'CHOOSING LIFE', EARLY 21ST CENTURY

 Today, money has a negative interest rate.
This means that our current system is getting much too topheavy as regards how grossly unequally our society's wealth is apportioned. That can be seen because the dragon-heaps of wealth which the already-obscenely rich are accumulating have nowhere to be re-invested in the economy because demand is as low as it is. And the primary reason for that is that we of the 99.5% have very little discretionary income and growing debts. Many of us would be homeless and starving without credit; an alarmingly growing number of us are already in that state.
The place where all that money for which the economy currently has no place has to go--indeed, the only place it can fruitfully go--is down. That is, to the poor and working classes. Except for islands, the old middle class is no more in the USA. Only fully civilized places like Canada and Europe have a fully functional middle class anymore. And if that is to happen here, we need to expand the talk about systemic racism. We do need to remember that we are all sinners in need of Grace, so we can banish our anxieties about being Good People or not. Those anxieties seem to be a major stumbling block to discussing, analyzing and eventually dismantling systemic racism. And that dismantling needs to happen for us to regenerate our country and our society. That idle money is needed for daycare centers, upgrading of public education,  'greening' our society in ways such as switching to cleaner and renewable forms of energy, from extractive to regenerative agriculture, restoration and indeed strengthening of vital ecosystems. All these are reinvestments. Reinvestments in both human and biological 'capital' which, if past performance is anything to go on, will bear fruit which keeps on growing with time.
This is the 2020 version of 'choosing life'. Starting with such investments and proceeding to make our country much more of an economic democracy and thereby regenerating political democracy as well is how we will 'choose life' in our time. If we don't do this, this is what I see coming.
Never mind weather catastrophes becoming more frequent and more intense; societies as badly skewed as ours as regards who has what have a bad tendency to implode, to crumble from the top on down. No need to take my poor word for this; do the research! And what will that mean? It will mean that, for most of us, we'll need to scrape harder and expect to miss more meals. Which means our health will deteriorate. The worldwide death rates will spike far upwards. Are you still thinking, 'Not here. Not us'? Let me point something out and remind you of a related factor: in large regions of the earth, it may be that those left alive will not be enough to bury or otherwise dispose of the dead. That means large numbers of corpses will just rot where they've died. Now, wind currents circle the whole earth. Even if we ourselves are not faced with the situation I've just outlined, we will smell the rot. Literally. Imagine, say, ten years where the smell of rotting death is always in the air. Are you ready for that? Is that what you want for your children and/or grandchildren?! Think you can wear masks all the time?! I hope you don't want that!
And in order to 'choose life' I for one say we need to tax the billionaires' monies to the point where the largest fortunes are in the mere hundreds of millions as once they were, and keep those taxes operating for a good long time. Not only for revenue either but to keep privately-owned wealth and power within what I would call civically healthy limits. This means, no private wealth that can, to borrow Mr. Jefferson's words, 'bid defiance to the laws of our country' or lobby and propagandize as shamelessly as is currently the case.
So there it is: some significant changes or, at the very least, the omnipresent stench of death in the air. And what it will be is still, at this time, up to us. Choose life, that all of us and our children may live!

FOR ALL OF US WHO DEFEND DEMOCRACY AGAINST FASCISM

 I may yet owe an apology to some of those who, IMO, voted for fascism this election. Starting with Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Spaffenberger. Yes, he voted that way but he still put truth, and his country, above political partisanship, respected the numbers like the good engineer he is and for that he deserves creditable mention. And more state and local Republican officials appear to be emerging from the woodwork to stand beside him, for which they also deserve creditable mention. Because of all the noise made by those on the Right who are about to become open fascists, it's hardly even possible to tell whether the honest patriots among our opponents are a silent majority or a (let us hope) leavening minority in the 'Republican' party. They certainly are quite absent, with the exceptions of Mitt Romney, Larry Hogan, Peter Shumlin and Charlie Baker, from the top rungs of leadership. But wherever they are, they are examples of something without which democracy cannot survive: they put truth, principle and country above political party and desire for wealth and power.
Of course I'm biased, but to me it looks like such a spirit is shared by nearly everyone who voted Democratic this past election. It's the Republican party that is seriously diseased by all-but-open fascism inside its ranks, perhaps especially within its inside-the-Beltway contingent and, most of all, inside its media wing of Faux News. There, I'd say the fascism is already open!
In our country, we are once more on the verge of creating something that, so far as we know, has never existed before: a genuinely multiracial, multi-ethnic, multi-faith democratic republic. Think about this. We have the opportunity to be a leader among the nations again in doing this. However, too many among us want to bar the gate and make our country into a hideous cross between Apartheid South Africa and a Shi'ite Baptist republic complete with its own ayatollahs! So long as they're on top, they don't care if what they're on top of is Fresh Kills as opposed to being on equal terms with those who are 'different' than they and building something unseen before in all of human history--together!
Which brings me to something else a democracy needs: citizens who understand what democracy, equal rule of law, and hearing out everyone means and who are willing to defend and fight for that against enemies foreign and domestic. Right now our biggest problem is with the latter on the Right: racists, fascists, oligarchs, wannabe Grand Inquisitors and other neo-feudal bad actors.
These are the groups who stand in the way of a democracy larger and more comprehensive than anything before in human history. And they will spout such things as how 'natural' it is to be tribal. And they'll be....partially right. But it is both possible and indeed urgently necessary to put precept, such as the one to hear as great a variety of voices as possible and to be zealous in making sure the rule of law is equally applied, before one's tribe or tribes. This is necessary for democracy to work. It is also necessary for civilization to work and endure. Finally and most importantly, it is commanded by God in both Old and New Testaments and in the Qur'an as well, if I'm not mistaken. We often misunderstand this as a command to impose our cultures upon the unwilling. No, that's not how it's supposed to go. Yes, I do think Sir Charles Napier was right in putting an end to suttee in the way he did, too. If you don't know the reference, google it and be enlightened.
Another thing necessary for democracy (and I must say we democrats and Democrats have been remiss in this) is the slapping down of behavior intended to stifle voices the speaker doesn't like. There's been a lot of noise made about such behavior on the far left but the Left does this much less than the Right. And one variety of 'free speech' that should never be tolerated is speech which says that, because of race, ethnicity, faith or lack thereof and/or sexuality, one group should have more rights and others less.
We cannot repeat this often enough: personal liberty is not zero-sum. The freer the least among us are, the freer we ALL are! Allied with this is that living creatures--humans, animals, biospheres-- and their necessities, must be considered of more importance than property and property rights, especially those of absentee landlords or other absentee 'owners'. Mom-and-Pop or even mid-size businesses are something very different from corporate oligarchs and the two have precious little, if anything really, in common. We can't repeat that often enough either.
Much has to be done with which the honest Republicans probably won't agree but, so long as they play by a democracy's rules, we can live with that--and with them. When they can see how much better progressive policies pay off for everyone, that will be the icing on a very sweet yet nourishing cake.
But we can hardly be too severe with our native neo-feudal fascisti. They need to be decisively beaten time and again. God give us the strength to do what is necessary, sez I.

DO DEMOCRACIES NEED MINORITIES?

