I took the two photos I’m including in tonight’s post within less than a minute of each other. The only change was the use of the zoom on my iPhone. While I do this a lot with a vast majority of the subjects I photograph – zoom in and out to see how much detail I can capture or what the big picture might tell about context – tonight’s two photos really caught my eye. Things look different.
Perhaps it’s just my mind struggling to make sense of the latest revelations billowing across the airwaves. Hearing our president admit, knowing he was being taped, that he was warned back in January of the colossal impact and likely devastation the Coronavirus was going to bring to our country. Hearing him relate to Bob Woodward in an eerily breathy and awestricken voice just how deadly and easily transmissible the virus is. And then recalling him telling us day after day the exact opposite of what he knew to be true.
It’s a lot.
And tonight’s clouds just felt like a darn good metaphor for what’s being revealed.
On the one hand, close up one can almost feel a bit of optimism. There’s some blue sky within the cross-hatch of the clouds, a bit of clarity. But if you look at the clouds a little more carefully, it’s as if they’re at cross purposes. Some seem clearly heading one way in the sky and another patch, almost within the realm of the first patch, seem intent on heading in the opposite direction.
Cross Purposes
One might imagine the view of the sky, if taken from a wider, more expansive perspective, might reveal even more hope; a bit more blue sky. More options.
Usually, when we ‘stop and take a step back’ we find some sense of reassurance or perspective.
I didn’t feel that tonight, especially when I got home and looked more carefully at the two photos. Nor did I feel it when I paid attention for the first time tonight to the latest ‘breaking news’ in what has become a fire hose of ugly revelations. But the thing is, the revelations are not a total surprise. If you were paying attention, the clouds at cross purposes were there all along.
We wanted to focus on the slivers of blue sky, the stark and dramatic outlines of the trees along the horizon.
If we’d adjusted our sights, taken a step back, we just might have caught wind of the blanket of darkness escaping our perception.
Then again, on second thought, perhaps it all looks rather bleak.
For once in a very long time I have essentially no idea what’s gone on in the outside world today. Not only did I refrain from reading anything on my phone, I also avoided watching any of my usual fare that keeps me up to date on the latest facts and figures of how our world and nation is coping with this unprecedented transformation. The respite was unintended but probably essential.
Yes, I know. There are many people who eschew the media and distrust it and the hyperbole with which much of what’s going on ‘out there’ gets discussed. But I’ve come to find some sources that do not so much inflame as explain. And I find doing my best to understand what’s going on so I can make reasoned and well-informed decisions for myself to be at least somewhat comforting.
I like knowing the truth, even if it’s not easy to hear it. The thought of being fed a bunch of lies just so I will supposedly feel good makes me want to rip my hair out. That’s because I detest lies. Lies rob us of first-hand experience of what is. And what else is there to life but first hand experience of what is?
Lies would have us believe that what we’re experiencing isn’t what’s right before our eyes. That’s maddening. That makes the part of our brain that makes sense of things constantly whir in the background, stuck in a whirling rainbow of a processing loop as it tries to make sense of something incapable of logical resolution.
Alternative Programming
Instead of paying attention to the current state of affairs, instead of feeling helpless as I watch people ignore science and instead choose to believe happy talk that’s calculated to have them act against their own best interests (yet again), Karl and I chose to watch two vastly different programs.
The first show we watched was the first episode of Mrs. America, which can be seen on Hulu. It has a pretty amazing cast – but I’d resisted watching it when I first heard about it because it is about Phyllis Schlafly.
I was tempted to just binge watch right into the second episode, but being reminded of the dumbfounding sexism that’s been part of our society for so long was demoralizing. The events depicted in that first episode were from when I was around 13 years old and the Equal Rights Amendment was in the process of being ratified by the states. I remember feeling that it was a no-brainer. I couldn’t imagine it not being ratified.
And thus it began. The backlash we’ve been living with ever since that time when women got this close to being recognized as equal to men. And therein lies one of the utterly maddening truths of my lifetime.
A Bit Better Feeling
There’s no question we’re hooked on the limited run program, Mrs. America. But we decided we needed to drop back to one of our absolute favorite programs that helps us reclaim faith in humanity, Call the Midwife, on Netflix.
If any of you haven’t yet started watching this treasure, I urge you to do so post haste! There’s never been a better time to give yourself the gift of watching this warm and wonderful program.
