Swamp Creatures
My Day
By Dr. J. Ester Davis
What is your definition of a swamp? Would you want to live on Swamp Street or drive through Swamp City, USA? How did we get to a swamp conversation about our nation?
Early in the Clinton-Trump presidential campaign, the term ‘swamp creatures’ surfaced from a Republican lawmaker referring to Hillary Clinton. The Candidate Trump continued to use it throughout the campaign as ‘draining-the-swamp’, his purported reference to cleaning up America. America is great and ordinary people made it that way. Now, just days away from the swearing-in ceremonies, we have developed a ‘swamp’ mentality, versus a reality check look into what it actually is: the “Trump Swamp” . Two difference things completely. Let me explain.
The Trump Swamp( aka ‘swamp’) is not being drained. It is being filled up with more and more swamp creatures. The two-legged ones in suits, all from one specie. White men, so far. . . all of a certain age. The President of the United States has about 4,000 appointments to make, so we are watching the scoreboard on appointments.
Around the country and abroad, we not only have the daily American protestors active in major cities about the Trump election, but the tone and tenor of a divided nation with overwhelming loud headlines are troubling. Just between November 14 and November 19, 2016, after the national election, major titles like “Making America White Again”, “Living in Trump’s Soviet Union”, “Rights of Women Under President Trump”, “Will Trump Bankrupt America?” are dominating our listening, watch and reading pleasure. This is undesirable.
A swamp, lower case, has more integrity and proven purpose. A swamp is nettled in a wetland. Wetlands and people are far from being useless. They exist all over the planet earth. Wetlands and swamps are important because they provide a volume of food , that attract many species for numerous uses. These species have lived together for centuries. In the wetlands are frogs, alligators, crocodiles, snapping turtles, snakes, dragonflies, lizards, flies, insects, rare birds and terrains. Contrary to the connotation, “drain-the-swamp” , whether we like them or not, these are not undesirables. It is clearly a focused image of the “Swamp-Maker”, 21st Century style, who desires his specie only in his Penthouse Swamp.
The serious issue is that due to deforestation and pollution in the air and water, forests, swamps and wetlands are being moved, altered, eliminated, covered with cement, high rise expensive housing, golf courses and colored water fountains. These nature made environs promote and stabilize global climate conditions.
And we are all students of the changing global climate conditions.
Ester Davis can be reached at www.esterday.com.
