It did not surprise me to receive the Letter this Sunday morning. No stunning picture of the Maine coast, light shimming on the water and the dark sky streaked with orange and gold; instead, words on the screen told us about the people marching this weekend for voting rights.
"We are not going to stop": Thousands gathered on Saturday f…
It did not surprise me to receive the Letter this Sunday morning. No stunning picture of the Maine coast, light shimming on the water and the dark sky streaked with orange and gold; instead, words on the screen told us about the people marching this weekend for voting rights.
"We are not going to stop": Thousands gathered on Saturday for the annual "March On for Voting Rights". 58 years ago Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech at the first March on Washington. 58 years ago and we're still marching because access to the vote is never guaranteed for Blacks and Browns in the United States of America. Eighteen states have already enacted 30 laws this year that will make it harder for Americans to vote.
Heather didn't trudge herself to bed at a decent hour on Saturday night because the alarm clock in her mind warned her that 'our right to have a say in our government is slipping out of our hands'. (Letter)
The truth of Biden's presidential win was just to hard to bare. It couldn't be true. The election was a rigged. There was fraud. Trump really won in a landslide.
A Cyber Ninja Audit in Maricopa, Arizona would provide the evidence for election fraud. The Ninjas have been auditing the returns since April 22th, 2021, It is now August 29, 2021. What's up Cyber Ninjas?
Take a quick break. This is really happening. In the midst the pandemic, which is now surging ,again; a dangerous hurricane, Ida, about to hit Louisiana; our country is getting wetter and drier as the temperatures soar -- Climate Change is changing faster than the scientists predicted. -- and to top that off, we have radically undemocratic Republicans working like demons to rob Americans of their voting rights.
'Two agencies that oversee Arizona elections went on the offensive Thursday to debunk and discredit the soon-to-be released results of the Senate's unconventional and partisan review of Maricopa County's 2020 general election.'
'Two reports released by Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican, and Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, highlighted the erroneous and insecure nature of the audit conducted by Senate contractors. They also reiterated the ways that the county and state verified the election was sound.'
'The bipartisan effort to discredit the results from lead contractor Cyber Ninjas before they are released was not coordinated, Richer said. But both were seemingly aimed at the same purpose — getting ahead of misinformation or inaccuracies that may be in the Cyber Ninjas report.' (AZCentral)
All is not lost, but we have yet to get a national voting act bill passed. 'The House approved the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act on Tuesday in a party-line vote, kicking the legislation to the Senate — where it faces longer odds of passage. The bill is seen as having a better chance of moving forward than a more sweeping voting rights measure known as the For the People Act.'
'Either legislation could get to President Biden’s desk if all 50 Democrats agreed to make an exception to the filibuster, but Manchin and fellow centrist Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) are against any kind of filibuster reform'. (The Hill)
I say both pieces of legislation could and should get to the presidents desk for signing.
This is where we enter. In the next few weeks we will be contacting President Biden and our Senators because we are on the front lines to get these bills passed. We cannot permit our say in government slip out of our hands. We are the anti-filibuster Army.
Your banner, just unfurled by Dr. Cox Richardson, bears the words of Martin Luther King:
“Our country is backsliding to the unconscionable days of Jim Crow. And some of our senators are saying, ‘Well, we can’t overcome the filibuster,’.... I say to you today: Get rid of the filibuster. That is a monument to white supremacy we must tear down.”
That monument, that one—not stone statuary, not the dead burying the dead, that institutionalized sabotage, that taking a sand bucket to the machinery of state.
You have gifted commanders like Stacey Abrams. Follow them!
This will mean persistent marching, day after day—the example comes from little Belarus— but America is not yet under a despot’s heel, you are still a nation of laws. And not yet all couch potatoes… The people will face no little danger, much organization will be needed behind the lines, securing powerful support where needed,forming firm alliances, twisting arms too, and building strong fallback defensive positions.
If resolute, disciplined, perseverant and well-led, the movement will snowball, going from strength to strength not only throughout America but worldwide. Worldwide. If you dare, tyrants will watch, and will tremble.
