Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
'Cause none of them can stop the time.
Won't you help to sing
Those songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have
Redemption songs
Redemption songs
Just Take Them and Leave Me Alone
Raoof Haghighi, Iran-Britain
November 7th
The brain fuzz is lifting a bit. I tried to look at the New York Times but their conservative colors are shining brightly. All pro-Trump and lukewarm and scolding about Democrats.
Many people have discussed with me the fact that Democrats, by and large, do not get judged or evaluated by the same ethics as Republicans. I cannot come up with any kind of good explanation for this. I'd welcome any thoughts.
My friend Matt sent me this text:
A friend told me on election night: well Biden can just jail trump because he has presidential immunity, and jailing Trump is for the good of the country duh.
I had to remind him that presidential immunity granted by the Supreme Court only refers to republican presidents.
I've been trying to write this for a couple of hours now. As soon as Janet gets up, I lose my concentration, fall out of the "zone." I would recommend that if at all possible, avoid being a full-time, no-breaks caregiver. Whereas I would prefer to be enjoying Janet and loving her in her last-however-long, I am frustrated and angry with her almost all of the time. She asks me to rub her back, and although I know I will miss her body when she is gone, I am hard-pressed to touch her. I resent the passive-agressive way she requests things, so I am almost always negative with her. Whenever I am not immediately acquiescent, she threatens to call 911 to help her. It could be a cup of tea that she wants now when I am in the midst of doing something else.
I have tried to get help to deal with my profound anger and resentment toward her. My psychopharmacologist even prescribed a drug that is supposed to help, but I am not feeling any change in that direction. I tried to get ketamine therapy to see if I could discover the basis for my rage and frustration. But no go so far. And with my health care about to disappear, it is unlikely that I will get to do it.
I bought Janet the smallest walker I could find, but alas! it is still too large to fit well through the doorways of this 70+-years-old house. I think of the music in the Jaws shark attack when she moves down the hallway toward me.
My friend Manuel Z wrote this in response to last night's post:
As always well written and expressing much of my dismay better than I could.
And Ifill’s words also were, not a balm as much as a wakeup call. But having identified clearly one of the big problems that led to this awful outcome she seems a bit at a loss of how we reset our moral compass as she and Rachel characterize it. I really feel that shift of the moral compass, that easy acceptance and even glorification of vulgarism, that loss of former virtue of decency and extolling the virtue of the hard work to be informed citizens and humans and work the brain and feed the soul and embrace our better angels. The laziness of staying unwoke. Maybe in time I will feel some impetus to pick ourselves up and get back in the ring or some such Hallmark card cliche naive bullshit aphorism but right now that seems very far off, not on point, and frankly pathetic. Our country has stage 4 inoperable cancer. We took “the test” and failed it. The MAGA love of hate is as horrible as all that phrase implies and may yet bury this country under its hubris of how exceptional they think America is. That those of us that fight the good fight, that believe in democracy, that love love and humanity, I could go on with pithy cliches. But our tribe that at this moment lies stunned and near immobile, that we too will be swallowed by the tsunami of horrors that I feel awaits us, well I guess I can’t see how we too would somehow escape that.
I can only agree with Ifill’s words about protecting our core. I will still live my life by my core values and trust that is the righteous path we all should take.
For my money, this is as trenchant as what I wrote last night.
It is still too early for me to even begin to analyze the reality. I am nauseated when I tiptoe toward trying to wrap my head around it. I don't know what difference it would have made had I had a better clue about "my fellow Americans" and therefore had never gotten any hopes up.
I will go on record to say that I think there is something very fishy about this election. I am not about to go on about election fraud quite yet as I don't have any facts, just suspicions.
I have to teach yoga tonight and I am not quite sure how I can will myself above this churning, desperate psyche to help anyone. But I will try.
