Public Comment

This week's edition could be short, less filtered and more spontaneous than my usual. I've got health and business issues going on and I need to tend to them. But I figured it wouldn't do me any harm to type a few paragraphs.

In the past, being highly psychotic took you away from a "normal reality" and thrust you into a horrible quasi reality produced by the illness. Yet, nowadays, if you are psychotic, it would almost be a self-protective escapism because you don't have to face the dismal events that are happening in our world. Sometimes living in denial of the facts is needed to prevent having a meltdown.

Because of how bad reality is, it could be much harder for a delusional person to come back to it. We are in the midst of serious war. We are dealing with politics at home that threaten basic human rights, at the very least. At the worst, the situation could be far more horrible than you could imagine. Even now, we face a lot of social unrest and a lot of hate in Americans. 

The human species is acting like a throng of pirates having swordfights on a sinking ship. Whoever survives the swordfight will remain alive just long enough to drown when the ship goes under. 

I'm referring to all of the political battles, and the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. The sinking ship is our Earth, which is becoming incapable of supporting human life. Then maybe we should be psychotic. We could be locked up in a bad mental hospital under cruel conditions, but not have to deal with all of the awfulness of surviving in this. Take your pick. 

Under Trump, there may no longer be mentally ill people. We might be rounded up and put into a camp. That's what it looks like from some evidence I have seen. Or it could be worse. If parents and loved ones are outraged and frantic over what has happened to their mentally ill son, daughter or close relative, it doesn't matter. They could get a lawyer and try to get a court order. Meanwhile months and years go by, and they are in a never-ending red tape and legal battle to save their loved one. 

But the ship is sinking. And no one will be immune to that. Trump could believe he will be safe in his nuclear proof bunker. He's wrong about that. And what will be left of the U.S. and Earth when he comes out of the bunker to claim his kingdom? Nothing. 

Trump already controls large parts of the U.S. Government because many of his people are still in place. Biden hasn't adequately consolidated power. Trump says: "Don't telegraph your intentions." 

We won't know the particulars of his plans until it is too late. You don't believe me? Believe me. 

Jack Bragen lives and writes in Martinez, California.