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Monday, April 13, 2020

Getting Numb

I'm sitting in Connecticut; it's almost dark with the rain pounding on the windows with almost a jackhammer kind of sound.  I've looked at the news this morning, and it's just the same thing over and over again.  Virus this and virus that.  Trump this and Trump that.  There's even a story about how Adam Schiff's congressional committee is conducting an "investigation" which is trying to figure out just when the President first learned of the corona virus (as if that would change anything.)  It's all mind numbing.  I'm tired of hearing the same people say the same things.  I'm tired of the endless bickering and ridiculous anger.  When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the USA got into World War II, I'm sure people were upset, but the history books say that they all pulled together to defeat our enemies.  There was a goal that united the country, a goal adopted by almost everyone.

Today, there seems to be no goal that unites us.  I watched many of the daily White House briefings and the goal of the media seems not to be to get helpful information to the American people.  Nope, the goal of so many in the media seems to be to try to "get" the President.  I watched Congress respond to this crisis.  There the goal again seems to be unclear.  When more money is needed for the small business program that had passed unanimously only about ten days earlier, Democrats in the Senate blocked that measure.  Their goal is not to help Americans but rather to get some of their favorite pet projects passed and to use the misery of others as their weapon of choice.  President Trump, at least, seems to be fighting to help the American people, but he hasn't been able to lead the rest of the country to adopt that goal of working together for the common good.

I look at the alternative we will be presented in a few months.  I cannot picture Joe Biden inspiring anyone to do anything.  He can't speak without reading his speeches and he gets lost when he tries to read them.  What will he say?  "Let's fight the thing!"  That will be really inspiring.

There really are ways that Americans could work together.  Indeed, there really are millions of people who are losing their livelihoods just to work for the good health of others.  It's a sacrifice that all those who are bickering and nasty seem unable to understand.  If we all have to stay home and watch the economy collapse, can't the Democrats in the Senate just try to help their friends get cash?

There's a big problem here.  If we all get numb to the suffering and the agony of many across America, this endeavor will not succeed.  Something has got to give here.

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