Thanks to HCR for staying up late and once again informing us in a clear-eyed way about what challenges we face. The 'old' socio-political is dying and fighting back hard to continue. But the tide of demography is running counter to that. I prefer to put my energy towards the 'new'.
There are many skirmishes to be fought now. And the forces of hate, greed, and delusion will win a few, but humanity's consciousness is awakening. Watch how the afghani refugees are welcomed into new communities and (regrettably) how the survivors of Hurricane Ida will be helped by their brethren. Those are the signals of truth, all the rest is noise meant to distract.
You have two Senators who will support the voting rights bills. There is no need to contact them. Their support is in the bag. But I have two Senators who will oppose them, regardless of what those they represent say, and State legislation making replacing them at the polls difficult at best. Where does that leave the anti-filibuster Army in such an environment?
Same here in Floriduh. I do not write to Rick Scott who is obtuse or Marco Rubio who is insane. There is no point. I am of the Sane Minority here who have no representation.
These psychopaths are like a disease that enters communities, even nuclear families, spreading hatred and dissension between neighbors, between parents and children, brothers and sisters. At the outset, Cruz scared me far more than Trump...
I understand how you feel Rob, I live in Floriduh, as well. I have no representation. I live in a deeply red county. I donate what I can, I’m a retired Special Ed teacher, and keep voting. I will admit, some days, I feel so defeated.
Before we even speak of taking to America’s streets and meeting places or of besieging corporate power, let us turn to the southeast and see what terrible arguments real power—that of Nature—brings to bear.
England was saved from a landing by Spain’s Invincible Armada by smaller ships that could outmaneuver galleons, but mainly by bad weather conditions. Japan was spared from invasion by the Mongols when the Wind of the Gods—the Kamikaze—destroyed the invaders’ fleet. No King Knut can command the waves.
Watch now the progress of hurricane Ida from New Orleans through Jackson MS and Nashville TN and thence to Washington DC. May the power of Nature not have an impact even on zombie believers in whatever food for goats their tinsel idol’s feedlot provides? Propaganda won’t save those on the rooftops or clinging to jetsam amidst raging floodwaters.
?? Any unnecessary destruction and suffering will be blamed on Biden in those states. Even the IPCC report does not blame climate change for hurricanes or flooding.
Of course not. The IPCC report doesn't blame climate change for hurricanes or flooding, they have always occurred. What the report concludes is that climate change is making hurricanes, floods and other weather extremes even more frequent and more extreme.
"What was remarkable in the IPCC report was put most succinctly in University of Leeds climate physicist Piers Forster’s pair of tweets on Monday, outlining the good and bad news from the report. The bad news was familiar: we are seeing “more intense and more frequent” weather extremes. We are close to 1.5C of warming and will reach it by mid-century." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/13/ipcc-latest-climate-report-hope
I feel anything but “Canadian cool”. What strikes me now is the contrast between this forum which is partly talking shop and partly deeply committed people trying to save their country, and the indifference of millions of others who just vote.
I don’t feel a *broad* sense of urgency in the American left and centre. LFAA is a cocoon, a necessary and valorous cocoon, but a cocoon nonetheless.
Dr. Heather’s posts convey a rising sense of urgency, I note. But I’m generally reluctant to post now. I feel it’s either preaching to the choir or it will be piling on, as my mood is much like Jeremiah. I cannot feel even a shred of optimism now, as it feels like a point of no return has come and Americans is simply waiting for the gavel to fall when the Voting Rights legislation implodes for once and all.
I read the posts and appreciate those who are hanging in with implacable determination. Many others strike me as whistling past the graveyard with their eternal “Go Blue” theme and nothing of substance. In fairness of course, people need and seek that consolation, so the better part of me senses that it comes from the deepest trauma. But the gremlin in me sees these posts as delusional.
It’s been a long time coming, but I think the wall has been hit. America has sown the wind and is now reaping the whirlwind.
And it will indeed be bitter. I have heard such spite, stupidity and braying from others on the other side (they are here too, by the way), that they come to feel like an alien race to me.
