhas frenzy feeding groups starting to form in the wake of the chaos, with their cheering battle cry of "OH YEA! F....KING A! Where's my GUN!"

On the same note, I know the most right leaning liberals, you know, the ones who sighed at the election results last November and said, "Well, we all survived the first four years of Trump, we can survive these next four years." (Forgetting or discounting for the moment all the COVID fatalities during the first Trump regime who didn't survive his last presidency.) "We just need to prepare ourselves for the 'ride.'"

They certainly didn't see any of this unfolding.

And the most left leaning liberals in this country, from the ones who were in a position of wealth to 'escape' America after the election, to the most informed on just what was in the "2025 GOP plan" who knew it was going to be worse than 2016-2020 but had faith that the Law of the Land would stifle the worst that the Trump rampage would deliver; you know they didn't see this kind of chaos coming.

No one calculated the Musk force. You know, the billionaire tweaker who cheats to win at anything and everything in life, who has basically performed the tech coup of America. Hell! Trump didn't for sure see all of that coming. Just like when he was glued to the TV monitor and watching the 'magnificent rampage of the crowd' he incited on Jan 6, 2020; he is sitting back at his desk and watching with awe and glee as he gives the Musk Force all the encouragement within his power to unhinge the Law of the Land destroying lives and killing innocents not just in the US but around the world.

I knew it was going to be bad, and I know it's only going to get worse, because no one knows how to effectively confront this misaligned power trip rampage gone wrong. Congress is certainly broken with its sycophant GOP as well as the right leaning judicial system. The recent over the top actions of Trump and Team have shown just how broken these two branches of government are. The pure concepts of Democracy and the Republic are sound, we as a people have lost our way in regards on how to make it work effectively.

In short, We the People have placed our fates either willingly or as a minority whose voice is silenced, into the hands of overzealous drug induced, game cheating, power mongering, misogynistic, narcissists and sycophants.

I am presently ashamed of what my country is doing to the world. I won't stand up in a crowd and proudly declare My US citizenship at this time, yet I'm still a proud American. I'm just NOT proud of what America has recently turned into.

However, I will proudly stand up and scream "I DID NOT VOTE FOR TRUMP!"

(Definition: A sycophant is a person who uses flattery to win favour from influential people or behaves in a servile manner. In language a MAGA person understands, a sycophant is a brown-noser, teacher's pet, an unapologetic suck-up to those in power.

Definition: Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek too much attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence, they are not sure of their self-worth and are easily upset by the slightest criticism.)