"All of this will be cold comfort to the women whose lives are destroyed by a lack of access to abortion care, and the trans people who are beaten in the streets by Fox News-encouraged mobs, and the kids who are shot in schools by the same sort of AR-15 that their Congressman posed with in a family Christmas card photo. This is not the consolation of a fairy tale, where the bad people are vanquished as soon as they step over the line. It’s more like the meager consolation that Boethius probably felt as they were dragging him off to die: The knowledge that the wheel would turn, even if he wouldn’t be around to see it. “It is because you don't know the end and purpose of things,” he wrote, “that you think the wicked and the criminal have power and happiness.”
This is life sadly. Beautifully said as always. And why we can't give up, even as our eyes bulge out.
You know, I often reflect on how great it is that, as a woman especially, I was born in the time and the place that I was...things could have been SO much worse for me, and they weren’t. TWO thin sheets on a cold night!
Yep...even as a pessimist (generally), there is cause for optimism I think....
Progressives are easily frustrated because we tend to see the writing on the wall LONG before our less enlightened brothers ad sisters do...So EVERY change takes FAR too long by our estimation...Being a cultural bellwether gives one a clearer view bit it is SO frustrating trying to get everyone ELSE on board...The level of apathy in the gen pop can be BREATHTAKING at times
Not relevant to this post as I haven’t fully read it, yet; I just wanted to mention that Defector guided me here and I hope I have allowed you to buy a crust of bread.
Darn. I had interest in following this author until I reached the footer that cries about “...them throttled by the world’s richest baby, who fears the power of my words...”
I got to this post through my Twitter network. It’s the author’s incorrect biases that turned me away from the information he may wish to present in the future.
I agree with your analysis, although I fear you may be just a tad too optimistic. While it’s true that no more than a relatively small minority of Americans support the descent into theocratic barbarism espoused by the current iteration of the Republican Party, the democratic mechanisms for remedying that situation - which were never as strong as we’d been led to believe - have been so eviscerated and subverted that I see no realistic route to re-establishing a post-Enlightenment culture in this country. If we persist in inflicting our retrograde values on the rest of the world, it’s possible that a coalition of nations may forcibly restore us to civilization - as was the case with Germany in the 1940s - but it’s hard to see how we extricate ourselves from this nightmare by electoral means.
Isn't America "the greatest nation in the world?".. Yet no one agrees on anything... The streets are full of homeless people and yet the political class is throwing words at each other... with communication avenues like 'public square' twitter owned by "the world's richest baby" as you point out... So much for greatness when no one can agree on anything and everyone is very quick to use the law to make it favorable for themselves, their social class and their racial kind...
"All of this will be cold comfort to the women whose lives are destroyed by a lack of access to abortion care, and the trans people who are beaten in the streets by Fox News-encouraged mobs, and the kids who are shot in schools by the same sort of AR-15 that their Congressman posed with in a family Christmas card photo. This is not the consolation of a fairy tale, where the bad people are vanquished as soon as they step over the line. It’s more like the meager consolation that Boethius probably felt as they were dragging him off to die: The knowledge that the wheel would turn, even if he wouldn’t be around to see it. “It is because you don't know the end and purpose of things,” he wrote, “that you think the wicked and the criminal have power and happiness.”
This is life sadly. Beautifully said as always. And why we can't give up, even as our eyes bulge out.
Oh man, this was so good!
You know, I often reflect on how great it is that, as a woman especially, I was born in the time and the place that I was...things could have been SO much worse for me, and they weren’t. TWO thin sheets on a cold night!
Only just discovered you, read four pieces now. Really really great work man
Beautiful writing as always. Yea hopefully there is a breaking point. Hope this also leads to more progressives in the democratic party too.
Welcome to Substack, Hamilton! Was a fan of your work over at In These Times,
Does the custom URL actually allow for link previews on Twitter?
Yep...even as a pessimist (generally), there is cause for optimism I think....
Progressives are easily frustrated because we tend to see the writing on the wall LONG before our less enlightened brothers ad sisters do...So EVERY change takes FAR too long by our estimation...Being a cultural bellwether gives one a clearer view bit it is SO frustrating trying to get everyone ELSE on board...The level of apathy in the gen pop can be BREATHTAKING at times
Not relevant to this post as I haven’t fully read it, yet; I just wanted to mention that Defector guided me here and I hope I have allowed you to buy a crust of bread.
Darn. I had interest in following this author until I reached the footer that cries about “...them throttled by the world’s richest baby, who fears the power of my words...”
I got to this post through my Twitter network. It’s the author’s incorrect biases that turned me away from the information he may wish to present in the future.
Sincerely,
Dave
I agree with your analysis, although I fear you may be just a tad too optimistic. While it’s true that no more than a relatively small minority of Americans support the descent into theocratic barbarism espoused by the current iteration of the Republican Party, the democratic mechanisms for remedying that situation - which were never as strong as we’d been led to believe - have been so eviscerated and subverted that I see no realistic route to re-establishing a post-Enlightenment culture in this country. If we persist in inflicting our retrograde values on the rest of the world, it’s possible that a coalition of nations may forcibly restore us to civilization - as was the case with Germany in the 1940s - but it’s hard to see how we extricate ourselves from this nightmare by electoral means.
Isn't America "the greatest nation in the world?".. Yet no one agrees on anything... The streets are full of homeless people and yet the political class is throwing words at each other... with communication avenues like 'public square' twitter owned by "the world's richest baby" as you point out... So much for greatness when no one can agree on anything and everyone is very quick to use the law to make it favorable for themselves, their social class and their racial kind...
“A.D.”