Tag: protests

Right, Right

I’m starting out crabby this morning. I haven’t had my coffee.

I just read an article about California’s right-to-die law. Before that, I read about fake news, sometimes called alt-news, and its spread after the Vegas murders of fifty-nine people at a concert. Before it, I read about the surge in gun sales and the rise in gun-manufacturers’ stock prices. Sales and stock prices go up because people fear that gun controls will be implemented.

The echoes of past debates about all this gains volume as new arguments. America enjoys the satisfaction of having the right to own guns. Americans have enough private weapons to provide eighty-eight of one hundred people with a weapon. But we know it’s not all of us who want to be able to shoot and kill other creatures.

That’s what’s interesting about the juxtaposition of these three stories. People, even with terminal conditions and in terrible pain, are often not afforded the right to kill themselves. It’s not their right. Our government owns that right. In a few places, it’s delegated to bureaucratic processes, but it’s mostly considered a no-no. Your life is too valuable for you to have that control. We’re going to make you hang on until your last breath.

But then, we have the weapons that can fire ten rounds a second, as the killer did in Vegas, or twenty-four rounds in ten seconds, as the Orlando killer did. And that’s your right to own. You don’t have the right to kill, unless you feel threatened, and your state has a defend-your-ground law. The interpretation of that has law has gotten broad. Police officers also have broad latitude, killing others if they feel threatened for themselves or the public. Wounding is less often an option. So here, the right to kill is widely distributed, for a variety of reasons. These reasons seem to trump the sanctity of life.

The last story was about freedom of the press, and the difficulty of coping with the spread of lies, known as false news, fake news, or alternate news, instead of being called bullshit, and lies, as it should be, because, well, rights. People fear that if we start calling bullshit on these things, then bullshit will occur. And as we dither about what to do, what to do, bullshit happens. With that bullshit, we struggle against tides of fears, change, doubt. Then the echoes of debate fade, until the next time.

Enough of this. I’m going to get my coffee and go read about the people complaining about athletes exercising their to protest during the propaganda portion of our sports events called playing the national anthem.

That’s not why wars were fought and soldiers gave their lives, you know. How dare people be so disrespect of their lives?

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Protest Dream

I dreamed I was with my wife and sister-in-law. We’d arrived at a huge meeting center and were there to protest against government actions and for social justice, freedom and equality. The opposition to these ideals, who believed that others shouldn’t get them because others getting these rights were ruining our country, were also showing up. Armed, they were intent on intimidating “our side.”

But we weren’t intimidated. We assembled to protest. When government leaders appeared, we raised our right hand and formed the letter “C.” We held it up over our heads in silence.

It was amazing for me, in the dream, back in the crowd, to look forward, down, across and back, and see tens of thousands of people standing silently in sunlight with their right hand raised in a “C.”

Why that letter and action? The dream didn’t explain that. We all just knew, that’s what we were to do.

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Today’s Theme Music

This song was written in nineteen sixty-six, and released in nineteen sixty-seven. The lyrics, though, speak to our times now as much as they did to the era which produced them.

There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

There’s battle lines being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

It’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side

It’s s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away

h/t to MetroLyrics

What’s interesting about that song is that Stephen Stills wrote it about a curfew on Sunset Strip. While they speak to the mood in America in the nineteen sixties and the twenty-first century, they speak to the life and times in the U.S.S.R, Nazi Germany, and other places ruled by fear, paranoia and oppression. People seek rights and freedoms; others squash them to preserve their status and wealth. It’s a cycle as old as humanity, except, instead of a man with a gun, there was a man with a rock, spear, bow and arrow, or other weapon.

Let’s listen to Buffalo Springfield and “For What It’s Worth.”

 

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Longings

I hate myself on days like this.

I confess, I have longings.

Some are very simple and basic. Many will claim them as impractical and idealistic, even absurd.

Like, I have longings to be young again, and to have a nice cup of coffee with a pastry or donuts without worries about its healthiness or origins, longings to walk around, preferably on a warm, pleasant beach, smiling and nodding in friendliness to other people, who simply nod and smile back in friendliness.

I have longings for success, comfort, happiness, fun, and security in all its forms.

I have longings for freedom, equality, liberty and justice.