Two saving graces, completely different: Selfishly this is giving me momentum to finish my book, as I feel, perhaps quite wrongly, that my thesis is being amplified with every passing day.
And the example of righteous action that I so seek comes from Michigan’s Governor Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessell meet the forces of darkness head on when they crawl out from under their rocks. This week a woman has been felony charged with making odious death threats to regional health officials who had the temerity to institute a K-6 mask mandate in schools. 3 felony charges, maximum 20 years in the pokey. The black part of my soul loved it. Go Michigan. There’s been a lifetime’s worth of abuse from the jackals of that state.
And Fern, I will conclude that I stand little chance of being accused of writing a coherent list after the above mishmash.
I am truly glad that you came back again, Eric. You released your sense of us, America, the forum, Michigan, the left and unafraid to lay an egg. It is my way, sometimes, to cut through the solemnity with a bit of naughtiness, or worse. l have read some uncool words of yours in the past and wondered if you would thoroughly dispense with signs of 'cool' and 'calm' as you have, but 'steadfast' you cannot deny.
It hurts me, too, that this country seems without the level of organization the times demand. There was a long pause here as I considered the pandemic but that is not the cause behind our quietness. There is trauma and social media, loneliness but still a spirit. A friend and I in different places and without text, except at the very beginning and at the end, spent fifteen minutes this morning in total silence as we considered the fallen soldiers, the Afghan people our families and whatever our minds delivered. Meditation, church, feelings, restoration, peace -- we search for strength and both of us were content in our support with calm deliberation.
However torn you may feel about America and us, your voice, Eric, has deep feeling, and I am glad to hear it. If we feed your book, so be it; that is not our calling. We ring bells together and apart. It is far too early to predict where our house will be a couple of years from now.
It is reassuring to hear that you and your friend found solace in meditation. It can be very hard to slow down and look at big perspective.
You note that “it is far too early to predict where our house will be a couple of years from now”. That is certainly true and it is a vexing truth. I would ask you this, however. In your bones, do you intuit that America will be in a better place and on the mend and rise? Or do you feel it more likely that the downward spiral will continue? Obviously I’m asking for an answer from a place beyond hope. We both share that hope.
Dr. King famously said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”.
That may be a consoling platitude (for who can successfully refute it?), or it may be the most penetrating truism.
My own feeling is that it is a truism. In asking you the question above it’s only fair that I give my own feeling. In my heart my sense is that within our lifetimes, the arc of the moral universe *will* bend towards justice in America. However, before that happens the country will pass through a terrible trial, the likes of which has only been hinted at in the last five years. But somehow, some way, the good people of America will say, “Enough”, and those who have taken America into this ghastly new world will be vanquished.
That time has not yet come. The forces of anarchy are still in the ascendancy and they fight with no quarter and no shame. On the other side, the centrist and progressive left have not been galvanized in sufficient numbers to say with one voice, “Enough”, and then rise up to assert the ascendancy of goodness.
In truth, it seems to me that most Americans of good intention are still watching unfolding events as if they were a multi-part Netflix series.
They need a leader of more charisma, vigor, and sheer force of will to start the ball rolling in the right way.
I hate writing this, but as implied above, Biden is not the man. He is giving his heart and experience to the enterprise. He provides moral clarity in abundance. Legislatively he has done as much as could be expected, though I’m not sure where he’d be without Leader Pelosi.
But he is a product of the same cyclical forces that brought us Trump. He has been a Senator longer than anything else, and he craves bipartisanship too much for a time like this. This is war for the soul of America *in a new world*. I cannot help but feel that this, in the end, will make him a dupe of the forces who make a mockery of that world.
None of us could ask more of Joseph Robinette Biden. But in some ways he is too good a person for this battle.
Until America is at the very brink of being vanquished as a moral force, until a leader of enormous charisma and unyielding will emerges, I feel the degradation will become worse.
I have often quoted Churchill’s summary of your country: “America always does the right thing, but only after exhausting all other options”.
I bring it up here because I think it’s never been truer than now.
