I DON'T KNOW IF....

A series of essays....

....as seen through my eyes!

By: Jacqueline E. Hughes

I don’t know if I have the energy anymore, both physically and mentally, to wake-up smiling. I feel like a person taking too many drugs and having them interact in a very negative way with my body. I know a little bit about this. My father took what seemed like fifty pills a day, all prescribed by his doctors. It wore him down so much that I often wonder if the drug interaction was more harmful than the physical ailments he was taking them for. Most likely, they were.

I don’t know if 45 is reaching his goal of wearing down our defenses by creating, not only a world of MAGA zombies, but a population of good people who tried but failed at making him go away. I do know that everyday he remains in office, our less than perfect society becomes even less perfect and we find ourselves digging out of an ever deepening hole.

***AS OF ONE O'CLOCK P.M. ON MONDAY, JUNE 17, 2019***

I don’t know if I can tolerate another 582 days under 45’s spitefully jealous and sadistic regime.

I don’t know if survival is even an option anymore.

I don’t know if the world, as we thought we knew it to be, will ever be that way again. When I think of the Holocaust, the mass murder of Jews under the German Nazi regime during the period between 1941 and 1945 when more than 6 million European Jews, as well as members of other persecuted groups, were murdered at concentration camps such as Auschwitz, I think of change. I think of the survivors who were changed forever and their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and how they must always claim the horror, terror, and nightmares associated with such a burning and cleansing of the European population of Jews and their supporters; lest we ever forget the blistering inhumanity and narcissism of even one individual right here in our own lifetime.

I don’t know if the Jews can ever truly forgive the United States for not offering them the mental and physical relief of sanctuary while so many of them were being put to death. The U.S. had a long-standing restrictionist policy on immigration specified in The Immigration Act of 1924. It set the standards for immigration quotas to the U.S. that limited total immigration to about 164,000 people per year and was designed to “protect” America from “undesirables” including Jews, Asians, and Africans. This excuse is Not Good Enough...! This could never happen again in the new millennium ~ not in 2019! Certainly, we’ve become wiser, more understanding, and loving people by now! Didn’t the Hitler/Nazi regime teach us anything?

I don't know if giving-up on our freedom and all of the basic principals that this great nation was initially built upon is even an option. 

I don’t know if greedy, amoral people will ever be able to change, especially when money, power, and the evil extracted by having too much of each can take a basic fool and turn him into a believer in his own 'godlike stature' which, in his mind, includes power, physical beauty, and magnanimity for the rich....those for whom he deems worthy of it.

I don't know if I fear the greed-based tactics employed by 45 more than the detrimental, life altering maneuvers of a soulless Addison Mitchell McConnell Jr.  

I don’t know if changes can be made within our constitutional laws, rules, or regulations to help protect us in the future from the sheer abuse of power reflected in 45’s corrupt regime.

I don’t know if there is a kinder future...at least, a future familiarized by the essence of faith, hope, love, trust, and freedom. I don’t know about you, but I’ve become gun-shy over the past few years. To experience first-hand the hatred, divisiveness, and abject cruelty of others within our society without much relief, how could I not?

I don't know if I'm in like or strong dislike of Robert Mueller right now. 

I don’t know what is in store for all of us. However, my hope is that decency for the moral standards of life and genuine respect for others have not been indefinitely tarnished by the lowest standards represented in Washington D.C. today. I do believe that there remains enough of us who truly care about maintaining a higher ground of morality and will always fight tooth and nail to keep it that way. 

Author’s Note: Facts regarding the Holocaust are according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

BUT THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE

Copyright © 2019 by Jacqueline E. Hughes

All rights reserved