 Do democracies need minorities?
I suggest strongly that they do. Why? We've only to look at one very grim statistic from the election just past to know why. An alarmingly 'healthy' majority of my 'fellow' (shudder!) palefaces voted to say that children in cages, babies being ripped from their mamas' very breasts, unarmed people of color being mowed down by uniformed thugs with only different uniforms from the SS and Gestapo, God only knows (I confess to not wanting to know) what other enormities crying out to God for vengeance, right along with inequality of wealth and income which have us lurching toward a downright feudal economy--were quite all right with them and that they wanted more of them!!
This past election saved our democracy from being extinguished, no thanks whatsoever to the majority of my 'fellow' palefaces! And the minority of palefaces to which I belong could never have saved our democracy alone. We could only do this together with our fellow citizens of color: African-Americans, Latinos, Asians of every national origin from Israel (yes, including Ashkenazim) to Korea and our Native brethren as well. If that doesn't convince you that democracies need minorities in order to stay democracies, I don't know what will.
Our homegrown fascists profess that being multi-racial and multi-ethnic are drawbacks and weaknesses for nations. I say no, it is the other way around. To be multi-racial, -ethnic and -religious as well are strengths, not weaknesses!
Let me ask any French, Dutch, German, Italian or Spaniard within their political mainstreams: with minorities, is it less or more likely that these countries will remain liberal democracies and, indeed, be strengthened in that? Wasn't it between the wars, with a relatively 'pure' population, that fascism became dangerous? Why does it seem that Canada and New Zealand seem to be immune from the insanity that has gripped us, England (not so much the UK as a whole) and Australia? Could being bi-lingual and at least bi-cultural have something to do with that? I'll venture it hath quite a lot to do with those countries' comparative (to the rest of the Anglophone world) sanity!
And, conversely, it is those nations which are mistakenly proud of being monocultural where democracy has all but gurgled down the toilet. Poland and Hungary, I'm looking straight at you! And at most Arab/Muslim nations as well! And look how both Russia and China now treat their minorities! Anyone ready to say 'Uighurs'?
It seems that in most countries with large racial/ethnic/religious majorities where minorities have little or no political power and where the majority is not clearly threatened tend toward dictatorship of one form or another. Often that dictatorship is religious or 'anointed' by the country's dominant religion. Israel should be glad of its Arabs, Druze and beauteous (?) Circassians, to name some of its minorities. Without them, who knows what The Cheltenham Kid (Bibi, I mean) would be up to by now!
Democracies need minorities because they are, willy-nilly, the coal-mine canaries for any country's democratic life. They, not usually any country's majority, are the best guarantors and guardians of real democracy and the law treating everyone equally, or as near to it as a country can get. They are the groups who need these things the most in order to prosper and flourish. And when they do, the nation as a whole is that much better off.
I'd like to conclude with a special, deep thanks to all the women of color who saved our country's democracy in this past election. I wish I could do more, but I'm working on it with posts like this. I think of a song about the Black girl from the 1960s and I can feel my eyes filling as I do. Who out there remembers this song?
Black Pearl, precious little girl
Let me put you up where you belong
Black Pearl, pretty little girl
You've been in the background much too long
That last verse is all too true. I wouldn't call y'all 'little', but 'precious' hardly begins to cover your value to our country! Not sure it's for an aging paleface like me to 'put you up where you belong' but rather to clear the way for all you beautiful, smart, strong women to come forward and be placed 'where you belong'. And this aging pale male says you definitely belong everywhere in our country! Again, many thanks that you are here!

TEARS AND TEARS

 Fascists savor our tears.
That is, the tears of liberals and progressives.
Nearly all of such tears are shed either for people, or other living creatures, less able to fend for themselves than are we. Or those trying to give us that impression. Fatah and Hamas, I'm looking right at you!
Or they are shed for the damage or ruin, realized or possible, of things much greater than ourselves but which we cherish. Such as singular landscapes, species or, indeed, the country we all love in a much deeper way than do the fascists. Too often those that love our country most are those whose love the country returns poorly if at all. And we weep and/or rage over that too. Some of our tears are tears of hope of fulfillment and/or joy at such full or partial fulfillment of such hopes. Our hopes are usually all-inclusive or almost that. We need to dump the Jew-haters hiding among us.
It is very, very rare for a liberal or progressive to weep for themselves. To us, it is not our feelings that matter much. By and large we try to follow the Biblical injunction to mind the feelings of others above our own. We even sometimes put the feelings of the fascists above our own, which is a serious strategic and spiritual mistake.
Fascists are the REAL 'snowflakes' and 'buttercups'. They're the ones who'll demand to know if any 'n***er' ever used the clean cutlery set at their plates and won't abide anyone of color swimming in their association's pool, for instance. And when they're called on their vicious bigotries, will whine, moan and wail about discrimination against them!!
Fascisti, I got news for you: our reactions against y'all have nothing to do with the color (or rather, lack of color) of your skin, hair or eyes. Nor do they have to do with any weird-ass belief you might hold Many if not most of us are also people of faith. I certainly am. I am a Christian, and it is because I am a Christian that I am so angry with you. I see routine violations of both the Third and Ninth Commandments as being part of your stock-in-trade, along with cherished hatreds on the grounds of race, religion and politics. And I say you desecrate God's House with such diabolical beliefs and, above all, by the actions arising from such diabolical heresy!
No, our dislikes of you arise from the content of your character. Or, I should probably say, your lack of character. You seek to do evil, but you usually do it when you can, or think you can, depend on backing from some powerful planter-type person and/or the police. Usually not otherwise.
We will often act without such backing with leaders rising up from their communities. And when you're caught, you beg and wail for mercy, how you were set up and pleasepleasePLEASE don't hurt you! Ever see or hear us do that? No, we stand for what is right and just and we know it! We're often not humble enough about it, but let that be between God and us.
Fellow libs and progs, we have to stop being merciful to the fascisti's snow-flaky feelings. They show no mercy when they have the upper hand; can anyone tell me credibly that their feelings deserve any? Or that they should not be permanently excluded from the corridors of power?
Still, let's not fire the first shot if it comes to that. No, the way to neutralize the fascists is: buy them a place, fix it up nicely as a bar and make sure the booze is good quality, if not necessarily top-shelf. Maybe put a piano in it so they can sing their songs as they get drunk.
Of course, as they do get drunk they will weep endlessly, but only for themselves. All their tears will be for themselves alone as they mangle Wae's Me For Prince Chairlie for the--oh, I don't know, the twenty-third time or whatever. But in any case, fellow liberals and progressives, let us not be deterred from executing justice on those who have tears only for themselves or whatever they may call 'their own'. Remember, there's tears and then there's tears. We weep largely for other things besides ourselves and, when we do, we're prone to remind ourselves in a generally rather scolding way, of how blessed we still are, so let's keep marching! The right wing weeps only for themselves and whatever they term 'their own' and cannot understand any biped weeping for anything but themselves!!
Does it remind you of anything? Here's what it reminds me of:
"The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it." (John 1:5, NIV) In their incomprehension of care for anyone but themselves, I suggest they show themselves as children of darkness. Even as they delude themselves that they have a monopoly on the Light!

