Life is long
And the dreams we had
When we were young
Seem so naïve now
Seeing the world through that lense
Where your opinions are a mix
Of what your parent told you
And what you rebelled against
I thought America was a shining jewel
A beacon of the possible
A hope in a world where the darkest parts of us
Often strut about on the stage
And now
I see its deep flaws
Its horrific tragedies
Its blatant lies
What once was golden is streaked
With green
That false gold
Eaten by exposure
We aren’t any more divided than we always were
We just have the tools to see it now
We aren’t limited by what the local paper publishes
By what makes it on the 3 channels of television
People’s egos get bound up in belief
People’s communities get bound up in single idea activism
It is hard to walk away from all you have ever known
Hard to hold a line when doing so loses every tie
Hard to accept that the belief you had
Was wrong
To embrace metamorphosis
politics
The slow social descent into barbarism
The vast majority of activists are part time. They see an issue in their youth or after a major life change and they go full Don Quixote for a few years(at most). Then they stop. They move to other activities. Put their money and time towards other things.
Because change is hard. You can’t tear out an entrenched establishment by the roots with a few tugs. Its a colossal entity. It takes time and slow erosion.
You have to keep showing up. Keep donating. Keep voting. Keep speaking. It’s, frankly, exhausting. So rather than stop completely, I am asking that you pick two of the things. One has to be to keep voting. As long as they are pretending its a fair system, we keep voting. And for the other, pick one.
It took 50 years for the far right to pack the Supreme Court with politically motivated justices who are completely willing to forego precedent and overturn prior decisions. All while screaming about states rights. States rights being code for racist, homophobic, and misogynistic legislation and rulings.
States don’t need more rights. Broadly speaking, they have all the rights they need. Look at all the red states packing their legislatures and overturning voting rights for the last 50 years.
And look at all states who have legalized marijuana. Despite federal law.
Excluding rights from the citizenry is not a states rights issue. It’s a authoritarian issue.
Conservatives screaming about legislation from the bench are now eerily quiet, now that they are getting their way.
Hypocrisy. On the bench. In our legislatures. In our families.
Keep fighting. As much as you can. Don’t just give up. These are dark times. But eventually there is a light.
Whether that light be the dawn of a new day, or the bonfires of revolution.
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Live long enough to see all your dreams burn
I used to have faith in humanity. I believed in humanity’s ability to rise above their petty and childish behavior and take on the challenges that face us. I used to believe that we were living in a golden age.
Well, if it was a golden age, it was gilt over pot metal. Humanity doesn’t deserve the chances it’s received. Again and again, it proves its greed and short sightedness.
I used to say that Individuals are smart but the collective group is dumb. But if there are smart individuals, they aren’t listened to. They’re warnings are unheeded and the grasping hand of “what-about-meism” impedes positive change.
At some point, we have to acknowledge that humanity is a failure. That, as a species, we lack the will to enact lasting change. We lack the desire to embrace the necessity our exploitation of our world and each other has mandated.
We instead cower under the weight of the inexorable lathe, grinding us to nothing. Shaving off a few more dollars to our oligarchical masters.
It’s over. Maybe whatever comes next will do better. I hope so.
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This nation….
If I weren’t so tired all the time I guess I’d be pissed. Instead I’m just disillusioned. I used to believe in the ideals of America which I grew up with. But I grew up. And started pulling away from those things I thought were truths. However, it took me a long time to see that what I perceived as real when I was younger is all that thirty percent of this country believes. And they are wrong. They see America as freedom loving and based in equality. But it was never that. It couldn’t be. It was founded on ideals and compromise. And its hard to tell where the ideals begin and the compromises begin.
But assuredly the demarcation line is right at slavery. And the treatment of people who weas a nation said were subhuman. We fought a war with ourselves over it. Maybe you’ve heard of it. And during Reconstruction we were doing it at least partially right. But we abandoned those ideas. We left all these people to rot in the hands of those who were guaranteed to keep them as an underclass. And in doing so, abandoned the ideas which we said we founded the nation on.
Then, in the 1960’s, America woke up again and passed some laws and has spent the last 60+ years patting itself on the back, lying to itself that it fixed everything, and eroding those protections those laws enacted.
And here we are, a middle aged white mans life later, facing the same problems because America has never faced its past. And any hint that that past was anything other than star spangled awesome gets people out as either vitriol spewing, right side of their mouth talking, authoritarian courting, all lives matter bigots; or hand wringing, can’t we get along being, left leaning in public(republican in private), gives to charity but only in public, hiding out, hoping this fades hypocrites. The far right is crazy and the middle left is spineless.
