Not Me

When I see an elderly woman stumble and fall.

When I see a man standing on the corner, lost.

When I see a girl disobey the traffic laws.

When I see a boy take a hoodie from the store.

I say not me.

When I hear the angry voice of a man who has lost his job.

When I hear a young person's song, it beats my ears.

When I hear the cry of another woman's child.

When I hear the tenor of despair because of lost love.

I say not me.

When I feel the desperate pleas for justice.

When I feel the passion of anger against violence.

When I feel the burning rage of neglect.

When I feel the fear of those who hate.

I say not me.

Not me?

None of us is without fault.

We committed our faults freely.

Our faults can define us and how we conduct our lives to the end.

Our faults can drive us to persecute or towards an awakening.

Our faults can blind us or open our eyes.

Our faults can deafen our compassion or open our hearts and minds wide.

None of us is without fault.

We all share the responsibility for our society and our community.

Through neglect, we've allowed the shallow, the petty, and the self-interested to dominate our social discourse, our Republic.

Our government and our law enforcement leadership are so corrupted by their own vice that they are unwilling or unable to prosecute crimes committed against our society.

Money launderers, sex traffickers, pedophiles, tax frauds, and sexual predators, as long as they serve a political party, are exempt from justice.

Obvious crimes committed by officials of this government along our borders go uninvestigated and are not stopped, as private enterprise profits off the imprisonment of children and adults.

What has happened to the leadership of this nation, I ask?

What is it that these guardians of vice are protecting?

Are we to believe, as I have stated, that they are all, every last one of them, so corrupted by their vices that not one of them can hold a jury over any of these apparent crimes?

Their fellow thieves, rapists, murderers.

If it's not their vices, what else can prevent apparently good people from standing for justice and bringing the criminal to trial?

Is the can of worms, the Pandora's Box of corruption, so great that every last official is awash in a quagmire of their own muck?

They can't break free and are resigned to the fact that nothing can be done, so they do nothing?

Shame only on those humans who can still feel it.

Apparently, many people no longer understand the meaning of love.

The definition has been lost.

The definition is that your reputation and how you will be remembered are built upon how you treat other people.

For evil or good.

Of course, many don't care how they are remembered and don't give a shit about the consequences of their actions.

Yet here we find our nation, the U.S.A's Gold Standard is now to grovel and fetch for the carnal pleasure of hate?

Is that where our society has planted its flag here in the 21st Century?

Have the dreams of a nation of a people been so torn and discarded that even a simple point of justice that we, our American society, don't tolerate child rapists is now too difficult for us to prosecute?

The apparent moral bankruptcy of our two political powers, my conservative brothers and sisters standing for power at any cost, and my liberal brothers and sisters sitting spineless, afraid to rock the boat, is overwhelming.

I feel rage.

I understand the neglect of spirit.

Yet...

I hear the cry of pain of another woman's child.

I see the man lost because of fear.

I taste the fear of change.

I stand.

I shout and fight against the silence.

I will never be silent.

Peace.

Daniel J Frey aka Toby