Our collective soul
Lies buried in the rubble
Of hate, greed and lies.
One day we will rise from ash
Like the fiery Phoenix.
Enlightened, wiser,
Perhaps we will see we’re one,
Made of flesh and bone.
How sad that we must suffer
Before we open our eyes.
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~
Dom DiFrancesco 
Question for you, Dom… I see a lot of angst and political soul searching in some of the Posts by Americans and I’m intrigued. Is it simply because it’s election year, or is it because of the guys who are standing?
Kunal, I can only speculate and provide my personal opinion. First off, yes I think this is primarily because it is an election year. This is where my opinion comes in. I have never seen our country so divided. This because so noticeable with the election of President Obama. For whatever reason, whether it be his color, his name or something else, the right (Republicans) have hated him since before his first day in office. I wish “hate” was an exaggeration, but it isn’t. They have been spinning lie after lie about him since the beginning and have repeated it so many times that people take the lies as fact. If it wasn’t so serious it would be hilarious. Now to a great extent we are seeing the same thing happen to Hillary Clinton. No, she is not perfect and I’m certain has made mistakes over her political lifetime, but I’m also certain that not one other politician could say they didn’t do the same and possibly much worse. So these things along with the terrible candidate choices on right deeply concern me. Again in my opinion, Donald Trump will do nothing for this country unless it feeds into his ego, or benefits him in some other way. That has been how he has acted all of his life and new of him long before he ever ran for political office. Then we have Ted Cruz and in my view he is too much of a religious zealot for my liking. His views, if he got his way, would roll back much of the progress I believe we have made in the areas of gay rights and civil rights in general. He claims to be a constitutionalist, but I believe that his interpretation of our constitution is distorted and therefore I probably fear him more than I do Trump. John Kasick the third candidate on the Republican side is essentially a non-entity as he stands little to no chance of being nominated. On the left (Democrats) We have Hillary Clinton, who I mentioned earlier and Bernie Sanders. I personally am a Bernie Sanders supporter. He is a self proclaimed Democratic Socialist. I find his views to be much more in line with my own beliefs. He believes in breaking up the biggest banks in our nation and returning them to the way they used to be which was commercial banks separate from consumer banks. This never should have changed, but unfortunately did back in the 1990’s. He believes in income equality which I am a huge proponent of as well as instituting fair trade policies which currently seem to be skewed against us. Some of his hopes for this country are a bit extreme and unrealistic in our political climate, but I believe they are what we should be striving for as a nation. Lastly if Bernie Sanders does not get nominated to run for President, then I will back Hillary Clinton. The people on the right are just too dangerous for our nation and I pray that enough of my brothers and sisters will see this to elect a democrat. Sorry for the long winded answer and I hope that I provided at least some answer to your question. Thank you for asking it by the way. – Dom
Thank you for taking the time to answer. To us in India, Hillary is the known devil because of the Bill connection and Trump because he is the Trump and completely bonkers.
Good luck to you and the US in making the right choice. Politicians all over aren’t a patch on the likes of some of your earlier Presidents our our leaders or Mandela… 😟
Thank you for your perspective. It is indeed interesting to hear how people in other countries view our political circus. Thank you for sharing your views as well.
Well, what happens in America has its ramifications around the world, Dom! Which is why we remain interested. As for me, I’ve studied and lived in the US two years (Houston) and have close friends and family there, so I have an attachment and affinity. You vote wisely, will you? And have great week ahead!
I will and you do the same my friend. Thank you for the enjoyable conversation.
Powerful!!!… kudos
Thank you my friend.
Our collective soul
Lies buried in the rubble”
Perhaps it does, and even with knowledge we still suffer, waking up is a challenge not easily met. Enjoyed your poem very much,,
Thank you very much, I appreciate you saying so.
Powerful words Dom.
Thank you sir, I appreciate that.
The rising and falling and the crushing and the healing have been going on since time immemorial but nothing changes and the cycle continues because Humans either do not learn from their mistakes or their attention spans are too short to be of any signiticant use over long stretches of time.
You are absolute right on this one human have never been able to learn from their mistakes. We have witnessed this over and over again throughout history and I doubt that it ever will change.