It was over 40 years ago that I thought I saw a future that looked less like Star Trek and more like Mad Max and today I think we stand on a narrow ledge between a nation that builds back better and the world I feared: one of waterless barrens peopled by tribes that shoot first and ask questions later. Read more about Make America Amazing
Joe Biden spoke for all of us on Friday when he said that we had had enough of this nonsense. When one full quarter of the country is equating a roundup by a gestapo with efforts to save them from a death dealing disease, we have had more than enough. They may not care that their children die, but the rest of us do. I hope they sing “The Star Spangled Banner” as those tiny coffins are lowered into the ground. The rest of us are singing a different tune. Read more about Reclaiming Our Time
Fifty years from now, what will the history books tell us? Will they say, without fear of contradiction, that the United States narrowly missed an attempt to overthrow democracy in the years of the pandemic? Or will they tell us that there are still questions surrounding a stolen election? Read more about Big Lies Never Die
Black is a color
So is White.
A reminder for White people.
It is said that the concept of “White” was born in America and it seems to be true that never before had “white” people thought of themselves as “White” people. Not until they had to make a sharp distinction between themselves and people born with darker skin. Read more about Black is a Color
That was the header of a newpaper piece – WaPo or NYT, I forget which – written in the last week or so, and it made me wonder, not only about Syria, but also about Palestine. Palestine and Ukraine, Iran and Afghanistan, Israel and Belarus, Russia, China, Taiwan – the world at large and everything that is going awry with it.
And my question was: What in the hell can we do about it? About any of it? Read more about Whatcha Gonna Do About It?
In the 1949 Oscar winner “All the King’s Men,” about a small-time southern politician who ascends to the governor’s office before really muffing it, there is an early scene in a small-town cop shop that caught my eye. Read more about The Cop Shop
Who knew?
Who knew way back in 2019 when the debate stages filled with 2020’s candidates for the presidency that we would go with the old guy in the middle? How often had he run for President? Had he ever come even close? Wasn’t there a scandal of some kind? Plagiarism, I believe it was. What kind of scandal is that, anyway? Oh, an unattributed quote? You’re kidding. Read more about Joe the Great
The phrase in the Pledge is “one nation under God.” When we recited it at the 46th District Democrats in Seattle, you could hear the volume drop at that phrase as at least one half of us left it out. Not because we objected to being One Nation. Maybe we could rewrite it? One nation in democracy? It could work. Read more about One Nation
“A date so far in the future that …”
And that is all I remember from a poem that I wrote in 1984. Except that it described the day I wrote it. All the ordinary things of life going on around me as usual. But the date itself seemed as surreal to me as a star date.
It’s now 2021, and it has been the future for almost as long as I can remember. Read more about Living in the Future
Between Donald Trump and Covid 19 and Black Lives Matter, all of which matter very much, don't forget this prime political maxim:
“All politics are local.” Read more about Politics Begin at Home