First of all, I believe there are eight or nine seasons. So you have a deep reservoir to dive into as this pandemic wears on. Plenty of time to get to know the characters, revel in their triumphs, and lament their frailties, all the while knowing (as you will, once you start watching) that somehow or another, even if things don’t turn out the way you hope for a particular character, something redeeming can be discovered in the ashes.
Call the Midwife lets us hang on to the thread of hope. Hope for humanity and hope for ourselves.
Just tonight, the two episodes we watched were set in 1962. The Cuban missile crisis was in full swing and it was fascinating to see the reaction of the English. I was only three when that occurred, so I have no memory of any of the anxiety that swept the world. But the parallels to how life-changing it would have been had nuclear weapons been unleashed to the devastation the entire world is watching unfold now was eerie.
Transformation
We’re most definitely in the midst of major transformation on many different levels, not only in our many societies across the world, but also in our own selves.
In some ways, I feel like I can’t escape the messages, even when I actively opt to escape for an evening. That tells me that the time for hiding our heads in the sand are done. Over.
The respite I had today demands to be repeated. The respite feels as important to the transformation as the bigger, deeper, more obvious ‘work.’ It must be respected as essential as any activism or awareness.
I wonder what May will bring to us.
**Remember to do your Perelandra EoP Biodiversity Project sometime tomorrow (the 1st day of the month), if you’re joining me, and many around the world, in that brief but powerful effort.
There was something about today that just doesn’t seem quite…right. I’m finding it a little difficult to articulate just what it is, but it’s real. Watching it all unfold, in real time, like a slow motion train wreck, however, is a bit surreal.
Everything about today, in one way or another, felt like it was being experienced by me, but from afar – sort of from an observer’s perspective. The conversations I had, the people I encountered, the weather, the interviews on tv – the videotape of statements made by DT – the headlines. I feel like I’m watching it all play out before me in some grotesque nightmare. But surely, I tell myself, it has to be something from which I’ll awaken.
It doesn’t seem possible that I’m seeing what I’m seeing and hearing what I’m hearing.
It doesn’t seem possible that we are actively being lied to about something as serious as a pandemic. By our own president. By our own vice president. It feels like a surreal horror show to be watching officials from governmental agencies staffed by the highest caliber scientists in the world stand behind a man who makes it all about him, whose only concern is ‘the numbers’ associated with how many people in our country are infected with the coronavirus – as if it is a game show. As if real people are not losing their lives every day as a result of his egotistical need to massage ‘the numbers.’
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
A Crisis Worse Than the Virus
Far worse than any virus is the crisis of VERACITY we’re witnessing. We’ve been groomed for this for at least three years, fooling ourselves that truth didn’t matter. Allowing the blatant lies to stand. Laughing it off in that screwed up, ‘boys will be boys’ attitude that dismisses and permits an astonishing amount of bad behavior in our society in all sorts of situations.
Remember the lies about inauguration crowd size? Well, that didn’t actually matter, did it? I mean, it was – what? A lie that everybody could see was a lie but, since it was The Donald, and – ho ho ho – he’s such an exaggerator – we could let him have that little white lie. Meh; soothe that ego. What could it hurt?
What it hurt is coming home to roost now. And we can be sure it is directly resulting in scores and scores of people – our most vulnerable fellow Americans, our elderly, our already sick and compromised – suffering from unnecessary profound illness and even dying.
How? By inuring us to the lies about things that we can see unfolding before our very eyes. By telling us that we cannot trust facts and figures from scientists or independent journalists who’ve spoken directly to hospital personnel and know the truth of how many are being tested. No – we’re supposed to trust someone who doesn’t want to allow 3,500 people essentially trapped on a cruise ship off our shoreline because allowing them to disembark and receive treatment on land will ‘hurt his numbers.’
The Big Lie About Tests
Do we fully comprehend the insidious nature of the lies we’re being told about the lack of available testing kits? We had months to prepare for this crisis. We had months to have reliable tests at the ready for when the virus inevitably arrived on our shores.
But did we have our act together? No.
We were told to disbelieve the experts. The virus’s arrival wasn’t inevitable. Not according to the best hunch of you-know-who.
And are we being told the truth now about the impact of this lack of tests? No.
Why Does This Matter?
This matters because it fosters a head-in-the-sand approach to this entire mess. The lack of tests perpetuates an illusion that only a few people are infected. This denial of reality, coupled with the fact that many people who are infected actually do not suffer serious symptoms, is what is creating the crisis and making it exponentially worse.
