We band of brothers and sisters
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| Rally in solidarity with immigrants and refugees, by Fibonacci Blue, CC BY-SA 2.0 |
Well, my friends, the unraveling of this Republic continues apace.
Another Black man has been shot by police, in the back while running away.
The protests engendered by that shooting brought out a murderous vigilante, a 17-year-old white man (and yes, I'll call him a "man", just like the Right calls Black children "men" when they want to excuse their murders), who shot and killed two protesters. This vile cretin tried to surrender to the Kenosha police, who let him go, only to be arrested back home in Illinois.
The shooting of Jacob Blake has ground our entertainments to a halt, as the mostly-Black players of the NBA decided they no longer wanted to amuse their mostly white audience with their labor while their Black brothers and sisters continued to be gunned down with impunity. The boycotts spread to baseball and Major League Soccer. (Hockey, of course, doesn't give two fucks about Black people.)
As the Reichstag gathers today to crown its Führer for another run at the presidency, a massive hurricane will hit the Texas coast. Residents along that coast have been urged to evacuate, with the storm surge being described as "unsurvivable". Of course, the soi disant president emptied FEMA coffers of the money earmarked for hurricane season.
Things are dark.
But they've been dark before. And the lights which will illuminate that darkness are what they've always been. Me. And you. And mere human beings.
We can be the most addled, short-sighted hairless apes one can imagine. We can neglect the long-term for the short-gain. Many of our problems right now derive from this lack of forethought.
But we have greatness within us. We have empathy within us. We have the Universe within us. We have the power to dispel the darkness within us and among us.
Not one of us can do this alone. Whenever a man tells you that only he can fix things, know without even thinking that he's lying. He'll make things exponentially worse. Most messiahs are false prophets, in it only for their own glory and power. But all too often, because we feel powerless, we fall prey to such blandishments. We fall prey to the easy fix, rather than yield to doing the hard work. The unexamined life is not worth living; but it's far easier, it seems, than plumbing your own soul.
Not one of us can do this alone. Which is why I always look askance at anyone who says they're "self-made". Really? Did you educate yourself at home? Did you use the infrastructure built up over decades? Did you get a loan to jumpstart your dreams? You did work, yes, and kudos; but no person is an island. Without a society around you, you'd be scratching out a living from the hard earth, like Adam.
Not one of us can do this alone. We need each other to reclaim this country. We need each other to reclaim this world. The hard men, the violent men, want to cow us into submission. It's what the terrorist in Kenosha tried to do. And instead he catalyzed a reaction. He brought forth a response which the great and the good thought we didn't have within us. The hard men and the violent men are cowards. They hide behind their assault rifles and their APCs. They rely on us being terrorized. But when we unite, when we overcome our fear and stand up to them, nine times out of ten they fold. Why? Because they're cowards, and most aren't willing to commit mass murder.
This country is bent, but not broken. This country is being born anew. And birth is fraught with peril. Birth isn't guaranteed to survive. But we have no choice. This pain was inevitable. But we have each other to get us through it, to see the task to its conclusion, before a new task greets us. Because the struggle is never over, but each iteration of it does get easier.
When I feel dejected, I turn to this one speech from Henry V. I've used it in times of joy and times of sorrow. I pity those who stay abed, thinking this struggle doesn't involve them. But more the honor for us.