Sister Marches

Portal de Playa del Carmen

            The day after Donald Trump took his oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" to the best of his ability, I found myself in the company of roughly 100 others, marching up Avenida Quinta from the Portal in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. We ranged in age from around 10 to around 80, mostly women, but also some men, mostly from the United States but some Canadians and a few Mexicans, as well. One guy was an Italian who lived in NYC; one woman remembered being in China at the time of Tiananmen Square and wearing a mourning band on her arm throughout her visit there.

            This Sister March in Playa del Carmen was an impulse by a young American woman temporarily working in Playa and living there with her family. She and her Mexican-born husband wanted to give their kids an opportunity to live abroad in their father's country before high school and the complexities involved in teen-age life kicked in. She found and contacted the Sister March website, and in short order, listed the march for the rest of us to find.

            We joined the gathering for different reasons, but all shared the organizer's stated purpose: "Our intent [she wrote] is to gather together and enjoy the company of one another as we stroll and contemplate either in silence or in constructive dialogue the challenges we all face as part of the human rights advocacy community." It wasn't an anti-Trump march as such, but it did protest and resist certain of the new administration's avowed goals.

            On 21 January,  which now seems so long ago though it's been less than two weeks, there were already concerns that the new administration might try to roll back rights that many of us feel are fundamental to our values as Americans, such as an unfettered right to vote, along with rights considered under international law as fundamental. We might be forgiven this concern, since it was based on statements made during the campaign by the now president.

Sister March bracelets: Playa del Carmen

            The executive actions taken since the inauguration have not poured calming oils on waters stirred to the boiling point by the campaign--it might rather be said that flows of burning oil have been spilled across as much of the American landscape as could be managed in a short period.

            The response of thousands of citizens who have put aside their differences to resist these actions is laudable and hopeful. While allegations continue from die-hard supporters of the new administration that the Women's and Sister Marches are just "whining" because our candidate didn't win,  there are signs that some who originally believed in the president are reconsidering their faith.

 

            The film of the throngs at the Women’s' March, at the Right to Life March (a march is a march, and there were women who participated in both of these events), at airports and wherever they've gathered in the public square are impressive in their celebration of and commitment to their beliefs.  It is critically important both that they stay that way and that they continue.

            We need to resist at every turn the illegitimate efforts of those in the new administration who would shape national interest to personal interest regardless of  the consequences.

             But we need to have a care, as well.  There's a well-worn and rather heavy handed tactic much favored by repressive authority: goading peaceful demonstration into open conflict. This is usually managed by embedding provocateurs into crowds to manufacture violence. It can result in painful injuries--the thugs hired or encouraged to do this aren't selected for their discursive persuasion, but for their inclination to create mayhem.  They may also enjoy administering pain. To counteract it, one cannot fight back, and others in the crowd must witness and gather evidence. If possible, as many bodies as are available can "swarm" the aggressor without inflicting blows to prevent further harm being visited on the target. Disarming an attacker works, too, if it can be done without getting drawn into a brawl. It's critically important not to be tempted into further violence.

Los Angeles Sister March

            Not easy, but the up side of this kind of disruption is that it is heavy-handed, and if demonstrators don't rise to the bait, it can easily be shown for what it is: provocation (whether spontaneous or paid/incited).

            I'm not saying anyone is planning such attempts. I suggest only that we march on--with eyes peeled, cameras ready and great care, even as we engage in constructive dialogue and pay close attention one to another.

Lantern on the Stern

My ideal for a work site

            I am so pleased to report that the never-ending novel has resumed its endless course. My stranded protagonist has progressed from a street corner near the Giralda Tower in Seville (see post of 1 July 2016) to the midst of the Atlantic Ocean. He, in a group that includes both a family member and childhood friends, is enjoying a thus far uneventful sail in one of the two last ships in the Nicolás de Ovando expedition to Española in 1502. (Well, not entirely uneventful, since the records show that there were three stragglers, and one was lost off the Canaries. But my characters may not know about that, as vessels on the Atlantic crossing often lost sight of each other in the course of the 7 to 8 week journey.)