TO 70 MILLION JUDASES

 I'm not the first one to say this and I surely won't be the last: if we were serious about democracy and the rule of law applied to all equally, this election would never have been this close. It would have been a blowout repudiation of Trump, Trumpery and nearly all its enablers! Any enabler escaping with his/her political skin would need some serious mitigations to save them!
Instead, we had a close election, actually lost a few House seats (and we need to know if we lost progressives, Blue Dogs or something of each), gained no state houses, which may prove a serious setback as we can expect them to gerrymander ever more egregiously, and the Repiglicans may well even hold the Senate. We just got rid of Trump, which, I must admit, was the sine qua non of preserving a murmuring heartbeat of democracy. Still, much more needs to be done.
But why did this happen? Listen up, everyone. This is where I start with the political fire and brimstone, nearly all of it aimed at the tens of millions of palefaces who, with at least some real understanding of Trump's evil, still voted for more of him.
I understand that Trump also actually got a sizable chunk of the Hispanic vote--even in border communities which he would have gladly swept into the Rio Grande! Well, we expected Cubans and Venezuelans, both of whom were terrified by what I'd call 'pretzel' (that is, seriously twisted) varieties of socialism, to vote for the Great Anti-Socialist Cheeto. I have to scratch my head over other Latinos who went that way. Misinformation? Probably.
However, I concern myself with my purported 'tribe'. Most of you knew, surely, for what you were voting! Either one of three things applies here: first, you were so misinformed that you actually believed the lying stream of Trumpery from Faux News and OAN. I can at least pardon that. Second, that you lied to the pollsters like California palefaces did in 1982 when Tom Bradley ran for governor. Once in the voting booth, you showed that you weren't giving up on systemic racism and your privilege as whites! That you were NOT as Enlightened as you wanted the pollsters to think! And that you lied
about it clearly shows that you yourselves knew it was wrong to act on such feelings that way--and yet you did that!! I name all of you as traitors!!
Yes, that's right: TRAITORS!! First, traitors to the ideals of our country where the rule of law is supposed to apply to all equally and where we drift ever further from that ideal! And where racial, ethnic or national origin is not supposed to make a difference as to how we treat our fellow citizens!!
Second, you show yourselves traitors to the best in Western Civilization--where the same ideals are supposed to apply and transcend the tribalism of half-savage barbarians, be they Celts, Teutons, Arabs, Turks, Huns or Basques! We, and the West with us, are strong because we take in and test all kinds of ideas, inventions and people! And in reverting to tribalism based on skin color all of you show yourselves traitors to this noble inheritance! By this you show, except for the gadgets (especially the weapons!) you don't even want to be civilized!!
And that's not even your worst betrayal. This is your third and worst betrayal. Any 'Christians' among you remember this passage?
"There is neither Jew nor Greek; there is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female, for all are one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28) And what have you done? You have reverted to tribalism unworthy of American citizens, unworthy of citizens of the West and above all unworthy of Christians or Jews. Now, I admit that we all, myself included, think and do things unworthy of Jesus and/or Moses from time to time. But seriously, folks, this does our fellow citizens, fellow Westerners, fellow believers and fellow human beings serious injury!
Third, last and worst: those of you who betrayed your birthrights for, unless you're seriously wealthy, a few pieces of silver, probably nowhere near even thirty of them! As Judases go, you're scandalously cheap into the bargain! No doubt your silent, treacherous bigotry was an incentive but you chose Trump because the tax cuts were putting twenty, fifteen or maybe even only ten more pieces of silver into your treacherous pockets and purses!! How many of you dough-colored slugs even silently agree with what Trump said of our brave men and women in uniform?!
I warned you that fire and brimstone were coming, and there it is. A word to my fellow liberals: it's time not to care about the feelings of these for-real 'snowflakes' and 'buttercups'. The next post will deal with the vast difference of some of we liberals who bleed for others and the snowflakes who wail at a paper cut.
This election has uncorked my fire and brimstone. More will come!

TIME TO BREATHE--BUT ONLY THAT!

 It is done.
Democracy in this country will continue. Biden and Harris have been declared the victors. This is a time to take a breath, offer up prayers of thanks and maybe whoop it up a bit in celebration. What it is not time for is to pat ourselves on the back and reaffirm American Exceptionalism.
We came hellishly close to killing our own democracy with our inattention, selfishness, sloth and racial paranoia. This is an eleventh-hour save we've just pulled off and which we owe in large part to our fellow citizens with skins darker than the unbaked dough shade which many of us show on our faces!
Had we been the only voters, democracy would have been a corpse after this election! To say that it is shame and disgrace to us and our country that the margin was so close--not to mention that the Repiglicans have actually gained seats in the House (although, thankfully, we still hold the majority), we have yet to flip any state houses and that the Greedy Oilmen's Party may well hold the Senate by the skin of Massa Moscow Mitch's wattles--is to understate the case to an almost absurd degree! If we are serious about democracy and freedom, this election should have been a blowout for the Democrats at all levels from presidential down to local! That it was a such a squeaker shows all too clearly that too many of us care only for our own liberties and, above all, the size of our wallets! Even while those who, were they paid higher than starvation wages, might have a chance to add to our civic strength, have to worry about money nonstop in order to keep on eating! That this happens in the richest country in human history is another shame and disgrace to us, but more of that in another post later.
Perhaps worst of all, in this election when we all knew (?) the evil of the Trumpery before us, more of us voted for this incubus than four years ago! And only enough Suburban White Women voted for Biden/Harris to put them over the top! OK, we should be grateful to all those who made this save. But a greater percentage of white women--52% then, 55% NOW--actually voted for Donald Pussygrabber this time around! My innards gurgle even as I type this!!
As I write, Massa Moscow Mitch is plotting to not even allow Biden the cabinet members he wants! Joe, if you will take a humble man's advice, no more bipartisan b.s., or as little of it as might be absolutely necessary. We want to be opponents, not enemies, but I defy you to find me a Repiglican officeholder who makes that anything but a vicious lie and acts with anything but fascistic bad faith!
I mean it, Joe: I am absolutely serious. I'm a straight (and straightly married) aging second-generation Anglo-Saxon race traitor who has watched politics since he was almost twelve. I started following politics during the 1968 campaign and have never stopped doing so.
Our 'opponents' care only for power and money and care nothing--repeat, NOTHING--for democracy, the rule of law, freedom, equality or even for the best in our country. Make any conciliatory gestures short and arrange them so that their rejection will tell you and Kamala all y'all need to know about these political gangsters!
I think it might be time for me to take more than a few breaths. Sighs of relief from the Peanut Gallery. But this is time for only that much relaxation. We have lots of hard work ahead to strengthen and expand democracy with a pan-racial coalition of working people as a cornerstone of it and of the Green New Deal. So let's be grateful now as we breathe, pray, make a little whoopee and gird our loins for the heard struggle against powerful and unscrupulous enemies (that is how they see themselves and us) which awaits us. We palefaces still have plenty of waking up to do!

