Over and over again, those of us who keep watch over the world from unofficial cathedra in the belly of the beast, wonder where it all will end, knowing our voices are heard by too few to change the drift toward war and/or climate catastrophe.
As the NATO Summit met in Warsaw we were haunted by the nineteen-thirties, realizing that for all our 'freedoms' -- and even our alternative press, like the Germans of that time, we are powerless. Today it is Americans who bear the heaviest responsibility for what is happening in the world, yet increasingly, the system of government we would foist upon others degenerates from a laughing stock to a disaster.
Later this month, Hillary will become the Democratic Candidate at a Convention in Philadelphia, the city in which the Declaration of Independence was signed, and shortly thereafter, Donald Trump will be anointed as the Republican candidate in Cleveland, home of a once famous automobile industry. Hillary risks indictment for having an email server in her basement, while Donald Trump flirts with White supremacists. Yet in the last few days, events have taken uncertainty to a new level. After two black men were shot by white police officers in different places for no reason, a lone shooter in yet another city killed five of their colleagues. In a hideous close-up, Donald Trump declared that the police stand between civilization and "complete chaos". Yet many of his followers own guns and some have announced they plan to appear at the convention carrying them.
Hillary will perhaps not be indicted, however it is extremely likely that Donald Trump will make new converts after the damning testimony by the head of the FBI concerning her 'carelessness' in leaving classified information open to discovery by the entire world. The Republican Convention precedes the Democratic one by just a few days, and although they will be held in separate cities, both could be disrupted, Trump's by Black Lives Matter activists confronting armed militias, Hillary's by Bernie supporters.
We haven't seen 'long, not summers' since the race riots of the sixties, but these will probably be seen as piddling compared to what could happen during the last ten days of Independence month.