Another friend sent this in a text:
Seems to me if there is one entity to blame it's the fourth estate. The press essentially ran an anti-Hillary campaign 8 years ago with the email BS. It could have easily run an anti-Trump campaign but they kept sane- splaining for him. Hardly ever, if ever, referred to him as "former President Trump and convicted felon".
Odd the press favored him after he called them enemy of the people!
NYT, WAPO, major networks, they delivered him, normalized him. Or normalized his disgusting behavior.
Just another totally bizarre chapter in the strange journey.
Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC was very frank and angry about how the press covered Trump, even his own network which is sometimes so biased I cannot watch.
My friend BK posted this on FB:
I’ve never been one to sugarcoat anything or look at the bright side of things. In “toxic positivity” the “toxic” part is at the forefront and any kind of “positivity” following that is manufactured. I know when people are faking. I know why people do it, and I get it, but it’s still fake.
In 2016, after the the initial shock and despair, I changed the way I viewed my own life. At first the realization that I had no control over national politics filled me with hopelessness, but then I started coming up with a list of the other things I could do. I became more aware of and involved in politics in a local level. I enjoyed travel more, nature more, made more art, wrote more, found ways to express all the ideas floating around in my head. I volunteered. I met communities of people with whom I shared thoughts and ideas, and the occasional meal. I allowed myself to be blown away by the kindness of some folks, and I tried my best to pass that along.
I lost a few people too, people who did not share my respect for humanity and honor of truthfulness, and that was fine.
I kind of lost my drive to find steady employment during that time too. I’d never really worked well that way anyway, and it suddenly seemed even more pointless than ever. So I leaned into the temporary and unpredictable nature of life, taking just enough temporary work to pay the bills, and enjoying fewer work hours and less stress. Some people asked me if the unpredictability of temporary employment scared me, to which I replied, “Unpredictability is the very essence of life. At least temp work is honest about it.”
I think if you’re going to be afraid of unpredictability, you are likely going to be afraid of life in general.
I think what I’m saying is that my existential threat level was so high at that point that it really caused me to make choices about whom and what I prioritized, in a way I’d never done before. What if the Orange Man presses the Red Button? Was my brief existence well spent? And I like to think that threat, even if it existed only in my sometimes paranoid and almost always overly anxious mind, transformed me into a better, stronger person.
Those years under Administration Orange were terrible and disorienting. This time promises to be even worse. I won’t lie. I told you I do not sugarcoat anything.
But I’m going to try to channel those feelings that got me through this the last time, and see how much worse I am for wear.
These times have the potential to transform us all. We are ever evolving. Try to evolve for the better.
The Talmud says:
Do not be daunted
by the enormity
of the world's grief.
Do justly, now.
Love mercy, now.
Walk humbly now,
You are not obligated
to complete the work,
but neither are you free
to abandon it.
My dear old friend, good to see you writing again. I did not vote for The Orange Jesus, but all of my living lower working class relatives did. The ones still alive and not dead of the diseases of poverty and overdose (as Clyde died). I spent a lot of time thinking about what was to come, as I knew The Orange Jesus would win. The Democratic party should take a good long look at itself and not blame the 52% of the American people who they are silo-ed from. This is a class divide, not an issue of race or gender or the idiocy of the American people or abortion or even immigration. It's a finger pointed at the American ruling class, it's coalition and it's institutions who openly express contempt for my "deplorable" relatives and the erosion of their jobs, families and communities. Flag, faith and family. These elements never expire no matter how many trans flags fly from the houses of the affluent here in Seattle. We can talk about the issues on a policy level I am sure from left and right vantages. I am worried about Ukraine, where I lived and worked and The Orange Jesus abandoning the struggle for freedom there. Not so much about Iran, as they, the sponsors of death and instability will get what the woman hating theocrats deserve at the hands of OUR proxies finally - and I hope a minimal amount of civilian death. Hopefully. “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed...” (Mark 13:7) Take good care. Perhaps we can speak on the phone soon. Love, Terry Lee
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