But someday, within our lifetimes, the next Abraham Lincoln will come to the fore and Americans of decent character will rise up in sufficient numbers to rout this odious gang.
And then the world will have to contend as one in the fight against the climate crisis.
I am curious to know what your intuition is telling you.
Eric, My reply to you was almost done and then gone. To start again:
You have asked the most difficult question. It has been with me for years, particularly insistent as a recurring mode for the last eleven months and most persistent in recent weeks.
'In your bones, do you intuit that America will be in a better place and on the mend and rise? Or do you feel it more likely that the downward spiral will continue?'
I cannot answer you right away; ' it will take another day or two.
Paul Celan's poem 'Death Fugue' was brought to my attention two months ago. I read it several times and again yesterday. The poem is not a riddle. The sense of it echoes in a strand of where I think America is today. I almost wrote 'where we are today'. My intuition is both small and large but do not know how much I can encompass. Below is a link to the poem:
Ah, a last Emperor of the Incas reference. Yes, even after his final victory in a devastating Civil War with a faction led by his half-brother, it did not go well for Atahualpa, who was shortly later executed by Francisco Pizzaro. Efforts to preserve minority rule seldom end well for those seeking to suppress the voice of the majority of those they govern.
Biden hasn't called for the elimination of the fillibuster (yet) either. He's a Senate veteran and remembers well that the rules work in both directions. IF the DEMS lose the Senate in 2022, they will wish that they had retained the fillibuster. The current calls for its elimination are short-sighted.
I respectfully disagree. This claim does not gain credibility from constant repetition. The DEMS know what they have to do to retain or expand their Senate majority. The odds against it are high anyway, but the answer is one word: ORGANIZE.
It did not surprise me to receive the Letter this Sunday morning. No stunning picture of the Maine coast, light shimming on the water and the dark sky streaked with orange and gold; instead, words on the screen told us about the people marching this weekend for voting rights.
"We are not going to stop": Thousands gathered on Saturday for the annual "March On for Voting Rights". 58 years ago Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech at the first March on Washington. 58 years ago and we're still marching because access to the vote is never guaranteed for Blacks and Browns in the United States of America. Eighteen states have already enacted 30 laws this year that will make it harder for Americans to vote.
Heather didn't trudge herself to bed at a decent hour on Saturday night because the alarm clock in her mind warned her that 'our right to have a say in our government is slipping out of our hands'. (Letter)
The truth of Biden's presidential win was just to hard to bare. It couldn't be true. The election was a rigged. There was fraud. Trump really won in a landslide.
A Cyber Ninja Audit in Maricopa, Arizona would provide the evidence for election fraud. The Ninjas have been auditing the returns since April 22th, 2021, It is now August 29, 2021. What's up Cyber Ninjas?
Take a quick break. This is really happening. In the midst the pandemic, which is now surging ,again; a dangerous hurricane, Ida, about to hit Louisiana; our country is getting wetter and drier as the temperatures soar -- Climate Change is changing faster than the scientists predicted. -- and to top that off, we have radically undemocratic Republicans working like demons to rob Americans of their voting rights.
'Two agencies that oversee Arizona elections went on the offensive Thursday to debunk and discredit the soon-to-be released results of the Senate's unconventional and partisan review of Maricopa County's 2020 general election.'
'Two reports released by Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican, and Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, highlighted the erroneous and insecure nature of the audit conducted by Senate contractors. They also reiterated the ways that the county and state verified the election was sound.'
'The bipartisan effort to discredit the results from lead contractor Cyber Ninjas before they are released was not coordinated, Richer said. But both were seemingly aimed at the same purpose — getting ahead of misinformation or inaccuracies that may be in the Cyber Ninjas report.' (AZCentral)
All is not lost, but we have yet to get a national voting act bill passed. 'The House approved the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act on Tuesday in a party-line vote, kicking the legislation to the Senate — where it faces longer odds of passage. The bill is seen as having a better chance of moving forward than a more sweeping voting rights measure known as the For the People Act.'
