This country. This #America gone #hashtag #crazy yet stalled so fucking bad in Washington that even the Senator’s families don’t live there anymore. Just fly in and fly out to cast their party-driven vote. This America. A jumble of contradiction at every turn. Wide rural vistas divided by pristine forests and muddy rivers. Farmland rich with harvest promise. Yeah, promise. But that’s a lily-white view tarnished once one passes under a big-mother Confederate flag flying with bravado, (yeah, sadly we saw those) or an oversized Trump billboard (crazy, but yeah, saw those too) promoting all the trappings of White Supremacy with his sneer. That sneer. Sickeningly an advocate of hatred. (Will anyone really be able to vote for that world, his world of hate?) After our recent 14 State and 4,500 mile drive-by, and the current racially driven atrocities, it is clear to this blogger that the veneer of the American Dream is wearing thin, if not for all of us, at least for the Other in this country.
Tag Archives: Gun Control
Get Conversational
Eli Wiesel wrote, “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” It took a while for that to seep when I first heard it. I was young, and passionate, and not in the least bit resigned, or living in fear, or surrounded by ignorance. I hadn’t even learned to keep my mouth shut very well. But, over the years, I slipped into that gray area, where I argued less about issues, about rights, about ideals. Perhaps I didn’t have the energy. Or got too busy. Somehow I became indifferent to suffering and hatred and bad stuff that always seemed to be happening far, far away. Like famine in Africa. Or civil wars in eastern European countries with names I couldn’t pronounce. Even Columbine seemed distant and isolated. But then, on a crystal clear December morning, 20 young students and several teachers were massacred in Sandy Hook Elementary School and I woke up crying. I consoled myself with the thought that the whole world would change. It didn’t. Continue reading
Dreaming of Soul Force
With this post I am about to break a promise I made with myself. A promise to not discuss politics during this primary season, but after this week’s latest battles, I feel undeniably compelled to do so. I have friends and relatives and readers who are conservative voters, and those who are moderate independents, and perhaps some as left wing as they come, but I hope none willing to drape themselves in a white sheet and return to “the dark and desolate valley of segregation.” Regardless of your political affiliation, I hope you will stand with me and declare, “as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.” Martin Luther King, Jr. spearheaded a revolution decades ago, but I’m hoping his words will light up the present rise of darkness. “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force” (I Have A Dream). Soul force? Imagine someone at the podium of our present political arena proposing soul force?
Nine Cent Girl 