And its all voting for the lesser of two evils and I’m just tired. Is money so damned important that you’d sacrifice the lives of others for your success? Supporting candidates who line your pockets rather than ones who will safeguard the ideals that they scream about in public, laughing snidely at all they’ve duped.
Its a rigged game that I very much don’t want to play anymore. But I guess, I’ll keep on. Because what choice is there.
And still, fuck. Gotta let those lies pass me by. Gotta let it all pass. Because fuck it.
Its Tuesday.
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Information, New information, Panic, Obstinacy
All of science is new
Anything beyond observable fact is new
And even observable fact
Took generations
And blood
And war
And struggle to make it accepted
But we use these poorly understood ideas
To make our points
As if what we learned
When we were still learning
Hasn’t transformed
Hasn’t changed
Hasn’t been debunked
The entrenched voices from everywhere
Even within the scientific community
Would have you believe
What we know is what we know
Not what we believe
What we think
What maybe
Might be true
Is presented as bedrock
Like what we know isn’t crumbling daily beneath our feet
And only by accepting that what’s true today
Could be false tomorrow
Only by dancing on that razor edge
Do we have the opportunity
To change our hearts
As well as our minds
When true science is exposed to the public
Knowledge because politicized
Because in the publics mind
Once something is this way
Its always this way
Asking a panicked animal to turn away from the cliff
While telling them each time facts change
Just confuses people to whom science
Is a paper mache volcano
Science is a journey of understanding
That keeps accelerating
Now too fast
Each change
Each idea
Each revelation
Leads to that middle school science fair
Reevaluation
And in the end
That’s what kills us
That inability to accept that
Knowledge is something that must change
As what we perceive
Gives way to what is true
And what is true
Breaks down
And what’s real
Shifts again
We dance
A thousand deep
On the head of a bullet
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A moment of silence please
Give me that fabled simpler time
Where I was yours
And you were mine
That picture painted with a false bottom
That overpaint of an overpaint
That lie we say so often it becomes truth
Give me that yesterday when all was harmony
When all people were united
When the feeling on your neck
Was the arm of a friend
And not the heavy boot of thuggery
That false remembrance which they say is possible
If only we’d be quiet
Be silent
Be closeted
Tell all the lies of the heart
They were forced to
It could be grand
Give me that hopeful tomorrow
Where retirement is real
Where lips pressed to mine
Where our world is not aflame
And the vocal few don’t drown out the cut tongue majority
Give me none of those things
All I want is a harsh truth
All I want is a plan with some spine
All I want is a chance
But I am not so naive
No longer trapped in what you conceive
Instead I cry
For all you know is the lie
And truth
No matter how sharp
Cannot cut you free
From the honeycomb cage
You call freedom
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This wasn’t the end. It was the start.
Voters young and old, Independent and Democrat, normally third party voters and even Republicans, came out to oust then President Trump. Democrats and Independents voted blue. For any Democrat we could get our hands on. We gage money and signed petitions. We marched in Black Lives Matter protests and were beaten and run down and even killed for our efforts.
When Biden won, we watched while the President tried desperately to make it not so. Watched him bribe and threaten and, yes, even incite active insurrection. And still he failed. When Biden was sworn in and we had both a Democrat as president and a supposed majority in congress, we all breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe we could wipe away the nightmare and put protections in place to prevent it from happening again.
We need to add more Supreme Court justices. We need to pass The For The People act. We need lasting economic change and we need real reform of our policing structures.
But we aren’t going to get those things. Because the people we elected are delusional. There is no bipartisanship possible with people who are pushing lies. Who have zero intention of legislating. Who can not and will not accept any compromise or concession.
The inability of the Democratic leadership to see that, is infuriating. You did NOT change things just by winning. You have to act and those actions must result in passed legislation. Not you shrugging and saying you tried while insuring that it is not possible to pass any bills.
Yes, we’re talking about the filibuster. Which was never intended for use in the constitution. Which is only in place because of a screwed up wording on a procedural document. Which, when it was abolished in the House resulted in more and meaningful legislation to pass. And such would be the effect in the Senate. But Democrats are too afraid. They are betting that they will lose and be in the minority again. And that mindset will not fly with those of us who came out for you this time.
If you fail to pass meaningful legislation as you failed to impanel the bipartisan 1/6 commission, don’t expect us in the midterms. We will give up. We won’t vote in the opposition. Most will just not vote. Because you will have proven that even when you are in control, you still can’t make it work. You still play like its a game.