'Either legislation could get to President Biden’s desk if all 50 Democrats agreed to make an exception to the filibuster, but Manchin and fellow centrist Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) are against any kind of filibuster reform'. (The Hill)
I say both pieces of legislation could and should get to the presidents desk for signing.
This is where we enter. In the next few weeks we will be contacting President Biden and our Senators because we are on the front lines to get these bills passed. We cannot permit our say in government slip out of our hands. We are the anti-filibuster Army.
Fern, your closing sentence is the crucial one.
Your banner, just unfurled by Dr. Cox Richardson, bears the words of Martin Luther King:
“Our country is backsliding to the unconscionable days of Jim Crow. And some of our senators are saying, ‘Well, we can’t overcome the filibuster,’.... I say to you today: Get rid of the filibuster. That is a monument to white supremacy we must tear down.”
That monument, that one—not stone statuary, not the dead burying the dead, that institutionalized sabotage, that taking a sand bucket to the machinery of state.
You have gifted commanders like Stacey Abrams. Follow them!
This will mean persistent marching, day after day—the example comes from little Belarus— but America is not yet under a despot’s heel, you are still a nation of laws. And not yet all couch potatoes… The people will face no little danger, much organization will be needed behind the lines, securing powerful support where needed,forming firm alliances, twisting arms too, and building strong fallback defensive positions.
If resolute, disciplined, perseverant and well-led, the movement will snowball, going from strength to strength not only throughout America but worldwide. Worldwide. If you dare, tyrants will watch, and will tremble.
There is no choice but to dare.
and you will be with us, Peter Burnett.
Yes.
Thanks to HCR for staying up late and once again informing us in a clear-eyed way about what challenges we face. The 'old' socio-political is dying and fighting back hard to continue. But the tide of demography is running counter to that. I prefer to put my energy towards the 'new'.
There are many skirmishes to be fought now. And the forces of hate, greed, and delusion will win a few, but humanity's consciousness is awakening. Watch how the afghani refugees are welcomed into new communities and (regrettably) how the survivors of Hurricane Ida will be helped by their brethren. Those are the signals of truth, all the rest is noise meant to distract.
Hi Charlie. Your spirit brought out my smile. Salud!
You have two Senators who will support the voting rights bills. There is no need to contact them. Their support is in the bag. But I have two Senators who will oppose them, regardless of what those they represent say, and State legislation making replacing them at the polls difficult at best. Where does that leave the anti-filibuster Army in such an environment?
Same here in Floriduh. I do not write to Rick Scott who is obtuse or Marco Rubio who is insane. There is no point. I am of the Sane Minority here who have no representation.
I am from Texas......Cruz and Cornyn.....need I say more.
Poor you, poor Texas...
These psychopaths are like a disease that enters communities, even nuclear families, spreading hatred and dissension between neighbors, between parents and children, brothers and sisters. At the outset, Cruz scared me far more than Trump...
I understand how you feel Rob, I live in Floriduh, as well. I have no representation. I live in a deeply red county. I donate what I can, I’m a retired Special Ed teacher, and keep voting. I will admit, some days, I feel so defeated.
Before we even speak of taking to America’s streets and meeting places or of besieging corporate power, let us turn to the southeast and see what terrible arguments real power—that of Nature—brings to bear.
England was saved from a landing by Spain’s Invincible Armada by smaller ships that could outmaneuver galleons, but mainly by bad weather conditions. Japan was spared from invasion by the Mongols when the Wind of the Gods—the Kamikaze—destroyed the invaders’ fleet. No King Knut can command the waves.
Watch now the progress of hurricane Ida from New Orleans through Jackson MS and Nashville TN and thence to Washington DC. May the power of Nature not have an impact even on zombie believers in whatever food for goats their tinsel idol’s feedlot provides? Propaganda won’t save those on the rooftops or clinging to jetsam amidst raging floodwaters.
It will result in more suffering...and more propaganda. They do now want the truth, even as they disbelieve their lies.
?? Any unnecessary destruction and suffering will be blamed on Biden in those states. Even the IPCC report does not blame climate change for hurricanes or flooding.
