America is having a moment. Please excuse our dust while we hem and haw and dance around our system of checks and balances. It can get messy, we know. But eventually, things start falling into place and everybody calms down. The laws that are passed go into effect, and everybody adjusts accordingly and goes on about their daily lives.
At least, it usually works like that. The older I get, the more I realize that the calm we struggle so hard to reach and live by, really covers a multitude of resentment, anger, and spite. It’s as if we sweep all the dirt into a corner and put a rug over it, all ready to bring it out and fling it in the face of an enemy.
You know that bit about serving revenge cold? Just watch an American politician who is unhappy with the law those “other fools” passed, no matter how much he argued, threatened, and bullied against it. A few years later, when that politician gets a little more power, he picks up the dirt and builds it into Thor’s hammer. Or maybe Maxwell’s. Slimy and sneaky.
After 9/11, as I saw photos of women dancing in the streets of Baghdad, my first reactions was “Why do they hate us so much?” Now I find myself asking the same thing of our own politicians.
Why do they hate us so much? The game seems to be one of stacking the rules so one side always wins, then as soon as the other side figures out how to play the game and starts to get ahead, they change the rules and slap our hands. Along with a lecture on how we brought it on ourselves.
So I watch the debacle of our current political parties and I tell myself this too shall pass. We’ll all get back to living our lives as best we can amid the rubble they left for us.
But I’ll be watching over my shoulder the whole time. Because they hate me, and they won’t forget.
Marlene Dotterer 
The Politicians are the ones who shouldn’t be getting paid. For every day this lasts they should each be fined. They would reach a fast agreement.
So true. Of course, as someone pointed, they wouldn’t reach a GOOD agreement. Just something that they can say passed so they get their paychecks. Yes, they really are that shallow. But you know, I don’t think it would be any worse than what we have now.