In 1940 Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart wrote “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered” for a Broadway play titled Pal Joey, and although the lyric doesn’t track my sentiment for this post, the title of this fantastic song hits the target dead center.

The prose is about unrequited love and resulting melancholy. This post is about my incredulity: I’m bothered and bewildered – America is bewitched!

I understand the pensive and introspective emotions associated with this Rogers & Hart composition. I feel the same way every time I watch, listen to, or read the news. It isn’t depression, more disappointment, and discouragement. Maybe disillusionment and sorrow that we’ve come to this, what we are in our country.

I don’t fault any one person, I hold us all responsible, but you see, therein lies the problem. Apparently, I can see what few others do. I know it’s all our fault. I understand our constitutional responsibility to elect representatives in our republic. That’s our job – to find people to trust to carry our desires and needs to the government. Where are the patriots when you need them? Boy, oh boy, have we screwed the pooch.

Most Americans, especially politicians, are content to point the finger and walk away and let someone else clean it up. That’s how we govern our country. Well, folks, as they say in the south – that dog don’t hunt. It’s on the porch, pissed off, and ready to bite us in the ass.

This ‘kicking the can down the road’ approach we’ve adopted, bewilders me because eventually, we have to pay the piper – as they say. Enough with the colloquialisms.

The people we elect are our employees. They work for us – or should work for us – not the corporations or special interest groups or the cartels that pull all the strings or all those libtards with the money. But that’s who they serve – along with their insatiable self-interests. That bothers me. Why do we allow them to misrepresent us continually? They should be fired for not doing the job they were hired for.

I see things in a different frame and from a broader perspective. Is everyone intentionally oblivious or callous? Willful avoidance and claims of ignorance don’t discharge our constitutional responsibility; it only delays it – shifts it.

Then again, maybe it’s me? A good friend calls me super-cynical, a misanthrope. I accept that’s who I’ve become. It’s gratifying being a recognized skeptic. Yet, I choose to keep looking for the answers that will fix this country. I believe this country is worth saving. But again, maybe it’s just me…

I am bewildered by the intentional lack of leadership from elected misrepresenatives. When they take office, an oath mandates protecting us from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Bungles the Clown even referenced it during his deluded ramblings on MLK’s birthday. I would excuse this lapse of reason from our befuddled Clown Boss, but his dementia and track record is public knowledge. We elected him anyway. You can’t say you didn’t know…

We’ve done this too many times in the past 70 years for it to be anything but intentional. You can say that the cartel rigged the elections and that you didn’t know. The available evidence proves that more people voted than there are residents. Dead people don’t vote, but many did in some states. Ballots were harvested, manipulated, changed, lost, and miscounted. Non-citizens voted.

Now the push in congress is to federalize elections taking responsibility from the states, and give it to the corrupt politicians that gave us Bungles the Clown.

That works once or twice, but you should know better by now. We should all know better. I fault the ignorati that put them in office, but it’s ours to fix. We cannot ignore this any longer. That is unless we’re willing to surrender our liberties to socialists and fascists.

I’m not interested in that trade.

Are we so busy that we ignore the obvious signs only to defer resolution but never return to address them adequately? It’s like that small puddle of oil under your car. It grows slowly and steadily, darkening and staining the concrete, pointing to a deeper issue. But our attentions are elsewhere on what we deem more pressing matters. We’re surprised when the engine inevitably seizes, claiming there was no warning. Really?

The Clown Prince has a sinking 43% approval rating… Who are these people, and what cave do they live in? Are that many socialist sympathizers in America? This number truly surprises me, but then someone elected Bungles the Clown. I’m bewildered.

We are circling the drain as a country. All indications point to the collapse of our government, and we’re worried about the gender of Mr. Potatohead or whether a 5-year-old boy should play with dolls, whether little girls should get dirty or if skin color is more important than character. Seriously?

I’ve read quite a bit about the side effects and deleterious impact of masks reducing the oxygen intake and rebreathing carbon monoxides, dioxides, and nitrogen and how they affect cognitive functions. It’s easy to conclude that the mask mandates have seriously afflicted our collective sensibilities and mental capacities. Our government must be suffering hypoxia.

So far, I’ve covered Bothered and Bewildered.

We are bewitched – America is bewitched.

This word intrigues me because many synonyms describe its myriad facets and assert that witchcraft or magic is involved. Maybe a better word is beguiled. Those synonyms assume influence through flattery, trickery, misleading, and deluding. This is the most plausible reason for America’s infatuation with the progressive left and its socialist agenda. We’ve been being programmed.

We’re mesmerized by the allure of equality and equity, not realizing that those are expensive trades. Because you see, nothing is free. Why are we willing to trade for what we already have? Listening to the rhetoric through the politically partisan press, we’re led to the conclusion that America is still a slave camp where white supremacists rule people of color, where a person’s character matters less than skin color.

If this is true – If this is the case – if we are all white supremacists, bigots, misogynists, hateful white people who live on the labor of our slaves, why are millions of people willing to face hardships and death to enter this country legally or illegally?

Why would they come to a place like they just left? Because they know it isn’t true. They know something we choose to ignore. We’ve been duped by the lies and propaganda of the left who have us right where they want us – confused and believing the programming.

If you’ve had your head up and locked, that’s one thing, but blatantly ignoring these abundant signs is unconscionable. That’s the parallel I want to draw to this Rogers & Hart song.

America is Bewitched, and I’m Bothered and Bewildered.

February 11, 2022

~ The Author ~
Charles R. Dickens was born in 1951, is a veteran of the Vietnam, for which he volunteered, and the great-great grandson of the noted author, whose name he shares.

He is a fiercely proud American, who still believes this is the greatest country on the planet, with which we’ve lost control and certainly our direction. He grew up in moderate financial surrounding; were not rich by any stretch, but didn’t go hungry – his incredibly hard working father saw to that. As most from that era, he learned about life from his father, whose story would take too long to tell, other than to say that, he is also a fiercely proud American; a WWII and Korean war, veteran Marine.

Charlie was educated in the parochial system which, demanded that you actually learn something, and have capability to retain it before you advance. He attended several universities in pursuit of a bachelor’s degree, and chased the goose further to a master’s, and has retained some very definite ideas about education in this country.

In addition, Charlie is a professional (struggling) blues guitar and vocalist – a musician. This is his therapy career. Nothing brings him as much joy as playing music, and he wishes that he could make a living at it… maybe some day!

That’s Charlie… a proud, opinionated, and passionate American.