Of course not. The IPCC report doesn't blame climate change for hurricanes or flooding, they have always occurred. What the report concludes is that climate change is making hurricanes, floods and other weather extremes even more frequent and more extreme.
"What was remarkable in the IPCC report was put most succinctly in University of Leeds climate physicist Piers Forster’s pair of tweets on Monday, outlining the good and bad news from the report. The bad news was familiar: we are seeing “more intense and more frequent” weather extremes. We are close to 1.5C of warming and will reach it by mid-century." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/13/ipcc-latest-climate-report-hope
I meant the change in hurricanes and floods.
Not what you wrote and the IPCC clearly states that climate change is aggravating and accelerating extremes in weather events.
Marching on.
Cyber Ninjas gets paid by the hour, I have to assume.
Tour de force, Fern.
How nice to see you, Eric. We need some Canadian cool, calm and steadfast. Welcome!
I feel anything but “Canadian cool”. What strikes me now is the contrast between this forum which is partly talking shop and partly deeply committed people trying to save their country, and the indifference of millions of others who just vote.
I don’t feel a *broad* sense of urgency in the American left and centre. LFAA is a cocoon, a necessary and valorous cocoon, but a cocoon nonetheless.
Dr. Heather’s posts convey a rising sense of urgency, I note. But I’m generally reluctant to post now. I feel it’s either preaching to the choir or it will be piling on, as my mood is much like Jeremiah. I cannot feel even a shred of optimism now, as it feels like a point of no return has come and Americans is simply waiting for the gavel to fall when the Voting Rights legislation implodes for once and all.
I read the posts and appreciate those who are hanging in with implacable determination. Many others strike me as whistling past the graveyard with their eternal “Go Blue” theme and nothing of substance. In fairness of course, people need and seek that consolation, so the better part of me senses that it comes from the deepest trauma. But the gremlin in me sees these posts as delusional.
It’s been a long time coming, but I think the wall has been hit. America has sown the wind and is now reaping the whirlwind.
And it will indeed be bitter. I have heard such spite, stupidity and braying from others on the other side (they are here too, by the way), that they come to feel like an alien race to me.
Two saving graces, completely different: Selfishly this is giving me momentum to finish my book, as I feel, perhaps quite wrongly, that my thesis is being amplified with every passing day.
And the example of righteous action that I so seek comes from Michigan’s Governor Whitmer and Attorney General Dana Nessell meet the forces of darkness head on when they crawl out from under their rocks. This week a woman has been felony charged with making odious death threats to regional health officials who had the temerity to institute a K-6 mask mandate in schools. 3 felony charges, maximum 20 years in the pokey. The black part of my soul loved it. Go Michigan. There’s been a lifetime’s worth of abuse from the jackals of that state.
And Fern, I will conclude that I stand little chance of being accused of writing a coherent list after the above mishmash.
Fondest wishes. :)
I am truly glad that you came back again, Eric. You released your sense of us, America, the forum, Michigan, the left and unafraid to lay an egg. It is my way, sometimes, to cut through the solemnity with a bit of naughtiness, or worse. l have read some uncool words of yours in the past and wondered if you would thoroughly dispense with signs of 'cool' and 'calm' as you have, but 'steadfast' you cannot deny.
It hurts me, too, that this country seems without the level of organization the times demand. There was a long pause here as I considered the pandemic but that is not the cause behind our quietness. There is trauma and social media, loneliness but still a spirit. A friend and I in different places and without text, except at the very beginning and at the end, spent fifteen minutes this morning in total silence as we considered the fallen soldiers, the Afghan people our families and whatever our minds delivered. Meditation, church, feelings, restoration, peace -- we search for strength and both of us were content in our support with calm deliberation.
However torn you may feel about America and us, your voice, Eric, has deep feeling, and I am glad to hear it. If we feed your book, so be it; that is not our calling. We ring bells together and apart. It is far too early to predict where our house will be a couple of years from now.
It is reassuring to hear that you and your friend found solace in meditation. It can be very hard to slow down and look at big perspective.