RAGE, COMPASSION & DISGUST AS THE COUNT GOES ON

 As the election remains undecided this Thursday (!) morning, I've read a fair number of columns and posts. It might be safe to say they inspire quite a few strong feelings in me which seem to boil down to these: first, rage--at more than one group and not all on the other side. Second, compassion coupled with an equally strong desire to avoid being patronizing. Finally, disgust at one particular well-off group alongside squaring my shoulders for whatever my part might turn out to be in the mountain of work ahead of us to preserve democracy, the biosphere and, thereby, save civilization as well.
First, the rage. I cannot digest that a sixty percent majority of my fellow dough-faces either want to keep systemic racism going or don't care one way or another! I want to roar to them, Don't you care that such systemic racism is the NEGATION of everything we claim for our country?! Don't you care how hollow and hypocritical our professions to be free ring in the ears of much of the world?! And don't you care what devastation we're leaving to our children and grandchildren?! Some, very likely most of you, are and have been very deliberately misinformed by others about how very real these problems are and that showing concern for these matters is no more than either hypersensitivity or, worse, an attempt to show how much better a person than you the 'fretter' is. On the other hand, the sources which also lie to you and keep your fears churning began by telling you what you wanted to hear, didn't they?
Misinformers who know their wicked business always mix some truth with their lies. So, I must admit that yes, there are some (one is too many for me) among us who mix 'virtue signaling' and/or 'see how much smarter I am' b.s. with, for the most part, some genuine concern for the issues involved. I have a bolt or two to shoot their way too. Such an 'addytood', as we say in Philly Town, is unhelpful and counterproductive. So change it!
I'll agree: no one really likes know-alls whether intellectual or spiritual, for that matter. Not to mention that to be the latter is the gravest sin of all. Funny thing is, I always thought it was your side that was and is overrun with and misruled by such grossly evil characters. FYI, I started to become a Christian when I was twenty (44 Years ago) and still am becoming one. And as a Christian, I understand I am expressly forbidden to think myself better than any other child of God. Including y'all, including any African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans and even Jews. How about y'all? I mean, do you understand thinking of yourselves as 'chosen' (especially if you consider your pale skin and eyes signs of such 'chosen' quality) is wrong and how dangerous it is to others and, in the end, to yourself as well?
My compassion is for those of us who have been so grievously misinformed and so egregiously lied to. Some of you may have been turned off by being strongly discouraged from asking any questions about what you're supposed to believe. You're on the right track then; anyone who tries to forbid you asking any questions is of not God but of the Enemy. Remember that and share it with everyone else!
And when you've asked questions on our side that the nearest snotnose character on our side deemed 'stupid' or 'obvious', maybe that left you feeling a bit homeless. For all such incidents where you got a snotty answer to an honest question, my deep and sincere apologies. That excludes any incidents where either 1) your questions were not honest but an attempt to lay a trap and/or 2) where what you thought were your 'smarts' were reduced to humiliating rubble. In the first instance, you got what you deserved; the second is routine for us who've grown up with argument and debate and to which you need to be inured if you're to join an honest battle of ideas--not of ad hominem/mulieram insults or other such irrelevancies! In such cases, gotta ask: who are the real 'snowflakes' or 'buttercups' here? Do tell!
Finally, I reserve my disgust for those of us who know what the stakes are in this matter but simply do not care. The ones who know quite well how evil Trump and Massa Moscow Mitch are but, so long as their wallets continue to fatten further, really don't care and will continue to vote GOP so long as their wallets grow fatter. Never mind if half their fellow citizens become starven and gaunt because of those selfsame policies! You and the racist 'religious' fascists who demand a sacerdotal/race-based dictatorship are the two groups who may yet send me into exile--but that will depend in large part on how this election turns out as well. In any case, our America has room for you and the rest of us; your 'Myrkkka' has no room for anyone else but your own sorry selves.
I think a mark of Heaven is that, other people and creatures are very real to the person with that mark. And conversely, to those with Hell's claws on, or in, them, no one, and no other creature, is 'real' to them except themselves and 'theirs', whatever that might entail! Put that on a mental back burner and let it simmer a good long while, y'all!

DEMOCRACY NEEDS INEQUALITY NARROWED

 Which of these two thoughts do you experience as truer?
"If everyone had 'enough' money anyway, who would work?"
"Is no good to have too much time. Must have work."
I experience the latter as much, much truer and I don't think I'm alone in that. I say, nearly all of us hoomins want and need some kind of regular work, even if we don't necessarily need the pay, although nearly all of us do need that too.
Let's pause and ask ourselves here: what do each and all of us need from our work? Certainly we all need to be able to support ourselves and, if we're lucky enough to have one, to at least help to support our families. But don't we all really need more than that from our work? I suggest that the following are things we need from our work, each and all of us:
1) We need to feel that we make a positive difference for our jobs, workplaces and workmates.
2) We need the mix of routine and novelty with which our work often presents us. We need this in our overall life and, ideally, our work should be of a piece in that.
3) We need to feel the dignity work gives us. This is why tyrannical bosses are such a spoiler and bearable only under severe threat of privation without that particular job or that the job offers high chance for advancement. Sometimes both.
But most of us have  known bosses who enjoy being unaccountably tyrannical, haven't we?
Let me make something clear here: a boss who drives herself at least as hard as she drives her underlings is not necessarily a tyrant. I've had two such bosses and was married to one of them (she died 11 years ago) and I would've followed either one down Hell's mouth!
It seems to me that a tyrant's perverse joy in his tyranny is in direct relation to how wealthy that tyrant is. When power, especially the power of the purse, is accountable to no one else on any regular basis--it is then that Lord Acton's dictum about power's tendencies are the most true.
And does anyone remember a survey about how much satisfaction money affords most of us, pun partially intended? I remember it quite well. It was done some years ago and it showed that, after money allowed enough to be well-clothed, sheltered and nourished and enough so that neither serious illness nor educating the children would be a financial catastrophe and to take decent vacations twice a year, the satisfaction money gave dropped pretty sharply for most people who lack the lust to be among today's slave masters. Back when this survey was made, that meant for most of us, $75,000 per year would be enough for everything. And perhaps when we've made it really possible (meaning without incurring a mountain of debt) for everyone to get the education they want and to have the health care they need, maybe that figure will drop.
One saying too many of the already-too-wealthy seem to disregard but is none the less true is, when we all do better, we ALL do better. This means that, so far from employment going down when the minimum wage goes up, it will likely go the other way. Spending is what drives the economy, and when more people have more money they spend more. Especially on things which they couldn't afford before. And, in absolute terms, the wealthy actually do better too. But when they feel too many others, perhaps especially those with darker skins, do better, the already-too-wealthy seem not to want to do that much better themselves. It would seem that they'd actually be content to be, in raw numbers, less wealthy provided that the non-wealthy were either abjectly, wretchedly poor and under the cruel necessity of being toadies, servants and slaves to them!
Could there be a clearer picture of the corrupting effects of gross inequality?!
Theology common to (at least) the Abrahamian faiths (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) speaks warningly of the corrupting effects of too much wealth, especially wealth which is unaccountable to other humans! Who has the chutzpa to stand and tell me, or anyone else, that they are any less corruptible than the rest of us? We used to believe that the rich, because they had what they wanted, were less corruptible than the poor or middling. What I see before my eyes in this year of Grace two thousand and twenty gives me very, very serious doubts about that. Now, it looks as if, for a few anyhow, riches do not dull the lust for more power, which makes the riches they already have very, very dangerous to democracy. Very possibly, they could prove lethal to democracy and indeed to human civilization as well.
We need some new criteria for leadership. Bernie is a good prototype; so might Joe and Kamala be. In any case, they are far better than the alternative which stands to prove to be cyanide to both democracy and civilization. But I cite Bernie because he is one who shows he really understands that politics is not all about him, it's about US and the programs we need to, really, stabilize and strengthen both democracy and human civilization. We need more leaders who understand that and who are far more activated by the desire to serve rather than their own greed for wealth and/or power. And bear in mind that leaders of small parties might be ego-driven too. But if I have any way to 'spot' them, that'll have to be in another post. Do I hear sighs of relief?

