Like Diogenes...I was looking for one honest man.
Okay...maybe two...
And they didn't even have to be men.
Alas in the GOP Congressional Congress these days, even THAT was too much to ask.
As they called the roster I listened once again...hoping against hope that Flake or Collins, Corker or Manchin...or maybe even another of the GOP would see what a travesty shoving this ill-suited man through for a lifetime appointment on the SCOTUS, really was...and vote against his party.
I listened to the screams and protest in the Galley and watched as Mike Pence repeatedly had to call the Sgt. of Arms to silence them.
...I want to stop here to share a story of a psychiatric patient of mine from my Nursing years...
This is relevant, as you will understand, when you complete reading it.
My patient (let's call him Karl) was an elderly German man who immigrated after WWII to New York. He had been in and out of psychiatric for the years since (his history stated). One day he was shipped from Chicago to my Lock-down Unit.
Lock-down is where they put you when you will not be joining civilization again.
EVER.
Karl spoke high German, was polite but firm, was extremely OC, and had horrific nightmares. Tattooed on his arm was a declaration of love to a particular frauline. Also tattooed on him was a number and under it the words Panzer Division.
Do I know how much my patient actually saw during WWII?
No.
Did he slip though the cracks and was a Nazi or SS Member? He was certainly the right age and carried himself with a military bearing.
I don't know.
I will never know.
Karl died, one winter, and took his former life secrets with him.
I was his "Krankenschwester" (nurse)
What I do know...is the dreams. The nightmares...that would wake him in a cold sweat sometimes crying out. What I saw in the wall next to his bed were the fingernail-marks...deep grooved scratches through the paint and plasterboard resulting from the residual horrors that only he saw.
When he talked about them the word that came out frequently was
"Schreiend"
It translates- Screaming.
Now, I am not going to sit here and even try to make you believe that the screams that Karl had in his nightmares (for whatever reason) were in any way equal to the women in that gallery today. Obviously the screams that Karl encountered in his life had caused him to lose his mind.
What I am going to say, is that I hope Pence...and the SGT. of Arms who stifled them...and the rest of Congress (GOP & DEMOCRATS alike) go home tonight with those screams in their heads for the rest of their lives.
I know I will.
When the roster was finished and the vote confirmed I turned it off. Took a hot bubble bath. Fixed an entirely too large bowl of pasta and indulged in it. And took a deep breath.
Today is why I will ALWAYS be a practicing Buddhist...and never a Buddha.
(Well...the GOP and to a lesser extent Comcast Tech Support)
Indiana's early voting begins next week.
I am taking the weekend to Center.
Next week I will VOTE.
Over the next 30 days I will support Democratic races nationwide, but particularly Senator Joe Donnelly who is up for re-election in my bright red Republican state.
And I will BELIEVE that after 2018 Midterms we can begin to right this badly foundering ship.
We have to.
More anon...
