I have been holed up in my office for the past week wrapping up the final novel of the Caitlin Ferguson series, with only tiny breaks to swim and work outside in the heat of the day to give the old brain a rest!
I also delivered the knitted scarves to all the beautiful folks who I briefly worked with early in the summer. I am grateful for them and all of the work they do. Thank you again City of Louisville’s Finance group for being such hard working people!
All the while life is still limping along outside of my quiet bubble and I hate to turn on the news. So I turn to my reading once again to learn about why the horrific things the government and people do and have been doing these things for over 80 years. I recently started reading an incredible book by Robert Reich called Coming Up Short.
Reich is an American professor, author, lawyer, and political commentator. He worked in the administrations of presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, and he served as Secretary of Labor in the cabinet of President Bill Clinton. He was also a member of President Barack Obama’s economic transition advisory board. Time magazine named him one of the Ten Best Cabinet Members of the century; in the same year, The Wall Street Journal placed him sixth on its list of Most Influential Business Thinkers. He is board chair emeritus of the watchdog group Common Sense and blogs at Robertreich.org.—Wikipedia
There have been so many moments in history that should have affected change. Currently, with the atmosphere of “we don’t want to hear about it anymore” these moments are long lost. These moments become hard to digest for us sensitive types, but it needs to be said because it has been happening for over 80 years! Here are a few solid and horrible things that are happening. I feel they are important to mention here based on what he had to say:
Rise of Fascism
Rise of the Rich Getting Richer
Blaming the Poor
Blaming those who are not White
Rise of the white supremacists attempting to re-create their version of the “Master Race”
Making the BIPOC citizens, immigrants, the poor into the bogeyman and the enemy
Reich also thought that the majority of people accepted this more and more after decades is that the working class who started making money, becoming the middle class, felt ignored since the sixties. Our generation wanted more for the disadvantaged people and tried to make a difference. But those that felt hurt that we ignored them, started voting for those that they believed would support them. In reality, they didn’t care about them and ultimately the working class got poorer as the richest men got richer.
But there are a few good signs that maybe we can turn the corner. The struggle to prevent bullies attacking and exploiting the weak is happening. Maybe we can get back to a civil society where we stop the brutality and exploitation. Good people are filing lawsuits to stop abuses. Reich states the he has “…come to believe that there is no moral equivalence between bullies and the bullied, between tyranny and democracy, between brutality and decency. No individual can be free in a society devoid of justice. There can be no liberty where brutality reigns. The struggle for social justice is the most basic struggle of all because it defines how far a civilization has developed.” [Reich, Robert B.. Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America (p. 67). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.]
Finally, here are the questions posed by Edward Abbey in the 1960s that are still valid today that we need to ponder:
“Suppose we were planning to impose a dictatorial regime upon the American people—the following preparations would be essential:
1. Concentrate the populace in megalopolitan masses so that they can be kept under close surveillance and where, in case of trouble, they can be bombed, burned, gassed or machine-gunned with a minimum of expense and waste.
2. Mechanize agriculture to the highest degree of refinement, thus forcing most of the scattered farm and ranching population into the cities. Such a policy is desirable because farmers, woodsmen, cowboys, Indians, fishermen and other relatively self-sufficient types are difficult to manage unless displaced from their natural environment.
3. Restrict the possession of firearms to the police and the regular military organizations
4. Encourage or at least fail to discourage population growth. Large masses of people are more easily manipulated and dominated than scattered individuals.
5. Continue military conscription. Nothing excels military training for creating in young men an attitude of prompt, cheerful obedience to officially constituted authority.
6. Divert attention from deep conflicts within the society by engaging in foreign wars; make support of these wars a test of loyalty, thereby exposing and isolating potential opposition to the new order.
7. Overlay the nation with a finely reticulated network of communications, airlines and interstate autobahns.
8. Raze the wilderness. Dam the rivers, flood the canyons, drain the swamps, log the forests, strip-mine the hills, bulldoze the mountains, irrigate the deserts and improve the national parks into national parking lots. Idle speculations, feeble and hopeless protest. It was all foreseen nearly half a century ago by the most cold-eyed and clear-eyed of our national poets, on California’s shore, at the end of the open road. ‘Shine, perishing republic.’”—Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire published in 1968
And here is a poem that has relevance to this conversation:
“While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening to empire
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence; and home to the mother.
You making haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed than mountains: shine, perishing republic.
But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster’s feet there are left the mountains.
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant, insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught—they say God, when he walked on earth.”— Robinson Jeffers, Shine, Perishing Republic, 1925
I strive with all my heart to see signs of change. I talk to young people and see that they are reading and asking questions. I see my generation going to town hall meetings, standing up and booing those people who were supposed to represent them when they continue to tow the ridiculous non-factual party line. I see them starting to speak up. My hope is that all ages see the faults in whom they have voted for in the past and realize we can all come together to have a better society if we keep up the good fight. This past year made us realize that by giving up, we put a bully in office. Now is the time to speak up. We can’t give up, or lie down and take it. Keep pushing, keep asking good questions. Keep reading and writing.
So I am asking everyone out there with a conscience:
Don’t give up! Take a minute and sit down and write!
Tell your story to your children and family. Make the impossible possible.
Let’s return to Truth, Trust, Civility, and Compassion.
Put Robert Reich’s book Coming Up Short on your reading immediate list and keep exploring how we truly can accept each other, protect each other, and stop hating those that don’t deserve our hate. We are all fallible and we need to learn to be brave.
I love you all and hope you will continue to read, observe, ask good questions and speak out!
Dru Tieben's Writing Corner 