How? The ‘leaders’ of our country are actually encouraging people to continue going to work and to go about their daily lives in a ‘nothing to see here’ attempt to stave off the trauma to our economy that consumers staying home will create. And if people who are carrying the virus but are not showing symptoms borrow your pen at work, touch the ATM machine, handle your produce, offer you change, touch door handles, faucet handles, coffee cups – you get the picture – then anyone who is vulnerable because of age, underlying conditions, breathing difficulties, exhaustion, or any other condition that weakens their immune system could become very, very sick or die.
Knowledge is Power
What no one in the Administration is apparently thinking about is how far and wide this can be spread by people who show mild or no symptoms. That is why we need access to hundreds of thousands of tests – if not millions. Because knowledge is power.
Knowing you have the virus requires taking responsibility to refrain from infecting others. And that is why the testing crisis is bigger and worse than anyone wants to admit.
Telling ourselves that there are only X number of infected people (because we’ve only tested a small number) is self-delusion. It will not result in fewer serious illnesses and deaths. It will only enable the virus to spread undetected far and wide, thereby sickening and killing exponentially more people.
The emperor has no clothes. The virus is running rampant through our country – just like it’s running rampant across the planet. Pretending it’s not – ‘thinking positive’ by telling ourselves there aren’t that many infections (because we’re not testing to discover those infections) is incredibly naïve, delusional, and when deliberately implemented as a governmental policy? Criminal.
Wow. Based on everything I’ve seen and read, the single most important thing we must do for ourselves and each other is maintain our balance.
As I sit here contemplating what I want to write about tonight, the conversation taking place on the program I’m watching is interrupted to announce that just within the past few minutes two new cases of Covid-19 have been diagnosed in the state of Washington. These cases are in addition to the new (first in that state?) one in Oregon that was announced about an hour ago.
This announcement follows on the heels of a recitation of some astounding developments throughout Europe, where major events are being canceled or postponed, heads of state are infected, parliaments are suspended, and major corporations are suggesting that employees simply take unpaid leave and ‘go home.’
The World Health Organization has raised its threat assessment to the highest level they have and are declaring in no uncertain terms that every government on the planet must take heed and act with all due speed to get this pandemic under control.
Perpetrating Harm
And the leader of our government is deliberately minimizing the number of reported cases and telling all of us that this whole Coronavirus ‘thing’ is yet another ‘hoax’ manufactured by the Democrats and the media.
We have never had a president – or a party of sycophants that appallingly bolsters his out-and-out lies – who would fail so blatantly and spectacularly in caring for our own citizens. And, to be honest, who would fail the entire world, as the willful ignorance and allowing this virus to spread undetected and unchecked for far too long in our country will almost certainly lead to further infections when our people travel elsewhere.
I literally feel as though I must’ve accidentally rented an apocalyptic movie from Netflix or something. The reports from around the world (the number of countries that have confirmed cases just keeps growing, for instance, I heard Iceland and Northern Ireland were added to the list tonight) are no hoax.
A Disturbing Similarity
One disturbing similarity that screams out for attention is that the behavior of the current administration is shockingly similar to that of the governments of China and Iran. Read up on it. In denying the facts about this virus, bungling the testing (why haven’t we secured perfectly acceptable test kits from South Korea or Great Britain if ours are flawed?), lying about how many cases there are, and almost certainly lethally exacerbating the spread of the virus here in our country by sending HHS workers into quarantined areas without protection or protocols (thereby creating new ‘ground zeros’ for transmission of the disease), this administration has put its re-election priorities ahead of the lives of our fellow Americans. They’ve put your life at risk. My life. The lives of our children, grandparents, and grandchildren.
It is unconscionable.
But we can withstand this. We will maintain our balance. We will wash our hands and seek out reliable sources of information – and share it with each other.
I picked up a book today that’s been half stuffed under my bed for, dare I guess, at least six months or so. My box of tissues had slid off and I could see one of the words of the title: Exquisite. What a delicious word.
Opening the book randomly to a vignette entitled “Falling Down and Getting Up,” I was captivated by the first few sentences:
“When medieval monks were asked how they practiced their faith, they would often reply, ‘By falling down and getting up.’ And there you have the whole muddled mess of being human. Over and over, this very humbling sequence returns us to the earth, to the humus, to the soil. (…)
“How we think about this matters. For falling down is not about failure, but about experiencing as many of life’s positions as possible. It is how we learn. And getting up is not about vanquishing or conquering an opponent or circumstance, but about not getting stuck in one of life’s innumerable valleys.”
Tests and Choices of Friendship – and Life
Sometimes tests come in unexpected and seemingly random moments. Situations arise that ordinarily would appear or sound utterly absurd but, for whatever reason, don the cloak of plausibility for the briefest of moments – and that moment (and our choice) changes everything.
