Thanks for your invocation of all those forebearers to mark a place in your passage, and, by your gesture, in our passage. I know only the story of my father, who served in the OSS in the Second World War, although he rarely talked about it. I learned at his memorial service that he won a bronze star for saving some of the Doolittle flie…
Thanks for your invocation of all those forebearers to mark a place in your passage, and, by your gesture, in our passage. I know only the story of my father, who served in the OSS in the Second World War, although he rarely talked about it. I learned at his memorial service that he won a bronze star for saving some of the Doolittle fliers from the jungle, those who had bailed out after their bombing run, only making it to Indochina. He did tell me once that at a particularly dicey moment when their hiding location came under control of both the Chinese and/or maybe the French, their radio went dead… running out of ideas of how to reach HQ, he walked up to the telegraph counter and sent a telegram. It got through and their escape was secured. He was a true conservative all his life, a back-room king-maker for the Republican party, but in his final years, he led a campaign to end “The War on Drugs” The law that reformed many aspects of the state’s drug policies was passed the year after he died but it has his name in the title.
Just yesterday I was thinking of him as I fell into deep mourning over the death of our democracy, happening gradually and then all at once. I wondered if Dad would have come out against the Kleptocrats, since he was born into their tribe, and spent a good part of his life as a lawyer defending their corporate interests. I think we could now have one of our first truly constructive debates on the politics of our country. The dismantling of the EPA; I’m not so sure where he’d go with that… I think he was a probably a founding member of the Federalist Society, but I will never know.
In this summer of the death of our democracy, and the dismantling of our fight against the climate crisis (thus the impending end of our civilization as we know it), I have searched for solace in the thoughts of writers, and, one by one, skipped on to the next, until I finally came to the credo of the original Native Americans.
All of us Americans who have lived in the golden age of the last half of the 20th century have become powerless to defend ourselves from our usurpers, to even understand the true danger of their strategy operating in the guise of conservative Republicans, just as, 200 years ago, the Native Americans living in harmony with their lands, and their spirits, couldn’t understand the usurpers who took their lives, who sundered their civilization… who couldn’t understand how they could so cleverly hide their intentions in treaties and arrangements based on good will.
Nothing can stop our usurpers now, nothing short of a general nationwide strike, and the liberals can’t even agree on the legislation they’re going to pass if they win an election that’s already been lost, rigged by the usurpers' voter-suppression laws.
Those of us who have not understood the power of the kleptocrats’ strategy, BOTH the liberals with our ideals, and the conservatives who were hornswoggled by ТЯцм₽ and his puppet-masters… we are all in a camouflaged PTSD, like those North Plains Indians in Edward Curtis’s sepia photographs, unbelieving.
“…I fell into deep mourning over the death of our democracy, happening gradually and then all at once.”
We watched it happening over the decades and couldn’t believe we’d lose our democracy, even during the last presidency, when people were appointed to agencies, tasked with destroying them. We saw its demise coming and did little or nothing to stop it, and unless there’s a miracle in November, our democracy will be gone for decades if not forever. Let’s make that miracle happen! (I am trying to retain hope.)
me too, Fern. but I think it's just my basic (and completely unfounded) optimism talking. and I always figure that it's best to expect as little as possible, since if I can actually convince myself to expect absolutely nothing, then anything positive is like a wonderful gift. I'm willing to bet you know EXACTLY what I mean.
David, I think that I DO understand you, but I have neither an 'unfounded' nor founded optimism. My personality, experience and activism have led to a practical, realistic and decidedly determined Fern. The enormously large number of very vulnerable Americans (the vast majority of all Americans will greatly suffer) keep me from expressing that it is going to be all over. I just can't go there yet; it is too ghastly to accept even now.
I know exactly what you mean. I also can't think my way past it being all over, which makes me feel pretty helpless...that gaping unknown territory is just too huge. but I feel like I have to prepare myself.
Thanks for your invocation of all those forebearers to mark a place in your passage, and, by your gesture, in our passage. I know only the story of my father, who served in the OSS in the Second World War, although he rarely talked about it. I learned at his memorial service that he won a bronze star for saving some of the Doolittle fliers from the jungle, those who had bailed out after their bombing run, only making it to Indochina. He did tell me once that at a particularly dicey moment when their hiding location came under control of both the Chinese and/or maybe the French, their radio went dead… running out of ideas of how to reach HQ, he walked up to the telegraph counter and sent a telegram. It got through and their escape was secured. He was a true conservative all his life, a back-room king-maker for the Republican party, but in his final years, he led a campaign to end “The War on Drugs” The law that reformed many aspects of the state’s drug policies was passed the year after he died but it has his name in the title.
Just yesterday I was thinking of him as I fell into deep mourning over the death of our democracy, happening gradually and then all at once. I wondered if Dad would have come out against the Kleptocrats, since he was born into their tribe, and spent a good part of his life as a lawyer defending their corporate interests. I think we could now have one of our first truly constructive debates on the politics of our country. The dismantling of the EPA; I’m not so sure where he’d go with that… I think he was a probably a founding member of the Federalist Society, but I will never know.
In this summer of the death of our democracy, and the dismantling of our fight against the climate crisis (thus the impending end of our civilization as we know it), I have searched for solace in the thoughts of writers, and, one by one, skipped on to the next, until I finally came to the credo of the original Native Americans.
All of us Americans who have lived in the golden age of the last half of the 20th century have become powerless to defend ourselves from our usurpers, to even understand the true danger of their strategy operating in the guise of conservative Republicans, just as, 200 years ago, the Native Americans living in harmony with their lands, and their spirits, couldn’t understand the usurpers who took their lives, who sundered their civilization… who couldn’t understand how they could so cleverly hide their intentions in treaties and arrangements based on good will.
Nothing can stop our usurpers now, nothing short of a general nationwide strike, and the liberals can’t even agree on the legislation they’re going to pass if they win an election that’s already been lost, rigged by the usurpers' voter-suppression laws.
Those of us who have not understood the power of the kleptocrats’ strategy, BOTH the liberals with our ideals, and the conservatives who were hornswoggled by ТЯцм₽ and his puppet-masters… we are all in a camouflaged PTSD, like those North Plains Indians in Edward Curtis’s sepia photographs, unbelieving.
“…I fell into deep mourning over the death of our democracy, happening gradually and then all at once.”
We watched it happening over the decades and couldn’t believe we’d lose our democracy, even during the last presidency, when people were appointed to agencies, tasked with destroying them. We saw its demise coming and did little or nothing to stop it, and unless there’s a miracle in November, our democracy will be gone for decades if not forever. Let’s make that miracle happen! (I am trying to retain hope.)
very beautifully said. thank you for it, Jeff
Jeff, There is some nudge in me, some spirit which is not ready to go with my head as it signals the end.
I’m ready to join a national strike, put my life into it, just as soon as I find an organization that has the standing to pull it off.
me too, Fern. but I think it's just my basic (and completely unfounded) optimism talking. and I always figure that it's best to expect as little as possible, since if I can actually convince myself to expect absolutely nothing, then anything positive is like a wonderful gift. I'm willing to bet you know EXACTLY what I mean.
David, I think that I DO understand you, but I have neither an 'unfounded' nor founded optimism. My personality, experience and activism have led to a practical, realistic and decidedly determined Fern. The enormously large number of very vulnerable Americans (the vast majority of all Americans will greatly suffer) keep me from expressing that it is going to be all over. I just can't go there yet; it is too ghastly to accept even now.
I know exactly what you mean. I also can't think my way past it being all over, which makes me feel pretty helpless...that gaping unknown territory is just too huge. but I feel like I have to prepare myself.