FOR MY FELLOW PALEFACES--WAKE UP NOW!!

It's down to us now.
This election will show whether we are still a free country or whether we're headed straight for fascism. Considering all that the fascists have done to try and delegitimize this election and indeed the whole democratic process, the margin still feels too narrow to me. So, to those either still hypnotized by Trump-ery, or soured by cynicism or who think they just don't have time for democracy and citizenship, let me acquaint you with what's in store for all our children and grandchildren and further posterity (if any of them will be alive by then) if we don't utterly trounce Trump-ery and the Repiglicans who have so eagerly embraced it.
The air and water will get dirtier. Clean air and water will get costlier as will medical care, decent food and education. All the 'basics' for life will become rarer and costlier even while basically useless gadgets stay the same price or even go to a lower price. This will mean that all of us frantically running on our hamster-wheels will have to go faster. There will be battles to get the essentials of life; the battle lines will be partially drawn by skin color. A large paleface minority, myself among them, will be on the side of people of color. God willing, the palefaces who FINALLY realize they really are no better off than anyone else of any other color will join us 'racial renegadoes'.
But what about my fellow-palefaces who have tangible excuses for thinking themselves 'better' and 'more hardworking'? Let me address a question to you: what do you really value the most? Surely it isn't anything material like that McMansion for which you went into hock, am I right? Isn't it your children and grandchildren? Do you want them to have to fight off hungry and desperate bands of people who have literally nothing left to lose for life's survival basics? Or do you think the answer is enough firepower to mow all those lazy n***er, s**c and 'Injun' grasshoppers down? Who will bury or cremate all of them then?
And do you want your children and grandchildren to have to work ever harder to have those basics? Get a few things straight here for a change: Trump and the too-wealthy people he serves are no friends of yours any more than they're friends to people of color. But the people of color mostly already know this. You need to learn this fast, along with the fact that the upward mobility rate in our country is now the second-lowest in the 'developed' world. At this rate, our upward mobility rate will soon be close to that of pre-Revolutionary France. Which means your children and grandchildren's chances of being even as well off as you, never mind better off, are going down, DOWN, down, down. (Thanks, Boss.) And that is because of the overweening greed of the already far-too-wealthy, NOT because of the needs of the poor, whether they're white, black, brown or red.
And imagine a planet where half the population, not to mention countless animals, have died of either famine, floods, fires and other natural disasters or of ever-newer pathogens. Who will bury or otherwise attend to all those corpses? How many of them do you think will probably just lie where they fell and rot right there? Perhaps this, more than anything else, will drive home to the already-too-wealthy how little they can insulate themselves from the rest of us in the end: the smell.
Yes, the smell. Imagine a planet where the smell of decomposition never, or almost never, leaves the air. You won't like this fact at all, but it remains a fact: if you don't vote, and vote the straight Democratic ticket, this election season, you are ultimately voting for a planet where the smell of rot will never leave the nostrils of our children and grandchildren. Just think that over. And don't take my word for it; do your own research. If you want to tell me I'm mistaken, go right ahead--but first show me hard evidence that I am mistaken. The only way it occurs to me I could be mistaken is if, once half the humans are dead and rotting, nature returns with a vengeance: forests and savannas are regenerated and expanded and pump new oxygen into the atmosphere.
Let's leave our posterity a planet where they won't have to smell rot every day, every hour, maybe every minute. Trounce Trump. Regenerate and expand democracy! WAKE UP, FELLOW PALEFACES!

MORE TREASON TO DEMOCRACY

 Yesterday, a very disturbing executive order was issued. If pursued, it can lead to an end of a non-partisan civil service doing its necessary jobs and its replacement by a jumble of servile neo-feudal wards of political and/or corporate oligarchs enriching only themselves and their personal masters. This confirms my suspicion: what the Repiglican party in DC has in mind is the extinguishing of democracy and replacing it with an oligarchic, neo-feudal tyranny! And they hardly even 'cover' it anymore!
Some Repiglicans (the political ancestors of those that now rule the party) used to characterize the FDR and Truman administrations as 'twenty years of treason'. What they meant then and mean now is no betrayal by Democrats to foreign powers but that they (the Repiglicans) were no longer seen as God's Anointed Rulers and that, like kings of old, they could do no wrong because of who they were! But they were never really replaced (that was a mistake!) but only supplemented by people who had been examined to see that they could do the jobs for which they applied and who were sworn to defend no particular person but only the American People and the Constitution.
This is what these would-be Lords and Ladies hate the most: that allegiance is given to the country and its people as a whole and to our basic law, aka the Constitution rather than to Worthy Persons like, of course, themselves! And that sort of personal liege-lord (or lady) tie is what they wish to bring back, albeit in 21st century clothing that won't creak and clank as armor would! The only thing they hate more than allegiance given to the people and their Constitution are co-operative government programs that actually work and erase the need for Great Lords and Ladies--like Social Security! Let me also say that the Repiglicans appear to have committed actual treason in pursuit of power and done it on an alarmingly consistent  basis from the time that Nixon dangled the prospect of a better deal for Thieu of South Vietnam if he, Nixon, won the 1968 election through the Reagan campaign's dealings with Iran for them to keep the hostages until Reagan was inaugurated and the Iran-Contra shenanigans right up to the present election where Trump is soliciting foreign aid to help his campaign as he did four years ago. Never mind twenty years; the Repiglicans seem to have committed treason with alarming consistency for FIFTY years! Emblazon this on the heavens and on our brains: FIFTY YEARS OF TREASON!!!
I now appeal to every Democrat and every progressive now running for office, perhaps especially to the top of the ticket. Joe, I hate to tell you this but if you think there'll be a return to bipartisan collegiality once the Trump incubus is gone, you're fooling yourself. The Repiglicans have been behaving with progressively less honor since Gingrinch was in the House and now they behave with none. You, and all the rest of us, need to treat them like the fascisti traitors that they are and ride over them (whenever possible) they way they seek to ride over our country: as roughshod as possible! Sorry to have to say this but, for the foreseeable (to me) future, bipartisanship is and will remain a thing of the past. Only if and when the Repiglicans become Republicans again, with a commitment to democracy at least equal to our own, can bipartisan collegiality return without endangering democracy!
Nor will we be able to afford incrementalism. If we are to save our planet and civilization in time, your administration will need to take long, bold steps and hit the ground running doing so. Let's deal fairly with the Lincoln Project and their associates as they have chosen country and Constitution over party and neo-feudalism but also with a few grains of salt. Change needs to be far-reaching now. Let's get ready to start implementing it the hour after (God willing) we win the election.