Well, unfortunately, Trumps apprentices are coming. This wasn’t a war you won. It was a single battle, after which you declared yourselves the total victors even while there were still combatants on the field.
And when it comes around again, your failures now will empower your opponents and the enemies of what this Nation could have been.
We implore you to wake up. We are signing petitions and writing senators. We are pleading with you. But if you fail to listen, to act…we won’t be there when you need us most. Just as you are not with us now, when we need you.
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The bottom line is not blue
Cops want to believe that they are to protect and serve. That is the ideal they espouse. The motto of nearly every city or department. But it is not their function.
The function of police is to determine 2 things. 1. Has a law been broken and if so, by whom.
2. To gather evidence of said infraction to present to the District Attorneys/prosecutor.
That is the base function.
That’s it. Anything beyond that is frosting.
But when we allow them to believe that ‘protecting’ is their function, we get into a quagmire of value judgments. Where personal bias and institutional bias meet and have a toxic baby.
Yes. There was a time when police could execute some judgment upon execution of the law. But we’ve grown too far beyond that. It’s no longer true that street cops actually know the people on their beat. Further, they have no investment in the community that they patrol because they don’t live there. They don’t need to make sure their neighborhood is a good place to live.
And the internal culture reflects this mentality. They see themselves as a community under siege. That ‘civilians’ don’t understand. That cops should be given freedom to persue their goals to protect.
Without true scrutiny, oversight, or interference.
That is the worst kind of false narrative. One which creates a Us vs Them dynamic. Which makes it so that actions outside of the rules become justified. Because they are trying to ‘protect’.
This culture which sees itself as us vs them. Which denounces those who report the crimes of other police. Which considers the body which is there to police them as the “Rat squad”. Which eschews civilian oversight. Which relies on police unions to keep them in power. Its a broken system.
One which functions more like a gang than the military that they play as. Gangs don’t want you to ‘rat’. Gangs want you to rely solely on them for solace and support. Gangs create a us vs them society. And gangs only care about the gang. The thin blue line.
Police use the perpetual threat in negotiations that their members will pull their protection from the cities and citizenry that they serve. That is the definition of a protection racket. Pay up or you don’t know what could happen.
This is a system which requires drastic change. Which requires drastic measures. And it is evident that the change is no longer possible from within.
Police in our country(the USA) are flawed and corrupt on such a fundamental level that internal reforms are no longer an option.
It’s a incendiary statement. But if it is, perhaps it’s time to light the pyre.
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Moving forward in the wake of treason
Trump’s actions in office while heinous were in no way done without the complicity of those in Congress. People who, either by cynical manipulation wore the colors of this fascist movement in a bid for power or through genuine passion for an ideology anathema to the ideals of this country, supported and conceded to this presidency all grounds of decency. Who under rule by then Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Decided to stonewall any effort to make the lives of Americans better. To deny safeguards both physical and financial to protect its citizens from a virus that has killed almost 1 in 10 people in these United States. To appoint federal and Supreme Court justices who would lead us into the future instead of miring us in a mythical past.
It is into this atmosphere that our President Elect Joe Biden wants to restore normalcy and cooperation. It is a false hope and the wrong move. You cannot settle with people who hold you in such contempt. Who will use your inability to enforce change to swing the pendulum back to the simmering fascism for the next populist ideologue to take advantage of.
There is no normal to recreate. There is no consensus which can be reached with those who either through cynicism or fanaticism have engaged in support of sedition. Anything less than the denial of these complicit parties will leave the cancer to metastasize. They must be denied their seats. New members must be seated and all activities they have engaged in must be brought to light.
We stand near the maelstrom, just past the lip. We can either forge a new future or try to make peace with those who have no true desire for it and plunge back into the gyre.
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Lies told by the comfortable
I’m old enough to have been warmed by the flames
Watched as the heart and soul of a country burned
Watched as the flames reached higher
As the middle class blamed those with less
Blamed those without
While the Rich paid themselves for existing
Removed protections and taxes
Things that made economic mobility possible
Made it possible to work less than forever
Buy a house
Be out of debt
Not be drawn further and further into
No way out
The last flames are burning
Soon there will be nothing left
What choices will we make
The generation of my parents
Are turning on anyone who isn’t them
My generation is either complicit or stand by
Some rage in the streets
But the generations that follow
Need to rise and dismantle this
That means the senate and the house
Local government legislature
We need to make every effort
But I fear that we are falling
And nothing is left but to burn
Pelgris 