The past two days I have been living in a twisted reality.
I called the paramedics two days ago to take my mother to the hospital. She has leukemia, and was feeling very poorly. After spending nearly a day with her in emergency while they waited for a hospital bed to open, I want home to spend the night with my dad, who cannot be left alone because of a crippling neurological disease.
We had a rough night, with me getting only three hours of sleep. That left me grumpy the next day, and living with uncertainty regarding my parents' welfare.
I had only a brief time to see the news on Thursday, but I knew it was bad. The stock market continues its slide towards Depression, and Insane McCain and his sidekick Sarah were again rabble rousing, their mindless followers shouting horrible hate-filled and violent phrases at Obama, phrases that included "kill him."
I have had a sick feeling for two days, a churning in my gut that won't go away. My parents are in bad shape, and my country isn't much better. I wonder if my husband and I will lose our retirement, our home, our future. I fear for my children. I wonder if violence will break out because latent and well-hidden racism has been fueled by a white presidential candidate against an African American candidate.
I am increasingly trusting, however, that a majority of the country does not harbor racism. I believe they will overrule the angry racist mob and elect Barack Obama the next president.
He is the candidate of hope and so I haven't given up yet. But what if he doesn't win? Or what if he does? I trust in Obama's superior intelligence and incredible competence, but I wonder if anyone can fix a dying country.
This is a situation I have never been in before with my family troubles pairing up with economic troubles and political insanity. Not getting sleep only magnifies the fears. And so, yesterday, for the first time in my life I decided we needed to buy a gun. I hate guns, but when I see fear and hate combined with people being thrown out of their homes, I wonder how soon those with possessions will have to defend themselves against desperate people.
Could it come to that? I don't know. Normally, I am a rational person, but I am afraid. For the first time in my adult life, I am afraid that craziness could break out - not in an inner city, but in my own neighborhood. Maybe it's a function of no sleep, or maybe just a reflection of my fears for my parents.
I have never in my life felt that my country had gone completely insane. Never before had I seen such an incompetent lame duck president looking clueless as he deputizes the Treasury Secretary to try to rescue the country's economy even as it slides further into the abyss each day. Never before had I seen a presidential candidate deliberately instill hate and a thirst for violence in his followers, the way Hitler instilled hate in the Germans. Never before had I considered that we could combine the economic depression of the thirties with the potential for sixties' assassinations.
It has become obvious that the Republican Party of Nixon-McCarthy-Reagan-Attwater-Rove-Bush-and McCain is in its death throes, but before it breathes its last, it is apparently determined to destroy as much of the country as it can.
I only hope the rest of us can survive its demise.
At least my mother is feeling better, after transfusions and medication, and is back home with my dad.