SOCIAL SECURITY, DEMOCRACY & FEUDALISM

        A day or two ago, I asked Nick Hanauer a question on FB. Considering how obvious it is that, when we all do better, we all (including the rich) do better and the adamant opposition of most of the obscenely rich to any measure which helps anyone other than themselves alone, this is what I asked:
Would most of these unimaginably rich people choose to be less rich if, by being so, they could also see the rest of us reduced to a new feudal state of dependency upon them? I suspect the answer is 'yes' but I don't know for sure and wanted to check it with Mr. Hanauer. I haven't heard back from him yet and I just checked FB.
In any case, the most powerful witnesses for an unfortunately affirmative answer to my question seem to be the obscenely rich themselves, led by one who wants us to think he's obscenely rich but who, according to the NYT and other credible news outlets, is actually much closer to being bankrupt for what will probably be the final time in his misspent life.
If (God and the people forbid!) Trump is re-elected, he will seek to eliminate the payroll tax which funds Social Security. And not only decades from now but also right here. right now! This would mean that Social Security would run out of money in 2023--well within the lifetime of senior citizens largely dependent on that program. Trump also says Social Security will be financed other ways. I don't believe the lying bastard for a New York nanosecond, but for argument's sake let's allow he might actually be telling the truth. How would it be done? I certainly don't know, but Trump himself provides a clue to how it would be shaped and delivered. Remember how he wanted his signature on all the relief checks?
Based on that and certain other characteristics common to him and other members of our new Ignobility, I think he'd like to send out boxes of coins of middling worth (at best) as often as necessary and to have every coin struck with the image of Emperor Trump! With some sort of message that, if you want to continue having regular meals with a decent roof overhead, you'd better be the Emperor's Loyal Subject! Most of those most wealthy love this sort of thing. It flatters their vanity and allows them to troll around with the sort of self-satisfied, self-righteous smirk which Trump and others may have forever rendered infamous. Anyhow, let's hope so. By being Generous For Service, the rich can deceive themselves about being generous and big-hearted. And they adore doing this. Almost as much as many of them are addicted to gambling on the stock market with other people's money--another reason they hate Social Security. Their greed drives them to want to put their filthy fingers on our money!
The far right has always hated Social Security not because it doesn't work but because it DOES work and works very well indeed!!! It shows how well government for, of and by the people can work for a huge majority of the people! It checks the power of the wealthiest among us and also hints that maybe it's not really necessary to have a small number of obscenely wealthy people. And this last probably shivers the timbers of the wealthiest among us right down to their splinters!
Let no one mistake me here: I do not support any idea which says we all must be absolutely equal; there will always be great and small among human beings. But if democracy is to live and flourish, democratic societies have to have not only strong floors below which no one is allowed to fall but also ceilings above which no one is allowed too much privately held wealth--which means, no one, nor any small group, should be powerful enough to endanger anyone else's human rights.
Mutual support and aid programs by citizens to citizens, with all contributing according to their ability  to pay, end the need for patronage from the wealthy when they are worked and used as they should be. The Swiss, so I understand, have been doing this for centuries. They've even taxed themselves to support the arts, no less. And the Gnomes among them have the good sense to pay their fair share as Swiss citizens. At least it looks that way from a 4000-mile distance.
For at least the last forty years, we have flattered the rich in increasingly abject ways with our politicians in the lead. That needs to stop right here, right now! We need to distinguish between wealthy persons as regards 1) how they got their wealth and 2) what they do with it. And no, we don't all want to be obscenely rich either! There's another lie to scrap pronto! A few years back, someone did a study as to how much satisfaction wealth afforded anyone (pun intended) and it turned out, once people had enough to 1) maintain themselves and family in reasonable comfort, 2) not worry about an unexpected illness being a financial catastrophe, 3) to educate one's children, have OK vacations twice yearly and retire in modest comfort--more than necessary for this afforded only diminishing satisfaction for most people. But there will always be those psycho/sociopaths who enjoy reducing human beings to the status of marionettes. And we need to make sure that they will they will never, or as near to it as humans can manage, be able to do so outside of their own little circles.
The payroll tax ought to be increased. Social Security should be expanded as should all social programs which help the middle classes and the poorer classes as well!

DEMOLISH THE WALL OF SILENCE!!!

I'm a white, straightly married, middle-aged Anglo-Saxon. And I mean this specifically as being of English descent. English. That's most of, but not interchangeable with, British. British=English, Scots or Welsh. I have a little Scots in the family tree, but my dad's side is still mostly English.
My point here is, I am a member of what seems still to be this country's ruling caste. The only thing that makes me otherwise is that I haven't any money more than necessary for the modest comfort in which I, my wife and our pets live. And I am seething with rage at what really seems to be, more and more, Gestapo and SS-style thugs in uniform who gun unarmed people down, especially black and brown people, and almost never reap the just consequences of their actions!
All you M**ks, D*gos and, to use Mr. Dooley's description, 'Pollackies' who are now presidents of those mafias called police unions such as the FOP, listen up and listen good!! Don't you dare lie to me about how 'you'll never be one who we need to subdue' or some codswallop, to use a relatively polite term, like that! It is true that any injustice, anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere! By the way, how do the epithets that were applied to your grandparents or, maybe, your great-grandparents feel to you now? Getting the point a bit, are we? I certainly hope so!
And yet, I am still ready to believe that most of you genuinely want to 'serve and protect' all the people equally. At least you may start out that way before the thuggish 'police culture' swallows you up!
If you wish to be and remain reputable enforcers of the laws, there is a large obstacle in your way that has to be utterly demolished if the respect of people like myself mean a tinker's curse to any of you. And that obstacle is the Blue Wall of Silence. You worthy officers who are not mere uniformed thugs and have no desire to be that need to speak up NOW!!! If you don't all want to be known as 'pigs' to a growing number of citizens like myself, you're going to have to be 'rats' to the thugs among you!
You already know you'll have to look out for each other; those among you who know the story of Frank Serpico know that well enough. And I can well imagine how you may already feel yourselves between a rock and a hard place, as the saying goes. I frankly don't envy you. But hear this from a member of this country's still-ruling caste: you can either let the boars, aka the thuggish pigs, rule your forces and thereby lose more and more respect and trust from your fellow-citizens including many of those who share my lineage, or you can 'rat', and, when enough of you do so at roughly the same time, change the 'police culture' to one which really does protect and serve all your fellow law-abiding citizens--and thereby regain, probably with interest, what should be your most prized asset: the trust and respect of all your fellow-citizens.
Maybe some of you whine inwardly or openly, 'Do we have to be the ones to do this? Isn't there anyone else?' Well, point me out someone who might shape how the police operate more than you do, and I'll send them a copy of this post. For good or ill, it's primarily on y'all and I think you know it.
So what will you be? Protectors and servants for real who understand and appreciate being made accountable to civil authority, or uniformed thugs who are outright hated and not trusted at all by a growing number of fellow citizens who feel like they're under harsh military occupation?
To me your trouser-legs are looking increasingly like you're wearing jackboots, and--well, I am in my sixties, but that metal on your cap looks alarmingly like a Totenkopf!
Worthy officers of the law, it's up to you. Right here, right now. Choose wisely and remember we take oaths to the Constitution, not to any person.

