Quote of the Post

Democracy is not a noun. Democracy is a verb. 

 Timothy Snyder (this is a paraphrase from memory)

Quote of the Post

 "Grandpa's library was a fine dark place bricked in with books, so anything could happen and usually did. All you had to do was pull a book from the shelf and open it and suddenly the darkness was not so dark anymore."

Ray Bradbury Farewell Summer, novel

Quote of the Post

 "In a moment the door opened again and Ellen Macintosh came in. Maybe you don't like tall girls with honey-colored hair and skin like the first strawberry peach the grocer sneaks out of the box for himself. If you don't, I'm sorry for you."

Raymond Chandler Pearls are a Nuisance, short story

Quote of the Post

 "Socialism is a scare word they've hurled at every advance the people have made. Socialism is what they called public power, social security, deposit insurance, and independent labor organizations. Socialism is their name for anything that helps the people."

Harry S. Truman

Song of Experience

A broken heart is always new.

It heals, each time, complete.

Without sorrow, or pity, or guile.

       Without scar.

                      

                Without memory.

  It opens up and beats for you-- as it did the first time,

                      

            Innocent in love.

                      Like a lamb to slaughter.

                             

                                           Christopher Mahon

Not the End-- Yet

 I was listening on the radio while the senate voted 57 to 43 to acquit Trump. That tally seems off because, of course, the 57 voted to convict, but fell short. Afterwards, McConnell spoke, excoriating Trump in the harshest words, making the prosecution's case for them, but adding that he voted against conviction because Trump's being out of office made the impeachment unconstitutional. It wasn't. The fact had been argued and voted on, but more importantly, how dare he say that? Let's ignore McConnell's blatant disregard of constitutional requirements during Obama's administration, HOW DARE HE say that THIS was unconstitutional? McConnell engineered the the timing. He said he'd never bring up a trial before January twentieth, thereby insuring that the impeachment was "unconstitutional".

 The Democrats also failed to stand up to the reepub leader when it came to calling witnesses. Mitch told them that if they called witnesses, he'd block all of Biden's agenda. So Mitch Heinous Fucker McConnell got what he wanted. Now he'll go on and do everything he can to block Biden's agenda as he did Obama's. It is past time for the Democratic leadership to start playing hardball. They need to get rid of the filibuster and accomplish OUR fucking agenda. 

If we don't fight bravely and ruthlessly for democracy in congress, we'll be doing it in the streets. 

An Apt Quote

 "It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so."

Mark Twain

Two Quotes For Martin

                             "Power concedes nothing without a demand."

                                       Frederick Douglass

       "The basic tenet of black consciousness is that the black man must reject all value systems

      that seek to make him a foreigner in the country of his birth and reduce his basic human dignity."

       Steve Biko

As We May Fall

I wrote the following last week. As I celebrated a socially-distanced new year due to the current plague, I woke up new year's day without my usual hangover. And, inspired by the fact that the republicans were going to challenge Biden's electoral certification today, and uncertain of the outcome of the Georgia senate races yesterday (which we won), I decided that a letter to the editor was in order. I had just posted the quote from Solzhenitsyn, and it inspired the letter, which was printed in the local paper today, the day we had a failed coup. 

"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." Voltaire said that way back in 1765. 

The truth of that statement has been borne out countless times since then. It is being borne out, in this country, today.Without one fact to back up their specious claims of fraud, Republicans are attempting the overthrow of our election.

President Donald Trump is calling for his followers to gather in Washington as some of his acolytes in Congress question the certification of the electoral votes. News reports have said that some of these politicians know the truth but are acting cynically to please their base and maintain power. 

I can't see into the souls of others, but I wish to appeal to anyone who may be supporting Trump for selfish, craven reasons to listen to the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn from his Nobel lecture: "The simple act of an ordinary brave man is not to participate in lies, not to support false actions! His rule: Let that come into the world, let it even reign supreme-- only not through me."