            I think he's going to get through some seven years in a couple of chapters during the next couple of weeks! If I don't get bogged down again researching facts that I probably don't need to worry about and  just stick to the bloody story. But tales seem to have their own ideas of where they want to go--or maybe mining them just opens previously undiscovered veins in the imagination's tunnels.

            Going back over the previous chapters, I was struck by a whole section where the protagonist goes off on a tangent on his way home from the occupation of Granada. I certainly didn't intend for the Jewish expulsion from Spain to take up a chapter or two; the idea was to note the historic event as a backdrop to the protagonist catching a wagon to the coast so he could find a ship home. But the realities of the expulsion had a logic of their own, so there wouldn't have been space on a ship available going to an Atlantic port from the Mediterranean, and my guy isn't likely to just sit around taverns waiting until those under the expulsion order are all carried away and the ships returned

            A caveat here: it's entirely possible that these scenes may disappear if I ever finish and get to rework and polish this tome, but at the time, they insisted on being written so for the moment, they're part of the story.

            Rereading them as we embark on a new year, is a return to the start of the year just ended because the context of when they were written is inescapable. It was early 2016 and the European refugee crisis was at its publicized height. As spring gave way to summer, a huge sign hung on a downtown building in Madrid welcoming refugees, even as Hungary and other eastern European nations were closing borders. Britain was debating Brexit, in part because of whipped up emotions about foreigners (dangerous terrorists, taking jobs from Brits, destroying culture... the charges are familiar because they were repeated in the U.S.  Presidential campaign).

In Parque del Buen Retiro

            In Madrid during June, in the Parque del Buen Retiro, there was a powerful exhibition of photographs depicting the plight of Syrian refugees mounted in the open air along a walkway. Few seemed to take notice of it. Another photo exhibit hung in Madrid's Matadero complex--a  slaughterhouse repurposed into a cultural center--starkly illustrated the dangers of the Mediterranean raft people trying to get to Greek or Turkish territory. The numbers represented by mountains of orange life vests stacked on the beaches where boats came ashore are staggering.

            Back home last August, at a performance of Fiddler on the Roof, I watched while the audience empathized with displaced early 20th century Russian Jews as they trudged their weary way into exile at the end of the play.  I wondered how many saw the reflection of today's Syrians, Iraqis, Sudanese and Somalis--sadly, not an exhaustive list--in those bowed figures. Since then, the presidential election and the apparent resurrection of the right, with the concurrent trends of isolationism and nationalism, have pushed the refugees, as such, from the headlines.

            But they still exist. They still try to survive and find a safe place to settle, to go about the ordinary business of living a life. As did the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492, and the Muslims, expelled from Spain in 1502. Today, people flee from war, and sometimes from tyranny, and sometimes from fear. They aren't expelled, not from their homes, not from their homelands, native or adopted. Are they?

            Samuel Taylor Coleridge once observed: " "If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind." Spain suffered from its expulsions, though it took time for the full impact to take hold. Lands that welcomed the expelled benefited from their knowledge and experience. It's a sobering lesson. I hope we might have learned from it. I hope we will hang the lantern forward, where it can illuminates the channel markers and shoals ahead.

On Drainage

            The water began to spread up from the sump well in my laundry room. It overflowed quietly, serenely, inexorably. I tried to shovel it up with a snow shovel (surprisingly effective, by the way, if the flooding is finite) into buckets I carried up to throw into the raging storm beating against the Maine coast.

            Then I discovered water seeping through the walls in the library. This was not a simple overtaxing of my drains at the height of a storm. These waters would not recede.

Rising waters reflect ceiling light

            At one point, after all the books and papers stored on low shelves had been piled a foot above the floor on whatever there was they could be stacked on, after any critical  power strips had been raised to a safe height, after boxes had been removed from the basement entirely... at that point, I stood on the cellar steps, staring at the reflection of a ceiling light in the still clarity of an inch of water and I thought: "What have I done to bring this on? Why is this happening to me?" I railed at whatever powers that there may be: "I try to be a good person! I try to respect the earth and her waters! I don't deserve this!"