TURNING OVER ROCKS

Today, I have more than a few uncomfortable thoughts slowly swirling in my cerebral cauldron.
The Jews did, and in the West they still mostly do, their best to assimilate into their host nations.
Then certain people in those same nations said, no, Jews can never be assimilated. Because we are 'pure white' and they are 'black', all they can do is pollute and defile our blue-haired blond-eyed oh-so-eugenical bloodstream. And as Jew-hatred grew in openness over Europe, not only Germany, but much of Europe (especially Eastern Europe) was primed for the Shoah. This had nothing to do with religious difference; one Christian saint (and another?) were murdered because their DNA was Jewish.
In an all-too-similar way, haven't most African-Americans done the best they knew to do in terms of being peaceable and hardworking citizens? And how much more have they got, if anything more, than did the Jews for all their efforts to assimilate? Their most prosperous towns and neighborhoods were burned to ashes when enough peckerwoodies got jealous enough. And in the case of Greenwood in 1921, the Oklahoma National Guard even participated by bombing Greenwood from the air! Not to mention Rosewood, Florida, two years later! And in no case did the law lift a finger to save any black life or smatch of black property; they were usually among the lawbreakers!
Islam has little to no right to speak in this. Maybe (and this is highly questionable) they didn't make a difference between Islamized Jews and native Arab Muslims, but that difference will likely be shown to be more marginal than Islamists want to make it out to be. And they certainly have no right to present themselves as the Black Man's Champeen. Not after being the original, largest-scale and probably still going slave-traders with by far the largest casualty number. John Azumah Adembillah writes about this in his Legacy of Arab Islam in Africa. As to present Arab racism, look no further than what bro Eldridge (Cleaver) had to say about Algeria after living there for eight years!
The realization that, whatever we do or try to do to please our 'majority' hosts, they still want to kill us and too many of those that say they don't want to will turn their heads when our murderers do their dirty work, is something that Jews and African-Americans have in common in this country. God knows how many groups have that in common over the globe!
This is why there is a Nation of Islam today. This is also why majorities of Israeli voters (most of whom, or their parents or grandparents, have now returned from elsewhere in the Middle East and Africa) consistently vote Likud or further right. This is why The Cheltenham Kid, aka Bibi Netanyahu, has such an adoring mob still at his heels. Both groups know that their host majorities are only comfortable with them so long as they are at those majorities' mercy--and why the 'Palestinians' will never accept Jewish sovereignty at all until and unless they are left with no.other.choice.
It's also why GOP legislators in 1967 California became pro-gun control with remarkable speed once the Black Panthers started carrying in order to keep today's slave catchers from getting homicidally brutal with their people! And it's also why the armed thugs in Lansing were treated with kid gloves while the peaceful protestors this past week were met with weapons of war!
It is true that the work of ending racism in all its systemic manifestations is work we palefaces need to do. It is also true that, in sharing real power, we palefaces will be, at least partially, putting our fates into the hands of Outsiders to Our Tribe. I hope, at this point in our history, our collective consciousness of crimes committed by our ancestors and, arising from that, the still-mostly unarticulated terror of having the same measure meted unto us, will prove not quite as strong as the two things which I see as having led the West to its still-current, albeit seriously challenged, summit.
The first of these two things I see as a vigorous tradition of self-criticism. Someone once wrote that 'Western Civilization was born in the creative tension between Jerusalem and Athens' and I for one would say there's a very good case to be made for that! The Jews had, and still have, just such a vigorous self-critical tradition from the prophets even unto this day. The ancient Greeks were sticklers for accurate observation and careful recording of those observation. The idea of 'citizenship' also begins with the ancient Greeks and was underlined and amplified by the ancient Romans who conquered the Greeks and Jews. And if anyone still reads the ancient Romans forward from the time of the Gracchi, they'll find a lot of critical writings! Finally, I defy any and all my readers to find us any civilization so openly critical of itself as Western civilization is. Seriously. And good luck in trying to find such a society; I think you'll need it.
The second is allied to this. Medieval Europe was actually remarkably open to new technologies and didn't much care whence they came for the most part, although it was a bit of a struggle to get Christendom to adopt what was originally called the Hindu-Arabic system of numbers. We need to hold onto this willingness to try new ways of doing things. Especially as the need to re-green our earth and at least slow down climate change grows more and more urgent.
In the USA, we at least say anyone who's willing to live by the rule of law and the ways of democracy (including passionate but civil discussion of issues and ideas) can be a full citizen. It's past time for us palefaces to do what is needful to make that as real as we possibly can--while we still are a majority. Trump and his idolaters have chosen the way of  darkness--the way of naked tribalism. We need to make a one-eighty and not go the Trumpery way again; at least not within the lifetimes of those now drawing breath. Amen and amen.

OUR 'PRESIDENT' IS AURIC GOLDFINGER AND A LOGICAL END TO THE PAST 40 YEARS

Apart from the first part of the title, and perhaps other snippets in this post, I'm not saying anything in this post that has not been said aforetime. Although I haven't seen anyone else besides my good self draw attention to this little tidbit: In 1980, not only was there far less of a gap in wages and salaries in private industry but even less of a gap in healthcare and educational pay grades.
In the last forty years, we seemed to think we could improve both healthcare and education by opening them to the profit motive. What we have really done is almost completely gutted and ruined both! In both areas of endeavor, the profit motive should be at most secondary as long as we want to attract those most suited to them. And we've continued to 'parrot' that truth as an excuse not to pay either secondary medical personnel (I'm not sure about doctors) or classroom teachers nearly enough! The stories of teachers buying supplies for their students out of their own pockets are no less than legion and are one factor making us the shame of the civilized world, to which we now only partially belong! It's past time to put a swift and ruthless end to the profit motive, aside from reasonable salaries for all, in both fields and to also thus end the especially pernicious private-prison business!!
We are now at the point where rich con men who sell nothing, nothing, NOTHING of real value may be more admired by a too-large portion of our population than such self-sacrificing teachers and millionaire medical celebrities whose real medical knowledge might be a bit on the sketchy side are more respected than the doctors, nurses and others who do the hard day-in day-out work in the clinics, hospitals and labs! This has something to do with why Democrats, liberals and progressives mostly lose even if the measures they back are favored by large majorities: we seek to develop and cultivate critical understanding while the GOP and further right only wants to brand efficiently!
Efficient branding is Twain's lie that can be halfway around the world before the truth of critical understanding can put on its boots!
And in either exalting the most lucrative and neglecting society's mostly unrespected but indispensable humble helpers, or acquiescing in that exaltation, do we have anyone to blame but ourselves? I for one say 'no'!
If we strive for economic and social justice by allowing and encouraging labor to organize, by starting to make real restitution for stolen land and coerced unpaid labor, if we start to really respect the 'helping professionals' among us by paying them adequately and establish a firm limit to how much wealth any individual, family or other small group can hold (enough to render it impossible for any oligarchy to rise again) and if we start to heavily invest in replacing, renewing and regenerating common resources, we may yet save ourselves. But we cannot save ourselves without doing these things! And we can only do these things working together and with our collective future (and the threat of no future looming over us) very much in mind!
If my words don't wake up at least a few people, I hope they at least hearten those already awake. And I've enlisted Shirley Bassey to help in this. If Trump is Auric Goldfinger (and I maintain he is) listen to this and think about who the Golden Girl Goldfinger kisses might be!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D1nK7q2i8I

And if Shirley Bassey doesn't wake you up--go drink bleach!!!

