I am in despair. I never cry, but right now, I'm crying.

The Lincoln Memorial was vandalized overnight, splattered with green paint. 

It crystalized for me.  I kept thinking the shot across the bow was the 9/11 attacks, but I think it was actually The Patriot Act.  I think those people who wanted to really hurt us who fueled paranoia tipped a domino that caused the breakdown of the molecular structure and now we are trying to swim up an avalanche.  It's falling apart. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.  Ugly.  Ugly.

Americans are under ridiculous degrees of scrutiny for merely being Americans.  Just everyday people, living their lives, going about their business, trying to keep the electricity on and having their bad coffee and waving to the neighbors.  Wow.  They're all up to something.  I was thinking how it has come to this and a song popped into my head.  Not sure if it fits the context, because I'm not really thinking clearly at the moment.  Again: I am in despair.  This is not America.



I'm crying because something has been lost here.

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming