A new cast, but the same play.

Turns out the Democrats are just as divided, and contentious as the Republicans.  And it seems, according to sources, they deliberately sabotaged Bernie Sanders. In a unrelated article it seems to have been Russian Espionage that mined the rancid depths of the DNC servers. Because, it led the reader to believe, Putin admires Trump. Or, maybe he just hates Debbie Wasserman Schultz. It doesn't really matter who leaked the news or why, though.

I have wondered if the heads of the Republican Party are not wondering right now, "why didn't we think of that?" But, that is not really important either.  It is always a little disconcerting when so many people seem so surprised when they read of corruption and deceit in politics. Haven't they been paying attention?

It doesn't really matter, though. Hillary and Donald, act 1, scene 1 is playing across the big stage now. And that is the reality of life. It is not pretty, but the nation gets what the nation deserves.

The other day a young lady rang the doorbell at my house. She was campaigning for one of the presidential hopefuls. Bright, polite, and very charming, she asked what my biggest concern was regarding the next administration. I told her it was nuclear proliferation. She agreed it could be a problem, but was a little surprised by the choice.

This administration has approved funding for five new nuclear weapons, at a cost of nearly 1 trillion dollars. And this is a guy who was awarded the Noble Prize largely because of his stated goals of reducing the nuclear arsenal. It has not gone very well. The stockpiles are still there. In fact Obama has reduced them more slowly than any post cold war president.

Reading the speeches, and listening to the plans of Clinton and Trump offer little hope for reining in the madness that has become our Nuclear Policy. If we have enough weapons to destroy everybody, and possibly everything, isn't that enough? Do we need more? Apparently the short answer is "no, but we need better weapons, and lots of them."

We live in a world filled with madness, hate, bigotry. We are awash in terrible weapons of unimaginable destructive power. We can never use them. We can never eliminate them. And we keep telling ourselves that those two statements somehow make sense together. That we can control ourselves, and each other, enough to keep playing.

So, to you, my friends I end with the words of Leon Trotsky "The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end."