(Photo by Maria Wulf. That’s me, singing my song.)
Life is a song – sing it. Life is a game-play. Life is a challenge – meet it. Life is a dream – realize it. Life is a sacrifice – offer it. Life is love – enjoy it. -Sai Baba
I can’t bear the news every day; I try to catch up every few days. I don’t want to hide from the ugly reality, but I don’t want to swim in it either; I don’t want it to be my life.
Sometimes I move along; sometimes, I tell myself that I am almost 74 years old, and it’s really not my fight anymore. But that doesn’t work for me. Our democracy is everyone’s fight.
I usually end up in the same place. I write something once in a while to keep my sanity and perhaps help yours. I sometimes feel betrayed by my countrymen. How can so many people support such a damaged and malignant man and an angry and selfish movement?
How many African-Americans died to win voting rights in a hostile country.
I honored them today with a silent meditation and a walk in my pasture. I honestly don’t know a better way to honor them than that and do what I can to preserve the things they fought for.
Where did honor and decency and truth go, or respect for our traditions? It’s an important thing for me to ponder on Memorial Day. From the news, I’d say most people have other things on their minds, from the end of the pandemic to the horrific unraveling of the Republican Party. We are a two-party system; we need two parties to operate our government and protect our democracy.
Sometimes I suffer from political fatigue. I have a Tom Paine quote nearby for when I tired: “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.”
The big war was before my time, but I have always been conscious of the ultimate sacrifice so many people made so willingly so that our democracy could survive. I bet they would all have worn masks and bitched about to their pals.
People like me are sensitive to Memorial Day mostly because we know firsthand the consequences of failed democracy.
Somebody wrote that the willingness of American veterans to sacrifice for our country had earned them our lasting gratitude. Well, perhaps not lasting.
The manipulated people who stormed the Capitol on January six showed no signs of gratitude for the Americans who freely gave their lives – many thousands through our history – so that we could fight with one another on Facebook and buy all the guns we could want.
The Capitol Police in Washington reminded me of the World War II generation of soldiers, so many put their lives on the line rather than ride or hide from a furious and bloody attack. So many paid for with the eyes, their peace of mind, even their lives.
I don’t see much gratitude or appreciation for them from the people they fought to save. I am grateful to them. I owe Mr. Trump a lot. I used to think of patriots as old men with funny hats and too many medals. I now think of them as something I would love one day to be.
He did that for me.
I used to think that patriots were those older men in their fancy uniforms struggling to stand tall and walk straight in those parades. I get it now.
I never fought in a war, but I want to see myself as a patriot now, one of those who care about compassion and truth and justice for my country, which saved my people, and thus me, from an awful fate.
Nobody gets to lecture me about what it means to be a patriot; I can’t lecture anyone else. I can only be me and work in my own way for what I think is right.
We seem to have forgotten about gratitude and opted instead for grievance and power, a kind of insatiable greed to dominate the lives of other people.
Donald Trump turned out to be a malignancy, not a President.
There is no good news about malignances, but the bright spot here is that this malignancy doesn’t grow; it just festers and spreads the poison.
Nothing has changed much since 2020 except that cancer has spread through an entire political party.
I didn’t believe they would take over our country in 2020, and I don’t believe it now, as ugly and dispiriting as the news out of Washington is sometimes.
American has gone too far as a democracy – too many empowered women, angry blacks, idealistic kids, hard-working immigrants, gay people, and ethical white men and women.
Trump and his neo-fascist Army did not have the votes in 2020; I do not believe they will have the votes in 2024 or even 2022.
I have only the hysterical media to turn to for some understanding of what’s happening, but my heart and eyes, and ears tell me they are once again missing the biggest story of all.
Today, I feel pain and empathy for the souls who sacrificed their lives so that I can shoot my mouth off in books and on my blog.
It isn’t Donald Trump; it’s the people he has aroused, offended, denigrated, abandoned, and betrayed. That’s most Americans.
Mr. Trump is not the future; he is an already fading stain on the past. He is a bad dream, a disruption in the universe, the very embodiment of abnormal, not normal.
Demagogues are like fireworks or shooting stars, they race through the sky and transfix the world, and they burn out and fall to the ground, another chapter testifying to the frailty and greed and blindness of human beings.
I am keeping faith in my democracy. I believe in it. It has endured worse and will endure more. It will survive and perhaps even improve. Trump has made many of us more honest and truthful; we acknowledge things we have been slow to acknowledge.
History and fate are powerful social forces. Both are on the side of a warmer, gentler, and more compassionate America. That is what I believe; that is what I will fight for in my own way, to the best of my abilities and the last of my strength.