We’re all given options. Choices to tumble into and remain stuck in valleys of ugliness and choices to open our eyes, look up, and wipe the muck from our eyes. Choices to see what is and has been in our hearts, and choices to see, perhaps, what never actually was.
I’m sure it’s been rather obvious that I recently tumbled into a valley of despair and disbelief, discovering betrayal is alive and well in the world (as if we need any reminders). Sadly, betrayal can come in the dual form of both the speaker of lies and those who would listen to those poisonous words and accept them as true without discernment.
Choosing the Mountain
When I discovered this specific passage today, I knew it was confirming what I’d already experienced. I’d just encountered the balm of deep friendship, of knowing my heart was seen – and known – by another. I’d chosen, by simply reaching out, to rise from that valley, regaining my preferred perch with its expansive, honest, and open-hearted view.
It’s amazing what loving kindness can reveal. It’s equally or perhaps even more amazing what lies – and the willingness to believe them – can reveal.
Knowledge is power, though.
Listening to the Voice Inside
Just in flicking randomly through this gift from under my bed, I discovered the following words, which also speak to my recent experiences:
“Whenever you put your ear to the earth or to your own heart, the deeper instruments play, swelling our sense of things. When lost, we simply have to remember to put our ear to the earth, or to our heart, and we will hear a warmth that guides.”
Listening with our whole beings. Listening to our hearts, to the earth, to our own deepest knowing. We all fall, we all make mistakes, we all get lost; none of us is perfect.
Listening, though, helps us make the choice to get back up.
The winds that arrived last night with great bluster and clattering of wind chimes brought with them a remarkable change in temperature. Suddenly, today, it felt like January – in Pennsylvania. Not January in southern Florida, like it’s felt for a couple of weeks.
Every time I walked outside today, I caught my breath. I braced myself. My jaw clenched against the chill. The wind might not have been as insistent as it was last night, but it still had a point to make: It’s winter.
Funny thing is, the temperatures today weren’t even that raw. Not for January in Pennsylvania, anyway. They were seasonal. They were normal. They were even still a scootch or two above average, truth be told.
But the way we bundled ourselves up to take a walk earlier this evening, you’d think we were stepping onto the tundra.
What We’re Used To
I’m noticing this same ‘relative’ response to what’s being exposed at all levels of our government at the moment, but especially the federal level. If you read the more in-depth articles or look even slightly beyond the day-to-day headlines (which are bad enough), it’s hard not to feel waterlogged by the tsunami of corruption, lies, and outright greed and self-dealing that’s taking place right in front of all of us.
But the weirdest thing is how – quite literally – almost every day some new corruption is discovered. And it’s almost always something that, had this same action or relationship been revealed ten years ago, it would’ve consumed our discourse. We would’ve been so outraged that people we’d elected to represent us would behave in such a manner that, almost assuredly, those involved would’ve been called to account and whisked out of town.
Knowing What Is
I’m not going to harp on this; it’s late and I’m tired. I’m not even quite sure why I’m writing about this tonight. Perhaps it’s the cold slap of wind across my face when I let Sheila and Spartacus out to tinkle before bed.
What does it say about us and our country that our new normal is a daily serving of corruption du jour? How has our new normal become complacency over blatant lies spewing out of the highest and most respected office in our land?
What does it say about us that we now become excited when one single member of a political party that used to claim to be the standard bearer of moral integrity and rule of law stands up to this liar and says the obvious. You know, something like, “Gee, maybe it would be helpful to hear witnesses in a trial – witnesses who were expressly prohibited from testifying at an earlier proceeding by the person accused of abusing his power in the first place.”
It’s just weird when a position so obvious, so logical, so utterly essential and inherent to a fair and just proceeding would now seem outrageously risky and bold.
I, for one, abhor this new normal. And I only hope with all my heart that this new relativism is swept away by the winds of change.
Sheila Reacting to the State of the World – Photo: L. Weikel
Sheila Speaks For Me
The wind is howling outside, banging and clattering our wind chimes, making our window panes rattle back and forth and our front door occasionally burst open, not unlike Kramer making an entrance on Seinfeld.
Both the melodic clanging and the <<kloop kloop>> of our bamboo chimes outside sound so wild and undisciplined, I wish I could just stand on the edge of my porch and allow all the garbage of the world to whisk itself into the ethers.
If only it were so easy to clear away the old away.
