Awakening
I have often experienced awakening from a sleep of the dead. I come to consciousness with a startle response. I do not at first know where I am, maybe even who I am. I become aware I’ve been asleep, possibly for hours, maybe even days. I must admit this sometimes happens when I am on my couch reading and watching television (signs of age and senility). Most often I am in bed and my feeling of having been asleep forever is dispelled by the clock indicating I have been asleep for an hour or two, maybe even less than an hour. Unlike the morning where I have a mixed dream state slowly becoming aware of my surroundings. Real world activities all seep into my sleep, the creep of dawn, the haunting wail of a distant train, or a neighbor’s noisy truck. (A man who doesn’t even work anymore, but still fires up at 4 AM.) This startled abrupt awakening is the experience of coming into consciousness from nonexistence. Often a plot device for drama; someone comes out of a coma is then told who they are, where they are, what they did, but we are left with a mystery maybe they are lying. When we wake with this startle response we need a moment to adjust test our sensations and thoughts. Am I awake, am I dreaming? Somewhat like the Talking Heads song, Once in a Lifetime, “And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife. And you may ask yourself, "Well... how did I get here?"“
There is another mental state or transition of consciousness I have experienced more rarely. I will call it an awakening realization. It is far more scary and traumatic because it only occurs, not in dreams or sleepy consciousness, but in the full light of day. It occurs when the foundations of the everyday, the reality you guide your thoughts and actions by, are undermined or destroyed. It may be the result of obsession when someone chases a dream to a point of delusion. Maybe a teen convinced if they can just meet their idol this fabulous celebrity person will instantly see the missing link in their life. The obsession could be the pursuit of status, power, and wealth. It could be an addiction that has brought someone to the point of desolation. It could be like the Nobel Prize winning mathematician in A Beautiful Mind a world of delusion so real, hallucination and actuality are blurred. Whenever an awakening realization occurs it is not a good day for the one experiencing it. Wasn’t John Nash’s (played by Russel Crowe) hallucinated world more exciting than teaching economics and math. He drew together elaborate conspiracies, CIA plots, and mysterious people. His brilliant mind was required and needed, problems only he could solve. Reality must have been accepting something less. People pursue dreams all their lives to see it come to dust, their sacrifices of real and affirming lives for material baubles. In the end we see emptiness and loneliness in a person who is surrounded by uncaring people without any connection. People on the outside may anticipate another’s awakening, but the obsessive mind has its own timetable.
I cannot predict when the Trumpers will arrive at their awakening realization. Some of course never will, they will stay focused on their addictive mind game until the end of their days. Many are in for an unpleasant realignment. The Winter Olympics look beautiful, but if you are stranded in the snow and cold trying to survive, to get to safety, to not starve and freeze, then winter is a different reality. The Trumpers have built their own self-identity into the hallucination. They are willing to chase the wildest of conspiracy theories if doing so allows them to run from the biting cold of reality. They are like a runaway child on a tricycle peddling furiously to get away from the reality police. I watched part of CPAC and our mad emperor’s unhinged ravings. I kept flipping away and when I turned back, he was still rambling. I have watched news highlights. I observed the extremist base, which owns Republicanism and the conservative mantle, screaming in their death throes. They are cheering a dictator not on a rise to power, but on the down escalator to his bunker.
Fox News can ignore the reports, fire up old bogeymen (George Soros, Obama, Hillary, Saul Alinsky) but reality has come to court. Hard proof is being presented in indictments and convictions. Trump appointments are corrupt swamp creatures abusing their posts for personal gain and privilege. There is not one false portrayal slung by the fringe at the Obama administration that has not been made real in the current regime. Nixon was referred to as the Imperial President. He seemed to exercise more and more power without restraint, checks, or balances, then it began to be chipped away. It was a slow process, eventually all trust was lost. We watched the sad surreal departure of his last speech and helicopter ride as president. The information world moves a little faster now, but we are at only the beginning of the end. A year from now, Trump may no longer be president, and if he is, how long he will last will be the daily narrative. The Trump voters were willing to overlook every flaw, but the flaws were real. Donald Trump is the most unfit man to ever serve as President of the United States. Much of the country engaged in jury nullification at the voting booth in 2016. Nixon was paranoid and power hungry, but he had some competency and historical understanding. Trump is an incurious narcissist who is also corrupt. His many transgressions against women, contractors, lenders, minorities, climate, and justice will come to haunt him. The vast majority of Americans were not at CPAC chanting “lock her up.” They will cheer as one domino after another in Trump world will be locked up. Trump has a Midas touch of sorts, everyone he touches becomes corrupted. As the facts accumulate the lies and distractions will become ineffective flurries. Those Trumpers around us will come to a painful moment. Their awakening realization will wound them. We should have some compassion not add salt to their wounds. They will heal but carry the scars of their wounds the rest of their lives.
I hope Mueller pursues his appointment to its fullest and does seek to drain the swamp. Politicians are almost immune to bribery indictments because our Supreme Court has made campaign contributions unregulated. The failed prosecutions of Gov. Bob McDonnell and Senator Robert Menendez show our courts have made bribery difficult to prove. Bribery is as obscure as the NFL’s rule for determining a catch. Great sums of money are being laundered and hidden from taxation. Trump has been given license to steal by an entire party and congress. Mueller has the opportunity to expose in detail the insider game of government, contractor, and lobbyist. Mueller’s investigation will encounter corruption; it should be prosecuted. It would Awaken America to expose it. It would be a cleansing much needed in our stained and tattered Republic. In recalling Trump’s own analogy, he and his enablers are snakes. We should round up all the snakes exposed by Mueller and the justice department. Snakes have a talent for survival quickly slithering away to hide. As the snakes are exposed place them in a gunny sack, weight it down with coal, cast it into the deepest waters at the mouth of the Potomac. These snakes are not an endangered species; the swamp has an abundance to replenish the supply. Forgottonia.org