Back to the morning pages. Must do. (after an inexplicable and lengthy lapse). Sessions on stationary bike are up to 25 minutes. Must keep doing. (my trick some days? Get on the bike and scroll through social media there instead of in bed. Redemptive!)
The sun is out!
Now for a few “of only’s”:
If only I would give up sugar again…. if only we still had a Congress… if only a crime syndicate in cahoots with a foreign adversary wasn’t destroying our society with a head-spinning rapidity… if only the Dyson vac hadn’t crapped out… if only I were the type of person to follow up on a warranty… if only Salem were 25 minutes closer… if only I were more disciplined. Sigh.
I leave you with this incisive and disturbing article by Rebecca Solnit — heroine to many of you, I know. She articulates where we are in America with terrifying clarity.
“The Coup Has Already Happened“.
“Not how you want to start your week” you say? I don’t blame you if so. But it’s not as if every corrupt and destructive thing she discusses isn’t, on some consuming level, on your mind anyway.
Oh God, Dee, I feel like someone going by a horrific car accident….I want to look away, yet strain my neck watching the horror unfold. I am married to a lawyer one who believes in the Constitution and the laws, and we sit and watch in horror every night, all the while becoming more and more upset. And if the nightmare we find unfolding suddenly stopped today…..how many generations will it take to even begin to right itself….if ever??? I need to get back on my bike trainer…..life really can be a bitch….and then you die. A rare public rant from me. 😡
We share the nightly routine here. Sometimes I have to save half or more of Maddow for the next day bc I’m full up to my eyeballs. The thing I’m most upset about today is this refrain by commentators that we’re “on the brink” of a constitutional crisis when by my take, we fell into that abyss ages ago. That’s part of why I appreciate Solnit’s article so much — that’s her premise.
I hope I dont need to say that rants are welcome here (well not by trolls — but otherwise).
My thoughts and feelings exactly. I did read that article and and it sums it up so well….unfortunately….
Good to be back .. when I go out of town I try and stay away from the web .. the news. Oh and exercise .. but back on the treadmill for a half hour this morning. So good to get away but sooooo good to be back.
I thought I replied here. Wonder what happened. Glad you’re home! That’s such a nice part of travel, the coming home part.
Rebecca Solnit writes with such brave hope into these dark times
She does. A real warrior. This piece is not all that informed by hope. It’s a clarion cry.
Rebecca always brings hope by opening our eyes
I wish I shared your sanguine view. I feel a low grade alarm now — almost all the time. As in: are we gonna hang on as a society long enough for Mueller to indict all the criminals? A 5-4 decision limiting workers’ rights to organize and sue employers was just handed down — the deciding vote being cast by the judge sitting in a stolen seat. It’s so so alarming.
this article is even more relevant now than when I first read it at the beginning of the Trump Reich
https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/01/20/culturejam/
Trump is only a figurehead, the coup is corporate and it’s tentacles reach all around the world, the problem is our reliance on fossil fuel, we the people must make the paradigm shift & start mending our ways to look after our beautiful planet … ecocide will be a crime in the not too distant future, maybe not in our lifetimes but it will happen one day
Good point about ecocide. I sure wish lobbying became a crime too. Money out of politics would be a huge step in the right direction. I know that Trump is no outlier (as Naomi Klein made so clear in her talk, No is Not Enough). He sure is accelerating the pace of decline though and I can’t see how we can do anything about climate change or overturning Citizen’s United or or or. . . until he and most of the GOP are out.
Wow. Good article. Very eye opening. One major difference. I have to say it: Trump is stupid. It’s no strategy or ploy. He really is a moron lacking basic knowledge of the world. I don’t have to worry about becoming the enemy the populists want to hate in saying this because my viewership is so small. Ha ha.
PS. There have been several mornings since the inauguration when the alarm radio was covering a story about Venezuela and I thought, “oh my god. That could be us. Like in a month.”
yes. its good to “call a spade a spade”. though it does make the tears fall… we have to turn things around, together. in numbers. we can do it.
In numbers. I sure hope so. I sure hope so.
Read the Solnit article a while ago…and yes…an alarming reality we face. Though I turn to the BBC every morning just to see if we are at war, I’m still at a distance. I mean, I said to a woman I was having a spontaneous and illuminating conversation with on the bus earlier this evening (Monday) that “I don’t need a passport to cross into the country of soul to soul. The border is always open.” That’s how I cope. By the way that collage at top is wonderful!
Keep commenting because you provide a template of Peace much needed in my neck of the woods. Now it’s the next day and I’m a little less freaked out. But not much.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
William Shakespeare
From The Tempest, Act 4 Scene 1
Thank you for the Rebecca Solnit article. She does an admirable job of summing up the situation. I too am in a constant state of alarm. It has undermined my health and cast a shadow over my life. There are two things that can stem the tide of corruption and disintegration in our national life: the unequivocal repudiation of the Republican party at the polls and unremitting public protest in the streets. I am waiting for the election with great trepidation and also for a currently unseen spark to ignite massive resistance. I hope.
I am reading this comment while watching a show about Meghan and Harry.
I’m so concerned about the perpetual designation of being on the brink of a constitutional crisis. On the brink? Really? I sure hope Rosenstein is playing three dimensional chess and not giving the store away.
There are times when the need to go quietly into the room where my laptop sits on a little table and put on music via youtube is a necessity. Tonight, I needed to see and listen to the 2008 tribute on youtube to Barack Obama via Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes anthem, “Wake up Everybody”.
First, I sang along and danced because it is what I do when I need to deal with inner turmoil, outer rage. It’s over 7 minutes long and I’m 70 so I was tired at the end, depleted usually though in a good way, which is why dance is my outlet. As I sat and re watched the video, the single word, “WHY” rose up…I cannot comprehend how we got here from there …how long before We Wake Up! The refrain from Wake Up Everybody is a rallying cry:
“The world won’t get no better if we just let it be
The world won’t get no better we gotta change it yeah, just you and me.”
So we can’t let it be and I can’t stay discouraged even though I am daily dismayed…what I can DO is VOTE.
Seven minutes of dancing sounds like medicine. I wonder why I hardly ever dance now?
And yeah. People better vote. And Mueller better keep indicting. And journalist better keep digging.
Thanks for sharing the Rebecca Solnit article – she is scarily insightful.