            And there we have it, children. I succumbed to that oh so human impulse to turn what was happening into a story about me. There  I stood on my cellar steps in the center of the universe, with all creation swirling around me, and I raged at fortune's cruelty to me.

            Now, as it happens, I did, in fact, have a part to play in this tale.

            Some years before, the drainage system had been fully explained to me; I knew where the overflow pipe drained. I also knew, in a vague sort of way, that roots could get into it. And as the years passed, I blithely forgot about the overflow pipe. Its outlet was buried unnoticed, and a young willow nearby grew to a grand height, its roots fed even in drought with the help of my drainage pipes.

Willow roots pulled from drain pipe

            None of which means there was some cosmic or divine gathering of energy in response to some action or inaction on behalf of or to the detriment of humankind or, more generally, the planet. Shit happens, especially when you're not paying attention.

            The damaged drain pipes are being dug up and replaced. This all happened as 2016 turned into 2017--a purely arbitrary division of time established for practical and ritual reasons almost 500 years ago for most of the Western world with adoption of the Gregorian calendar. It fell close on the winter solstice, which is governed by the movements of the earth and the sun, and existed long before humankind began to stalk across the planet.

            There are ever so many stories I can make up using these elements and more.  But it would be unwise in the extreme to forget that the facts are straightforward and not open to debate or interpretation.

            It seems to me that this basic rule is often ignored, and doing so is profoundly dangerous. Here are some facts, for instance, about the election: Hillary Clinton won 2.8 million plus votes more than did Donald Trump; if you add the votes cast for other presidential candidates, some 10.6 million more votes than Trump's roughly 63 million were cast for someone other than him. There is NO evidence that the vote tallies were fraudulent or that there was voter fraud.

            The president-elect has said that he has a mandate and is acting as if he has a mandate. He does not. Moreover, even those who voted for him do not necessarily agree with his policies (or what we know about them).

            So we need to pay attention. Trump voters need to hold him to account for his promises and let him know when he undertakes to act contrary to their interests, as in trying to roll back measures to slow climate change. Or, significantly, when he tries to further pit Americans against one another rather than encouraging unity. Trump opponents need to organize and focus in order to turn opposition into votes in 2018.

            As to this drainage project the president-elect has offered of the D.C. swamp? Just keep in mind that if we don't pay attention, there are thirsty roots liable to get into that drainage and not only stop the outflow, they might even flood the foundations!

           

           

           

           

           

Shattering Our Trust in the World

Much analysis has been written about the U.S. presidential election: those who were unwilling to look at the portents have expressed their shock; fingers have pointed; victors have quickly gone from slightly astonished to smugly confident and obnoxiously righteous, even vindictive.

You may have noticed I haven't done any analysis, or, indeed, said much of anything beyond an poetic almost-dirge published not long after. 

by cjneasbi at "Deviant Art"

The results weren't unthinkable. They were completely thinkable. I take no comfort in knowing that. Not long ago, I recalled Senator Margaret Chase Smith's horsemen of calumny. Alas, her faith in the American people has been shattered, and the horsemen now are abroad, but it must be said: their horrific grandeur is somehow diminished to shabby pettiness by galloping to the regimented beat of 140 characters max!  

Hannah Arendt wrote in Eichmann in Jerusalem: The Banality of Evil (1963) of the concept of evil as manifest in the banal. Her portrayal of Eichmann didn't reveal a malicious or particularly anti-semitic character, but rather a person intent on advancing his career by performing the orders he was given as effectively as possible; he did his job, without questioning whether the job should be done. Arendt's analysis wasn't without controversy, but it raised a disturbing spectre that hovers in the background during this period of transition to a new presidential administration.

Colin Marshall, writing in 2013 in The New Yorker on a biopic about Arendt, refers to a later article by Rollo Romig. He looked at the nature of evil in the wake of the Aurora CO shootings. Rollo wrote: "The danger of a word like ‘evil’ is that it is absolute.... ‘Evil’ has become the word we apply to perpetrators who we’re both unable and unwilling to do anything to repair, and for whom all of our mechanisms of justice seem unequal: it describes the limits of what malevolence we’re able to bear. In the end, it’s a word that says more about the helplessness of the accuser than it does the transgressor.”