Cleaning Out
Beginning during the days between Christmas and New Year’s, I’ve been sporadically binge-cleaning. I’ve donated a lot to charity, given away a fair share to family, sent some off to recycling, and thrown a bunch of stuff away entirely because it’s old, out of date, practically in tatters, or just astonishingly dumb to allow it to keep circulating in my inventory.
When I listen to that roaring wind blowing down the 611 corridor and into my living room, I’m hoping it will serve to further clean me up, clear me out, and coalesce The Tower’s presence and utterly necessary process in my life.
Everything is Changing
Beyond my personal needs and experience, today, with the official opening of the Senate Trial and the concurrent revelation and exposure of new evidence of – and rulings on – the impropriety (if not outright illegality) of certain behaviors of DT, it feels like these whipping winds are arriving just in time.
They’re stirring up, clearing out, sweeping away the lies upon lies we’ve been told for years now – the denials and demands that we not believe our own eyes and ears – by a myriad of actors, a tragic number of whom have taken oaths to act on behalf of the good of our country. And I wonder, if you look around in your own life: are there people or situations about which you’ve been told lies or, perhaps worse, have been lying about to yourself?
Have the north winds arrived with sudden, sweeping gusts, blowing away the unnaturally warm air of obfuscations to bring the cold clarity of truth?
It can be chilling on many levels to realize trust has been broken. That our faith in what we believed was true was, in fact, misplaced.
If any of these thoughts or feelings, worries or suspicions ring true for you during these tumultuous times, then perhaps you, too, feel like Sheila speaks for us all.
If I didn’t write about what happened in the House of Representatives this evening, it would be obvious that I am tiptoeing around the elephant slumbering at my feet.
While I don’t think there’s anything I can say that can provide additional insight into the process we just witnessed, I do feel it is a day of moment that deserves acknowledgment.
Sitting here, I’ve just written and then deleted several variations on paragraphs decrying what I perceive as a perilous path our nation is treading on right now, which is the refusal to have an understanding of a shared reality.
How do you have a reasonable debate with anyone if you cannot agree on something as fundamental as what is fact?
It is seriously mind-bending, for instance, to watch and listen to Republican Congresspeople argue that the impeachment articles were based upon ‘hearsay’ evidence and rail upon the fact that ‘no first-hand evidence was produced’ when the second article of impeachment, Obstruction of Congress, is specifically based upon the President’s outright refusal to allow the White House to comply with the nine subpoenas that were issued demanding documentary evidence as well as compelling testimony from all the people who had direct evidence of the President’s conduct and intentions.
This is utterly insane. And it’s offensive, really, to any logical approach to living in a civilized society.
Can’t Have It Both Ways
To allow a person who is accused of a crime to (a) refuse to comply with a subpoena themselves; and (b) direct all the people who were directly involved (or potentially involved) and who worked directly for that person not to comply with subpoenas is bad enough. Right there, that simple act should speak for itself and give rise to the obvious inferences.
But then to have that person’s defenders use the lack of witnesses, which was the direct result of that refusal to provide witnesses, as evidence that no crime was committed is absolute lunacy. It’s insulting to the rule of law. It’s insulting to our intelligence. And it’s insulting to our ability to engage in actual discourse and debate.
And yet, an entire party in our government right now is making that argument with a straight face. And yelling in rage and faux outrage at anyone who will listen.
I ask you: where do we go from here? How do we create any hope of resolving issues together? Reaching compromises? How do we get to a middle ground if acceding even the existence of shared facts, of a shared reality, is perceived as yielding to the ‘enemy?’
No Shame
It’s also terribly disconcerting to me that it would appear that people don’t care how they appear anymore. I’m not talking about superficial looks or appearances. I mean people no longer seem to care if they are spouting allegations that are blatantly creating double standards.
There appears to be no shame in A accusing B of doing X, all the while A and A’s children, are doing X all the time, in many venues, and in plain sight and broad daylight. What are we teaching our kids about hypocrisy when this blatant example of it is taking place all the time – in our highest institutions?
Sense of Fairness and Justice
As an attorney, I have to admit I’ve always had an affection and respect for, and been a nerd about, our mode of government, our court system, and the sanctity of impartiality. Even when I was a lowly member of our township’s Zoning Hearing Board, I took my oath as a member of the board extremely seriously. I made a point of being impartial, of taking my responsibility to listen to all of the facts and examine all of the evidence from a completely neutral place.
Why? Because that’s the fundamental basis of our society. If we can’t believe in and rely upon the integrity of those we elect or who are appointed to serve us, then we have nothing. We invite anarchy. We end up hopelessly divided and suspicious and cynical.