I’ll bet those longings are shared with many others.

I bet many people on the right and left share these longings.

I bet many politicians and CEOs share these longings, along with teachers, minorities, refugees, shoppers, consumers, teenagers, the elderly, the rich and the poor.

The nut is in the details of how we get satisfy these longings.

When the United States was founded, it was another step as part of a long walk to satisfy these longings, and the founders walked on the backs of many others. We’re shocked, angry and dismayed by their declaration that all men are created equal even while they were stealing land others already lived upon, deciding women are less deserving, and so are people who were slaves, because slaves were slaves; they were property. That was a compromise. A good one? Hell, no, I hear some shout. We’re still arguing it. It was a different era, with different values, views and principles.

I have sisters and friends who wish the protests going on in the U.S. to be over because, well, the elections are over, and isn’t that what this is all about? They have longings for a happier, more relaxed life.

But the protests and elections are part of a process. Both are symptoms of desires and larger arguments about what is right and wrong, and whether freedom, liberty and equality is even possible for everyone. Aren’t we humans simply animals at the heart of the matter, and shouldn’t it be that the strongest shall rule and take what is theirs by right of strength and power, whether it’s physical or intellectual prowess, military force, or the power of our gods?

These are arguments about longings and principles, perceptions, hopes, dreams, emotions and frustrations, resentments, hostilities and dreams that go back to separations derived from where we live, what we speak, our differences and similarities, all the way back to the most basic and fundamental questions of why we’re here, how we came to be here, and what we want to become.

I hate myself on days like this because I have longings. I want to go write. I want to enjoy my comfortable routine of writing fiction, dreaming of breaking out, working toward the horizon that I’ve created for myself to keep myself going while staving off bitterness, weariness and depression.

Some will read this and remark to their screens to me through their screen, you are a self-indulgent idiot.

I can’t argue that I’m not. I know too well the limits of my talents, intelligence and abilities. I tell myself that if I try harder and persist, promising myself, “I can do better,” and that, if I do, I can overcome my shortcomings.

Which is what these longings are all about, really. You understand.

And I hate myself on days like this, because others have longings, and I think of myself as one person but part of a larger body trying to make a difference. So I set aside my personal longings to take up the longings of others, those longings that were there long before I was born as an American, and march for what we believe is right against an agenda that we believe is wrong.

History will not judge us. History is written by the winners. It’ll be the winners who judge us. If we lose, we’ll probably be forgotten. Hell, if we win, we’ll probably be forgotten as well.

That’s the nature of being part of a larger longing.

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Resistance Bread

A fascinating part of the net for me is the opportunity it provides to meet people who I would otherwise never encounter. Many of these are fellow writers, intelligent and personable people who enjoy reading and writing. One of these is Barbara Froman.

Barb is the author of Shadows and Ghosts. She has come up with a recipe that she calls ‘Resistance Bread’. She posted it on Facebook. I liked it (because it sounds delicious for  cold day) and decided I’d share it here, so here is Barb’s FB post and recipe.

#Resistance Bread

I created this tea bread so that it would be food for strength and comfort—loaded with antioxidants, yet sufficiently sweet. Indeed, my husband says he can’t think of this as bread, as it seems more like dessert to him. I, on the other other hand, eat it for breakfast. The recipe is open to improvisation. If you try it, and experiment with your own additions/changes, please share!

Preheat oven to 350º

Liberally grease an 8″ x 4″ bread pan with cultured butter.

Mix:

1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons grapeseed oil or melted cultured butter
2 beaten eggs
1 grated apple
1/3-1/2 cup orange juice (pulp or no pulp, it doesn’t make a difference, just start with the smaller amount and add more if necessary)
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup dried cranberries or cherries (I mix the two when I have both on hand)
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts.

To this mixture add:

1 cup minus two tablespoons any 1-to-1 gluten free flour mix
2 tablespoons coconut flour
(optional) 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons baking powder

Blend well into liquid mixture. The batter should have substance, but not be stiff.

Pour into prepared pan and bake for @50 minutes. Test with toothpick to see if it’s done. Cool in pan on rack, then slice when still slightly warm and slather with chevre or your favorite nut butter.

Ready to #Resist?

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