into transition

 the thing with "defund the police" is that

it is a good rallying cry and practical place

to begin debate if people of good will and a

desire to understand rather than people

looking to fight and hate as their general

attitude were what we had to work with

 

 

 

 

when did public safety measures

become a rallying cry against responsibility

and when did lack of responsibility

become our definition of freedom?

 

 

 

vote and otherwise get involved

in local politics, school boards, learn who has

that power and who you can work with,

find others doing this work and see

how you can help, listen and be heard

 

 

 

 

crises are times of opportunity

 -- you "free market" proponents,

why are you not out making financial hay

from all the products, services, entertainments,

etc. now made necessary or desirable by our

current remarkable situation?

people who assure us of the benefits of

capitalism and seem to be too lazy or

stupid to take advantage of all the

new economic opportunities offered

by having a new kind of situation

in which much of our old ways of doing things

are hampered, but rather just loudly and

longly complain about "the economy"

 

 

 

 

politicians, or rather elected officeholders

are meant to work for us to help provide

the structures within which we can more

easily live our lives within a diverse society

we seem, though, to be too lazy to

act as responsible employers

 

 

 

 

And yet what didn't kill Nietzsche

destroyed him.

 

 

 

 

Good ought not be judged

on lack of perfection.

At our best, we are so complex.

A good person may be guided

by their tendency toward kindness,

compassion, down to Earth practicality,

positive energy, meditation and reason

 

 

 

Why are we always expecting,

demanding, railing against

the Government to save us,

to channel our distrust?

We need our sacrificial goat,

our national projection

to vilify, to worship, to focus

on as distraction from unbearable

pain, from what no one can control.

No one redeems us.

No one defines us, our extremes

of evil, of irony.

Who is this "we" put forth as

plurality, as mob mentality

or wisdom of the crowd?

I remember, tinged, tinted by

personal dramas, life-draining

traumas, backdrop popular songs

and memes.

What there is and how it seems,

all our grievances and dreams.

 

 

 

As a long-time lover of jazz

(the music that most speaks to me),

many of the people I most

appreciate and admire are Black --

but that is not the way my mind

categorizes them.

They are part of a much more important

human subgroup (the one I aspire to

be part of) -- Artists.

(for me at least) art transcends politics

and mundane life (even while

elevating them).

 

 

 

It's not some amorphous, untouchable

power over which we have no sway.

As Pogo said:  "We have met the enemy,

and he is us."

 

 

 

It's not about gratitude, but

appreciation -- seeing and honoring

the value in the gift and giver.

 

 

 

11/17-12/3/20