March 14, 2020
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The Monsters Arrive on Maple Street – UNABRIDGED
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This was first posted on March 14 …. Now its May 26 and Neighbors are fighting Neighbors over wearing Masks
…. Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction. … sigh!
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WARNING: Are you are among the millions of people in America terminally infected with Trump Derangement Syndrome -TDS … with a rabid hatred for Donald Trump and for the 63,000,000 of us who supported him in 2016 and support him even more today? If that is YOU… The following commentary will only feed your rabid insanity.
I recommend you CLICK OFF this website now in the best interest of all concerned. You probably won’t, but at least I warned you.
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NOTE: There are TWO versions of this commentary. (1) – The UNABRIDGED version here. And – (2) – An ABRIDGED version for the less provocative BobLeeSays page. The differences will be obvious.
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The Monsters are Due on Maple Street originally aired on March 4, 1960 on CBS. It was Episode 22 of Season One of The Twilight Zone. Written, of course, by Rod Serling.
I have referenced this particular episode of The Twilight Zone on several occasions here over the past 20 years. The appropriateness of this 1960s scenario to March 2020 in America should be obvious to all but the most totally oblivious among us.
The premise is “a typical” residential neighborhood in AnyTown USA circa 1960. The comfortable consistencies of their everyday world are “tweaked” – in slight, seemingly inconsequential, ways… AND… CHAOS erupts 
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Maple Street, U.S.A., late summer. A tree-lined little world of front porch gliders, barbecues, the laughter of children, and the bell of an ice cream vendor. At the sound of the roar and the flash of light, it will be precisely 6:43 P.M. on Maple Street…This is Maple Street on a late Saturday afternoon. Maple Street in the last calm and reflective moment – before the monsters came. … Before the CHAOS ensues.
In the final scene, the camera pans back to a “spaceship” looking down on the chaos. Two silhouetted figures are discussing the scene below.
Figure One: Just stop a few of their machines… disrupt their routine… throw them into darkness for a few hours… With few variations, they pick the most dangerous enemy they can find… AND ITS THEMSELVES. And all we need to do is sit back … and watch.
Figure Two: Is this pattern always the same… this Maple Street… is not unique?
Figure One: Their world is full of Maple Streets. We’ll just go from one to the other and let them destroy themselves… one to the other… one to the other.
Narrator (Rod Serling’s) Voice:... The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices…to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill…and suspicion can destroy…and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own – for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is that these things cannot be confined to the Twilight Zone.
A two-minute condensed video of – Episode 22 / Season One..
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In America 1960… CHAOS could be created by simply turning streetlights on / off … turning a lawn mower on / off … an automobile starts up by itself. Technology 1960 was “stone-age” compared to now – 60 years later.
Today 2020… a “power surge” during a thunderstorm shuts your computer off… and you curse “the city” … “the utility company” … “your internet provider”. You go to make a cellphone call and get a No Service notice… an interruption of only a few moments sends you into a cuss-fit. You can’t send an e-mail … or a text message … YOU CAN’T ACCESS FACEBOOK / TWITTER !!! OMG !!!
Compound THAT with OMG !!! … NO MARCH MADNESS … NO NBA … NO MLB … NO MASTERS. … and then there’s the totally insane fights in the aisle at Wal-Mart over a case of Charmin’. Could even Rod Serling have ever imagined …
If Maple Street 1960 could be turned into a War Zone in 30 minutes … Imagine how vulnerable America 2020 – or Western Civilization – The Planet – is today.
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How did America become such “easy pickins” for an outside force to be able to manipulate our society to cannibalize itself… by simply tweaking our routines… our conveniences? Cancel March Madness and suddenly your cul-de-sac is En Fuego.
America has been fully engaged in a WAR for quite some time … well before Nov 2016; but certainly escalated every hour of every day since November 2016. … and it will NOT end in November 2020. … regardless of the election results. If you insist upon a Fort Sumter Moment or some such symbolic Crossing of The Rubicon, you may wake up one morning and find Barbarians At Your Front Door.
A WAR for the Socio-Cultural Core of America.
I am on record as having been a “lesser of two evils” voter for Donald Trump in 2016. Over the ensuing 3.5 years I have become an aggressive supporter of Donald Trump. He has distanced himself from the “quite evil alternative” thru both his own performance as POTUS… and by the daily revelation of our mutual enemies to be FAR worse than I had ever imagined them to be.
I have NOTHING in common with rank & file liberal Democrats but a pair of opposable thumbs.
A faction of our country that chooses as its “public face” and as its leaders – Nancy Pelosi – Chuck Shumer – Adam Schiff – Maxine Waters – et al is abhorrent to me. Even ore Abhorrent is the mainstream media that runs “cover” for them.
I have no military experience. I have never experienced true “combat” against an enemy sworn to subjugate me and my family to his will. That said… my feeling of utter contempt for Lib/Dem leadership and their rank & file members… and “the mainstream media” is as close to a combat attitude as I can imagine. They are my sworn enemies.
NOTE: As of March 2020 – there are nine individuals in my life who aggressively despise Donald Trump and his supporters (like me). I have chosen to hold them apart and to maintain a personal friendship. I hope I can still say that in the years to come.
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However you have ordered your daily life there are aplenty of people walking among you who very aggressively disagree with your core values. You do not have to “like them”. You can hold them in utter contempt, as I do… but they “walk among us” regardless.
My daily escapes are (1) long walks on a woodland “greenway” with a good audible book; and… (2) scrolling thru 100s of pictures of our grandchildren. Not necessarily in that order. I hope you have effective ways to “escape”.
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How you will react When The Monsters Arrive… on Your Maple Street… if they haven’t already arrived?
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NOTE: The ABRIDGED version of this commentary is available at BobLeeSays. …. CLICK.
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“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; … but he/she that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
– Thomas Paine
More SAIDWHAT? – CLICK.
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BobLeeSays has been a continually functioning website since 1999… with over 2100 commentaries. BobLee is NOT – “an Intellectual” … nor “a Journalist”. BobLee is a BabyBoomer who ponders the HowComes of Life.
Reader Comments are aggressively encouraged. In over 20 years, only six have been zapped.
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