Day of Moment
Today was a day of moment. Impeachment occurred, and the president was held accountable for abusing his power and obstructing Congress in its job of providing oversight of the executive branch. But this is no reason to celebrate. When not one single Republican put aside their abject refusal to see the hypocrisy of claiming a lack of evidence supporting the first article, and the obvious blocking of provision of that evidence (proof positive of the second article), we are faced with the fact that our country is in deep, deep trouble.
The insanity continues when McConnell states unequivocally that he will not be impartial in a Senate trial on the articles of impeachment – when the very oath he is required to take states: “I solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case may be) that in all things appertaining to the trial of the impeachment of the (person being impeached) now pending, I will do impartial justice according to the Constitution and laws: so help me God.”
It should be noted that the oath quoted above is one that every Senator must take in order to participate in an impeachment trial. This oath is over and above – and different from – the oath they take as Senators.
Not a Day for Revelry
It’s because of this fundamental breakdown of our ability to agree on simple facts and adhere to logic and reason and a sense of fairness and truth that I find the state of our country terribly distressing – and depressing. If we can’t agree on what is up and what is down, if we can’t agree on what is truth and what is a lie, we cannot expect to have a functioning society, much less a government that is sustainable and respected.
I woke up this morning and was feeling remarkably ‘down.’ This feeling was as pervasive as it was unexpected. There was no obvious reason for it, either – dietary or otherwise.
But then, the day unfolded, and I made the mistake of reading news headlines.
I have to admit it: My stomach has been hurting all day. I’ve felt a little short of breath all day.
Honestly, I feel as though there is nowhere to look anymore that is not shocking, awful, and hateful. The blatant racism, misogyny, corruption, and deliberate attack on the rule of law being spewed and inflicted on our country is beyond the pale.
My heart hurts for our country. My heart hurts for our integrity. My heart hurts for our children – yours, mine, and everyone else’s.
My heart hurts for the soul of us all – and by that, I mean everything we stand for, believe in, and hold sacred.
If we don’t take a stand now, when everywhere we look we’re slapped in the face with vile divisiveness, cruelty, and utter corruption and self-dealing, we never will.
So Many Secrets/So Many Compromised People in Power
It broke my heart to read that so-called leaders of the Republican party such as Lindsey Graham were actually condoning Trump’s hate-filled racist rants of yesterday and today. His comments do not reflect simple policy-related differences of opinion with my own views. His comments reflect a fundamental abrogation of everything I was taught our country stands for.
Yes, I’m calling Graham out. Why? Because Donald Trump may be the biggest liar to ever cross the doorstep of the White House (and yes, I am saying with absolute lack of equivocation that he is the single biggest serial liar to ever cross the threshold of the White House), but we knew he was an ignorant con-man for decades. We knew it when he declared he was running. We’ve known it all along. All we had to do was read the background. All we had to do was open our eyes and read.
But Lindsey Graham? I remember a time when he appeared to be a man of principle. A man who had courage and integrity. So I have to say…this behavior of his, including his kowtowing to Trump since the inauguration, tells me there’s something about Lindsey Graham we don’t know. I think we have yet another example of a puppet whose strings are being pulled by a power that has the dirt.
The case that’s unfolding with Jeffrey Epstein is horrific. But you know what? I read about it at the very beginning of Trump’s candidacy. I was aware of the young girl who dropped her case because of death threats. I was aware of Alex Acosta. This has all been readily available. It is not ‘fake’ news. It is entirely documented.
This Is All About Power OVER
And it is all related. The utterly malignant foundation of so much of what goes on in our country is tied to and inextricably bound up in rampant, unabashed, unchecked, abuse of power. Power over women, power over young girls, power over little boys, power over the homeless, power over the defenseless, power over the poor, power over the black and brown in our country (and outside – you know, entire ‘shithole’ countries).
This has gone on for so long, they laugh and clink their glasses behind their billion dollar enclaves and think they’ll rule the world forever. But they’ve become sloppy, which comes from feeling they can live their exploitive, debauched existences out in the open, simply because they hold so much power.
Well, we’re the ones who have the power. We’re the ones who must look each other and ourselves in the eyes and act in a way that serves something greater.
I believe in us. But really, we must, must, must look at the raw truth of what is unfolding before our very eyes. And we must do it NOW.
Let us stand together and say “ENOUGH.”
The sun is setting on all we hold dear – Photo: L. Weikel
