Ach If We Only Knew: Keeping Our Balance (& Republic) During Number 3

Marcello Rollando
4 min readMar 15, 2022

Have you seen the surveys that insist most Americans cannot identify half of America’s states on a map without state names provided? So, I’m including a map of Europe below:

Before graduate school I visited Europe for the first time, and discovered Europeans were curious about Americans who were neither in uniform nor tourists. They even asked me about American weather. In my best newly acquired Opera Romantic languages I explained that America is so big, we have different weather in different areas of the country. This was a new concept for them because, given the size of Europe, much of their weather is shared in common.

So, what if Europe’s next rainstorm is a downpour of radioactive fallout?

Americans Need to Know the Size of Europe

I wonder what fantasies our collective American mind wander to in those few moments when we’re not besieged by domestic tugs-of-war, self-serving interpretations of Constitutional Amendments and Foreign disinformation?

What do we wonder as we’re wandered through endless mazes of Madison Ave ads, Wall Street hedge-fund hurricanes and corporate owned talking heads, swirling tornado talking points?

Do we, like an echo chamber declare, peace for our time? Or are we forever doomed by our denial of science v. viruses, Climate Change v. planet earth and education v. the sexual ignorance (& desires) of hypocritical politicians?

How many books must Conservative GOP Governors and Red State Legislatures burn before we remember, What is Past is Prologue?

What do we think happens to a people who bury their dreams under a pile of narrow personal POVs with individual interests permanently planted in front of media more gossip than just the facts?

Unlike Republicans Carlos Gimenez, Mike Gallagher, Mitt Romney and Linsey Graham, President Joe Biden is correct to draw a redline against destroying the world in order to save it.

But what if tyrants like Putin already know America’s strategies from the jackass’ mouth when a 2016 oval shaped room cuddled a Troikaof one-way secret sharing, as prelude to stolen government documents streaming from a Palm Beach Ocean Blvd golf club before being securely archived for American posterity?

All before some Americans started attacking Russian restaurants in America with Ukrainian employees — proving yet again, we are still as shortsighted, thus easily manipulated as Cheney’s Freedom Fries and the insanity of dumping good French wine, because France saw through the folly of America’s Iraq War of Choice, and the Weapons of Mass Destruction lie, propagated to launch Shock and Awe for oil, somewhat akin to Putin’s current attempt to recapture a breadbasket gone democratic.

Ironically, Vlad seeks an empire renaissance in which leaders such as he, who embarrassed the union’s military prowess and communist leaders, were dispatched as quickly as a Coleone ordered ride in the country.

If a global pandemic could cost Putin’s American kindred spirit(s) a second bully pulpit aggrandizement, couldn’t Covid isolationism cost Putin any self-control over his vengeful cravings to reverse, the greatest political catastrophe of the 20th century?

How many times must fearful, hostile and hateful men like, Stalin, Hitler, Putin and Trump rise to the world stage at the demise of national sanity, before we’re prepared to admit it is we ourselves who are the wings for each new carbon copy bully of the continent repeating the classic entrée into global acquisitions?

What if our 35th president had been as flippant about Khrushchev/Castro as our 45th remains toward NATO membership?

What do we think Americans who wear T-Shirts that read: I’d rather be Russian than a Democrat, think about the Exceptionalism of our American Dream?

What must we think demagogues do when unable to mesmerize a majority into believing every daily drop of drool from drones droning out disinformation for dummies: convince truck drivers to waste gas, while complaining about the cost of gasoline, to protest wearing a mask for protection from a global pandemic which has killed over 966K Americans?

Because ignorance of past truths and denial of future inevitabilities have never shielded current events, we need rational thought, or the next mushroom cloud won’t reek of LBJ and Bush/Cheney smokescreens, but will be as real as human greed for power shatters peace, families and lives.

What do you think foreign and domestic tyrants do when they think time is on the side of democracy?

What do we think Putin will do after Ukraine? Go home? Copy his copycat: tell Russians, I alone can fix it?

With 40% of Americans programmed by political and financial puppeteers to worship Oligarch wannabes more than celebrate emancipated life, liberty and justice for all, it’s not only America that needs a village, but planet earth slipping further into a decrescendo from lack of human kindness, possibility thinking and leading by example.

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Marcello Rollando

I am The Reasonable Voice: Communications consultant, political writer, Text/content contributor for democratic candidates, Zoom Coach and on-camera ad director