People who support what is happening will have to answer higher beings than me, and I believe they will be called to account.
I am once again – or perhaps still – ready to fight in my own way.
But my inspiration when it comes to patriotism is Thomas Paine, whose writing remains me to take care of myself and not succumb to hatred or fear:
“To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt,” he wrote, “is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.”
Nothing on this earth is new, and no demagogue in human history has survived and prospered for long. Think of it as yet one more pandemic.
There is an Army of people around me too, we call it the Army Of Good, and we are determined to continue fighting with small acts of kindness and the goal to do good.
That’s how I feel on Memorial Day, and I nod and bow my head to all of those patriots who went before me and helped me understand what it is I need to do, and what it is I need to know and be grateful for.
Thank you, brave and selfless patriots, for fighting for my life, even if it meant losing yours.
Like those angels who fought for us, I will never give up. We all have to live in our own little acre, but I hope those of you reading this never will either.
(Photo is by Maria Wulf. I call it “Man Asserting…”)
Jon
Your post reminded me. The first thing I felt upon hearing of our last president’s winning the 2016 election was a deep, deep disappointment, sadness and diminution in my respect for the people of this country who put him in office. He made/makes no real pretense: He is/was a heartless, impaired and ruthless thug. But so many people voted for him…
FWIW, I’ll offer up a title which I found approaches our history from a different perspective and throws a flood light on the realities of our USA. “White Trash”. Written by historian Nancy Isenberg, 2017. It’s sobering, even horrifying, but it provides conceptual ideas and framework that greatly help understand what the USA really is, what we are seeing today and the work democracy will always need.
And why the fight for “freedom” goes on and needs all of us and is never really won.
Rufus
Jon…
Some thoughts prompted by your comments about Memorial Day, democracy, and patriotism.
Comment: “How many African-Americans died to win voting rights in a hostile country?”
With all its faults, is democracy still the best game in town? It is, if we all believe we can participate. Democracy in practice is imperfect. We are still evolving, and some are searching for the right formula. But we might be guilty of being too patient. The quandary is how to make your viewpoint known without offending a friend or countryman. Yet, as you quoted from Thomas Paine, “To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, . . . is like administering medicine to the dead . . .”
Comment: “Sometimes I suffer from political fatigue.”
I feel political alienation in my inability to truly understand different points of view. With each perceived affront, I ask, “what am I missing?” What’s fair or even normal about recounting and auditing election votes until the results fall your way?
Comment: “The big war was before my time, but I have always been conscious of the ultimate sacrifice so many people made so willingly so that our democracy could survive.”
As a youngster, I do remember personal experiences from WWII. I remember asking my parents whether our enemies could win, and then what would happen to us? They just shook their heads.
I do remember an older friend returning home without a leg.
Even a kid could understand the gravity of our life in those times, and how much we prized what we were fighting for. We knew, because we understood the alternative. But now, almost 80 years later, do we still know that? We take so much for granted.
It’s doubtful that the Romans understood what they were losing when Caesar Augustus came to power. Their (482) year-old republic had severely degraded, and it’s difficult to fault a new system when things are going well. Today the US is almost half the age of the Roman Republic. Have we become so flippant with the issues at stake?
Comment: “Nobody gets to lecture me about what it means to be a patriot . . . I can only be me and work in my own way for what I think is right.”
In considering patriotism, how many have asked themselves “is this right?” The answer must come from their own knowledge, experience, and judgments; not from Facebook or from their buddies.
America is a big part of free Europe we enjoy today. Over 400 thousand Americans sacrificed their lives to make this happen. I have visited Normandy where the big push started to liberate Europe and forever feel the pain of families who lost their loved ones during the battles. It was over 75 years ago, but we will always be indebted to those brave servicemen who made the ultimate sacrifice.
Coming back to today, sometimes it feels easy to rationalize this is happening beyond our shores and across the Atlantic and we can shrug our shoulders and get on with our lives. However, that is not the case. I have tried but still glued to the news across the Atlantic. I wanted to believe it would be over after his departure from the WH, although I have written (in your columns) that the army he created and his enablers will be at his beck and call. But nothing in my 70-plus years has grabbed my attention more than the dismal events now unfolding in the USA.
I shiver when I hear politicians say “America is the greatest country” – are they really? Who bestowed this title? Or is it a label of self-glorification? And…. greatest democracy? – that’s going down the drain too. Racial tensions, gun violence, voter restrictions are mushrooming all over the country and we have voices pushing the 2nd amendment to commit violence. Over 230 mass shootings in 5 months is shocking and beyond crazy. Bottom line – over 56% of Republicans believe in the false narrative and ready to destroy the democracy we have come to accept and that is the reality.