LENTEN MEDITATION: 2020

Lord have mercy.

Have mercy on me, my God, as I wake this morning with such bitterness in my heart as I have rarely felt: bitterness toward my fellow palefaces, the majority of whom look to be lurching toward turning our country into a land of Judases, each of whom might well horrify the original with their treachery. ‘The brave’ are a decreasing number among us and too many, when they return here, wind up a shameful on-the-street testimony as to how this majority-coward nation treats the few brave among us!
Most of us appear to be cowards who don’t even want to imagine lives different in some really important ways: less filled with ‘stuff’ and more filled with nurturing relationships with one another, animals and, yes, whole ecosystems as well. Economic systems that put back into the earth at least as much as they extract. Indeed, too many of my fellow aging male palefaces seem to feel their manhood depends on maintaining and even on doubling down on destructively extractive ways with the earth’s resources.
Jesus, I believe you forgave even Judas, for wasn’t he also one who ‘knew not what he did’ until it was too late? Do I then need to forgive today’s Judases who seek to betray our country and our planet on the same ground? And yes, I do remember that forgiveness is as much for the forgiver as for the forgiven.

Christ have mercy.

A majority of this country, Father, still calls itself ‘Christian’. Too many of them act like anything but. They’re interested not in Your Gospel, not in living and sharing it. They want worldly wealth and power, and to get it they use Your holy Name as a stalking-horse. Listen to them! Such routine violations of Your Third Commandment are part of their stock-in-trade, not to mention the same of Your Ninth Commandment! They delight not in mercy but in cruelty!
They are your enemies, Father! Arise and scatter them into the wind!!
But such crimes are by no means peculiar to Christendom. Islam has more than one saying which urges the hearers to look behind outward ‘signs’ of piety such as long beards, shawls and phylacteries, a bumped forehead or, indeed, a niqab or hijab.
I think I need to read Jon Meacham’s recently published book about how he sees real religion making a comeback and regenerating our country. I literally pray that it may be so. Jesus, guide us, even if it be into fashioning cats-o’ nine and driving the profaners and their money-changing enablers from Your House!
Trouble is, that way’s too easy. Much more sure (of a connection with You, I mean) will be the non-violent action of masses of us. To do this, we shall need massive amounts of courage. Plant in each of us all we’ll need in this; help us remember that courage is never the absence of fear but the transcending of it!

Lord, have mercy.

I guess domestic pets are not the only ones who need to adjust a bit when we ‘spring forward’; I got up this morning (after returning to bed after giving the dogs their first outing and breakfast) at 9:04 Central Daylight Time!
Glad I woke up then as I was in the middle of yet another nightmare which I have now, thankfully, forgotten.
As the Rascals once sang, it’s a beautiful morning. The sky is a pastel blue dappled with thin white clouds and the doggies are very happy to be outside. The puppy, who we’ve named Bonita, actually ‘goes’ outside. She is still only partly toilet-trained and I’m glad to see signs it might be working.
Later, as I shower, I pray. I discuss my feelings with God. I feel the need to express these feelings, but in a way consonant with what I understand to be real manhood. That is to say, expressing them, not stifling or sublimating them, but also carefully patrolling my expression for any whiff of self-pity and being ‘merciless’ in so doing.
Thank you, Father, for such reminders of your mercy as pretty, quiet mornings and happy puppies. Not to mention that our house is still standing after a tornado, and probably an F4 at that, ripped through Nashville (which is 95 miles to our west) and screamed east as far as Cookeville which is about thirty miles to our west. Monday night a week ago, we and the dogs spent about forty minutes in the basement after the weather radio urged us to ‘take cover NOW’. Like millions before me and (I hope) after me, it’s the everyday, small things — including prayer and contributions for the tornado’s victims — which can bring me back to You, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Especially when the bigger picture looks as bleak as it can too easily these days.
I’ve heard more than one person say, God is not in the tornado but in our, and our neighbors’, response to it. Amen and amen, say I.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

WRITER'S BLOCK & THE RULE OF LAW

"For my friends, everything. For my enemies, the law."

That is the viewpoint of the current usurper of the Oval Office. With that attitude he shows how ILLEGITIMATE a president he really is--and I for one say he knows this dam' good and well!
Among my fellow palefaced 'Americans', almost none know what it is like to have the authorities use the law as a cudgel against any group to which they might belong. A few more, I am afraid with decreasing force, remember tales from their elders about that condition. I'm sort of like that. While no family elder ever told me of such a thing happening to them, I read of how, on one side of the family, the law in Eastern Europe was never a friend of the Jews. And on the other side of my family, it's easy to see that the law would have been no friend of theirs either--at least not in the antebellum South. Suffice it to say my paternal ancestors were the Southern whites who the ex-planters termed 'scalawags' during Reconstruction.
Well, fellow palefaces, unless we turn out in unprecedented numbers and give the formerly 'Republican' party a bigger, and much more down-ballot, shellacking as they'll have never experienced in all their history (only 1936 and 1964 should even come close) a good many more of us will be experiencing that particular condition of existence in the years to come!
Our fellow citizens who actually do know what such a condition feels like (and how to go on living nonetheless) are almost entirely those of color: African-American, Latinx and/or Native. We may be under the necessity of learning this from them. There's a lot more we should have learned, and should still, learn from them regardless!
I gave this post its particular title because, for a few weeks at least,  I've had a writer's block. I've felt as though I have a lot churning inside me but my attempts to articulate it have fallen flat, at least until now. And that block, plus that it's been cloudy and rainy almost nonstop here on Tennessee's Cumberland Plateau, has made me a bit more melancholy than usual. But after taking a good look at said block, I think I know the crucial element: Trump's nonstop assaults on the rule of law and anything remotely resembling 'justice for all'. I believe I actually may feel such assaults as internal blows on my mind and soul.
Understand this, fellow palefaces: those who have told us that there's only so much 'justice' and 'freedom' to go around have been deliberately lying to us in order to keep us under the illusion that we're somehow better than those with duskier complexions! We need to invest equally in ALL our human capital of ALL colors in order to solidify and strengthen that investment for all of us! More for African-Americans, Latinas and Natives does NOT mean less for us; in the end it means more for ALL of us! It's really true that, when we all do better, we ALL do better!!
But even with breaking this block, I could use some encouragement from my friends also engaged in this struggle. If the worst happens this November, I will at least think of decamping to some country where I need never soil my tongue with what will have been my cherished native and (on dad's side) ancestral speech again! For such an outcome in November will show it to be today the speech of Judases who have deliberately turned their backs on the best in our heritage! And then I'll think of those who can't leave and be ashamed of myself that I ever thought of deserting my friends and comrades in arms!
I can't say often enough that this November, we must turn out in record numbers and sweep the former 'Republicans' out of office at ALL levels from federal to local; yea, even neighborhood level!
Also, keep your pitchforks sharp, have (non-Tiki) torches and a noose or two ready. Buy a firearm, learn how to use it and groups of us should buy plenty of ammo as well. Even if we bring forth a 'blue tsunami', I don't put it past the current usurper to cry 'foul' and refuse to leave the house he now usurps!