Chappaquiddick and the Borg

I have not yet seen the movie, but I will.  For those of you too young, this is an example of the might and power of rich, politically connected families and of even then, the Washington Establishment protecting itself.  From what I have heard, and I listened to a lot of reviews of the movie, it is true to the story and it is a-political. The movie just tells the story – as all movies should.  No editorializing, no political bent – because sometimes, oftentimes, the truth is enough.  Did any of us really learn of this in-depth in high school history? Not hardly.  It was that well controlled and information is always controlled.

I urge people to see the movie for two reasons.  One, it is said to be an excellent movie with excellent acting.  It is just supposed to be darned good.

The second reason is to help open our eyes to the awesome, almost incomprehensible might of money and power.  This sort of thing DOES happen; it DID happen and yet this man was allowed to go on to become even richer and be one of the United States’ longest serving senators.  It is said because of this event Ted Kennedy was unable to run for president.  What? That is a loss? That is suffering? He lived off the American tax payer his entire life and lived quite well I might add and never once had to answer to leaving a young woman to die in dark, cold waters.

Cover ups for self-protection happen every single day in Washington.  These people – from both, nay ALL sides of the aisle, will do EVERYTHING in their power to retain power.  This fraternity that is the “Washington Establishment” is ensconced, protected and lives in an utterly separate world from you and me. We are not a nation “of the people, by the people, for the people.” All decisions they make are for them and the perpetuation of their power. Period. 

What is true too is that ALL humans are fallible.  We are not Gods after all.  If our electeds served a term or two or even three, they could probably manage to get through that period without a scandal.  But these people are staying for LIFE – there is NO HUMAN who can live, while in the public eye, without some falling from grace, some human failing.  Ted Kennedy fell from grace big-time and yet he never had to hit the pavement. Some of them crash into the hard ground never to rise again; some seem to live through insane scandal and flourish. It is the Establishment that chooses who lives and who dies.  Not us.  Who lives and who dies is only related to how much the "death" would upset the establishment.  No other reason.

Political leadership in this nation was designed to be carried out by us, people like you, me, your neighbor, your son or daughter; regular people representing regular people.  There is NOTHING regular about any person who has been in office for a decade or more of their adult lives.  How would they even KNOW what it is like to walk a mile in your shoes, army boots or tennis shoes as you run for orders in the window as the cook is banging his bell? How would they have any idea the long hours behind the wheel of the trucker who delivered that fresh, organic produce they love so much?   Or the software engineer whose eyes blur by 3 AM when he is looking at code to find that one error he knows is there? People who know nothing of what it is to BE you are making decisions FOR you.

Until we, as a people, are willing to truly take this in, that our “leaders” are not “one of us” and demand that leadership in Washington have regular turn-over, nothing is going to change.  I think the best way to contemplate this is consider that Washington DC has been invaded by aliens from outer space.  They are the Borg and the survival of their "Collective" is above all else.    

“The Borg are a fictional alien group that appear as recurring antagonists in the Star Trek franchise. The Borg are a vast collection of "drones", or cybernetic organisms, linked in a hive mind called "the Collective" or "the Hive". The Borg co-opt the technology and knowledge of other alien species to the Collective through the process of "assimilation": forcibly transforming individual beings into drones by injecting microscopic machines, or nanoprobes, into their bodies and surgically augmenting them with cybernetic components.” [Wikipedia]

It doesn’t matter who is in the White house, Trump, Hillary or Kermit the Frog.  Until both the House and the Senate are purged of “lifers” and we begin voting them out and demanding some sort of limits on their time, we will get the same results over and over and over.  Every time a young newcomer arrives he or she is injected and infected and will become “one of them” or they simply will not survive.

The relentless attacks on Trump are because the hive, the collective, cannot control him and cannot sufficiently infect him…yet. Whether they will succeed remains to be seen.  You can think that “the people” are attacking him all you want – it is the Establishment, all sides, who want him gone and who are feeding the machines of attack. And they are LOVING watching us go at each other, just LOVING it.

Nothing changes if nothing changes.