  

A Fragment of a Thought

 Democracy is beautiful. Certainly, it is messy and deeply flawed, just as we are. But it is beautiful. Just as we are.

A Quote For The Times

 "The simple act of an ordinary brave man is not to participate in lies, not to support false actions! His rule: Let that come into the world, let it even reign supreme-- only not through me."

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Lecture

A Couple of Quotes

The following quotes are both from James Baldwin. Read his work. Read it.

 "The bottom line is this: you write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world. In some way, your aspirations and concern for a single man in fact do begin to change the world. The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way a person looks or people look at reality, then you can change it." 

New York Times interview, 1979

"Write. Find a way to keep alive and write. There is nothing else to say. If you are going to be a writer there is nothing I can say to stop you; if you are not going to be a writer nothing I can say will help you. What you really need at the beginning is somebody to let you know that the effort is real."

Paris Review interview, 1984

These quotes came from an essay in Literary Hub by Emily Temple

 

Finality

 For Faith

 

All but Death, can be Adjusted --

Dynasties repaired --

Systems -- settled in their Sockets --

Citadels -- dissolved --

Wastes of Lives -- resown with Colors

By Succeeding Springs--

Death -- unto itself -- Exception --

Is exempt from Change --

 

Emily Dickinson, poem 749

The Rats Are Sticking Around

 Well, it seems the coprophagous GOP is backing Trump's election fraud scam. The usual suspects have, apparently, decided that it pays to stick to the ass their heads are already shoved into, and hope for the best. And fuck the United States of America.

Quote of the Post

 "The ends justify the means. A nice homily, he thought, which allowed him to do almost anything. It brought to mind the rationale of Ivan Karamazov: without God, everything is permissible."

Robert Silverberg Master of Life and Death novel, 1957

It's Okay to Breathe, Now

 Earlier today, Joe Biden won the election. Trump may still kill us all, but if we make it to January twentieth, we have a chance. Yay us.

My Next Political Sign

 "Trump's Tweets Are Offal"

We Live in Interesting Times

 As I write this, near midnight on the fifth, the presidential election has not yet been called, though Biden has the edge.

 I admit to near inconsolable sadness late Tuesday and into Wednesday. I never expected a blowout, but the incredible closeness of the race fills me with despair for our nation and world. That so many have witnessed so much corruption, hate and near psychopathy from Trump, and still cast their ballots for him leads me to wonder if the name we've given our species could, possibly, be ironic. I see little evidence of sapience in us, tonight.

And, yes, the title of this post refers to the ancient Chinese curse. I think I finally understand it.

A Note, And Apology

 I intend to publish a series of essays in the coming days that, added together will be a manifesto of sorts. That justifies the note. The apology comes from the fact that circumstances may not give me the luxury of deeply editing drafts of these essays. They may be a bit choppy and even abrupt.

The Climacteric

  I think the title of this little essay is accurate. In two days the United States of America, and the world, must win the presidential election by destroying Donald Fucking Trump. We have been obsessed with the Trump crime family's occupation of the White House, and the aid from traitors in the GOP and right- wing media since the beginning. The future of this country as a functioning democracy is literally at stake. The title of this little essay is also a moving target. We face our gravest threat due to the climate crisis-- an existential threat to civilization and, in all probability, the continued existence of our species. 

  But still.

  If we are unable to clean our house of the treasonous and crime-ridden Trump administration, we will never even begin to attack climate change. It is also true that the resurgence of totalitarianism world-wide throws up a brick wall to the cooperation mankind requires to effectively make the tough decisions to clean up the planet. Humanity's long experience with tyrants proves that they are utterly incapable of the vision, imagination, flexibility, and, most importantly, the will we need to overcome complete disaster. As the environment deteriorates; as populations shift; as resources become scarce and uncertain-- only democratic nations working in tandem can give us the slimmest of chances to change our economies, industries, and our cultures, and to avoid the nuclear wars that will end our existence. 

 So. The climacteric.