You note that “it is far too early to predict where our house will be a couple of years from now”. That is certainly true and it is a vexing truth. I would ask you this, however. In your bones, do you intuit that America will be in a better place and on the mend and rise? Or do you feel it more likely that the downward spiral will continue? Obviously I’m asking for an answer from a place beyond hope. We both share that hope.
Dr. King famously said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”.
That may be a consoling platitude (for who can successfully refute it?), or it may be the most penetrating truism.
My own feeling is that it is a truism. In asking you the question above it’s only fair that I give my own feeling. In my heart my sense is that within our lifetimes, the arc of the moral universe *will* bend towards justice in America. However, before that happens the country will pass through a terrible trial, the likes of which has only been hinted at in the last five years. But somehow, some way, the good people of America will say, “Enough”, and those who have taken America into this ghastly new world will be vanquished.
That time has not yet come. The forces of anarchy are still in the ascendancy and they fight with no quarter and no shame. On the other side, the centrist and progressive left have not been galvanized in sufficient numbers to say with one voice, “Enough”, and then rise up to assert the ascendancy of goodness.
In truth, it seems to me that most Americans of good intention are still watching unfolding events as if they were a multi-part Netflix series.
They need a leader of more charisma, vigor, and sheer force of will to start the ball rolling in the right way.
I hate writing this, but as implied above, Biden is not the man. He is giving his heart and experience to the enterprise. He provides moral clarity in abundance. Legislatively he has done as much as could be expected, though I’m not sure where he’d be without Leader Pelosi.
But he is a product of the same cyclical forces that brought us Trump. He has been a Senator longer than anything else, and he craves bipartisanship too much for a time like this. This is war for the soul of America *in a new world*. I cannot help but feel that this, in the end, will make him a dupe of the forces who make a mockery of that world.
None of us could ask more of Joseph Robinette Biden. But in some ways he is too good a person for this battle.
Until America is at the very brink of being vanquished as a moral force, until a leader of enormous charisma and unyielding will emerges, I feel the degradation will become worse.
I have often quoted Churchill’s summary of your country: “America always does the right thing, but only after exhausting all other options”.
I bring it up here because I think it’s never been truer than now.
But someday, within our lifetimes, the next Abraham Lincoln will come to the fore and Americans of decent character will rise up in sufficient numbers to rout this odious gang.
And then the world will have to contend as one in the fight against the climate crisis.
I am curious to know what your intuition is telling you.
Eric, My reply to you was almost done and then gone. To start again:
You have asked the most difficult question. It has been with me for years, particularly insistent as a recurring mode for the last eleven months and most persistent in recent weeks.
'In your bones, do you intuit that America will be in a better place and on the mend and rise? Or do you feel it more likely that the downward spiral will continue?'
I cannot answer you right away; ' it will take another day or two.
Paul Celan's poem 'Death Fugue' was brought to my attention two months ago. I read it several times and again yesterday. The poem is not a riddle. The sense of it echoes in a strand of where I think America is today. I almost wrote 'where we are today'. My intuition is both small and large but do not know how much I can encompass. Below is a link to the poem:
https://poets.org/poem/death-fugue
It is strange that you have posed this question, brought forward the hardest one to wrestle with; it a question of life and death.
On another question Fern...Atahualpa!
Ah, a last Emperor of the Incas reference. Yes, even after his final victory in a devastating Civil War with a faction led by his half-brother, it did not go well for Atahualpa, who was shortly later executed by Francisco Pizzaro. Efforts to preserve minority rule seldom end well for those seeking to suppress the voice of the majority of those they govern.
I never expected them on the forum this morning.
You are a gentleman. Thank you.
You are more than welcome, Fern.
Yes, yes, yes Fern.
Biden hasn't called for the elimination of the fillibuster (yet) either. He's a Senate veteran and remembers well that the rules work in both directions. IF the DEMS lose the Senate in 2022, they will wish that they had retained the fillibuster. The current calls for its elimination are short-sighted.
I respectfully disagree. This claim does not gain credibility from constant repetition. The DEMS know what they have to do to retain or expand their Senate majority. The odds against it are high anyway, but the answer is one word: ORGANIZE.