In the current political realm, it seems to me that these two views don't differ; rather, they combine. I don't think our new president-elect is a grand villain; I think he's entirely amoral. We are told by clusters of tweets that "winning" (as defined by the president-elect) is all that matters; he's made clear that he speaks in hyperbole, that factual truth is of no importance to him in public discourse. From this, I draw the conclusion that expediency trumps legality and morality in the interest of the "win." (No pun intended--but doesn't his name and its usage strike you as part of the surreal nature of this entire situation?)

Trump differs from Eichmann in that the orders are his to give, but the narrowness of his imagination and limits of his vision of success translate into a consummate banality. Our government is being stage-managed as an unscripted entertainment show (commonly called reality TV, but there's so little reality to it that the use of the term is straight out of Orwell's 1984). Yet  his very lack of awareness, his brazen ignorance, his complete indifference to anything beyond himself, take us to the place where we're unable, and half the country isn't even interested in, calling him out and holding him accountable.

This is what breaks my heart: not that half the country was fearful and angry and handed this man the key to the most powerful office in the world (though we must grieve at the magnitude of this failure), but that those same people seem willing to let him do as he likes, contrary to his promises, contrary to the general public interest, and contrary to the rule of law. The dignity of the office, its power to seek the common good, seem of no account to half our people, nor do the principles of dissent, or the value of diversity and open exchange of ideas. We stand in the rubble of the shining city, wondering at the cracks that threaten its very foundations.

Susan Neiman's Evil in Modern Thought (Princeton University Press: 2002) is also referenced in Romig's piece. She writes that calling something evil "is a way of marking the fact that it shatters our trust in the world." Romig expands on this, observing "Evil is both harmful and inexplicable, but not just that; what defines an evil act is that it is permanently disorienting for all those touched by it." If evil is, in the modern world, essentially identified by its effect, then this election has indeed unleashed evil upon us, 140 characters at a time....

U.S. Presidential, 2016 (a poem)

[I've waited and listened and thought and tried to process the events of the last week and a half.  In the wake of the flap over  the "Hamilton" cast petition to Mike Pence, I'm allowing myself now to spend a moment just feeling, and this is what it feels like. I hope I'm over-reacting, because as I read through this, it sounds way too much like a dirge. ]

I.  8 November 2016

Just-past-dawn-light, bright shine on a bluer than blue Sound;

beyond, the orange-tinted islands, Atlantic bluer still,

deep water blue, stretching all the way to the Bay of Biscay...

Election Day, 2016: on the road to the tall white steepled church

where voters will name themselves,  deposit decisions.

The cinnamon, amber, carrot, pumpkin, ginger trees

shout their last vibrant burst into the crisp morning.

I recall a man tossing rainbow bubbles on the Eastern Prom

two days ago, one after another; he manipulated wands

to release them into the air, fragile, light, multi-colored,

suspended, sliding on barely sensed currents,

falling slowly, slowly, slowly to burst and shatter,

suddenly innumerable, unrecoverable shards of light.

Their breaking was breath-taking, like water droplets

momentarily revealed before forever disappearing,

like words printed on a burning page,

dissolving into ash.

                                   

 II.  9 November 2016

                                                             

The Sound's surface ripples under a gray wind

that sweeps the last of the leaves away; skeletal black branches

shudder as it passes, carrying truths on its stream,

their broken dregs draining, dispersing, on erratic air,

pages out of a forgotten book too long unread,

while flickering screens chatter unintelligible noises

to we, the People, fragmented bright butterflies of souls,

who drift on unseen currents so confidently,

so righteous, whilst unknowing we fall, slowly, slowly, slowly

until the People bursts apart

into silenced silence, into splintered atoms,

the more perfect union desecrated

as its covenant crumbles.

S.V. Lowery

19 Nov 2016

Election Eve, 2016

It's the night before the United States' presidential election.

Homeland Security

We stand on the razor's edge, balanced on a blade

That, should we slip, will slice us sharply apart

Though how the pieces may separate cannot be known

Without defining the exact trajectory of the fall,

Where the cut will split the body apart.

 A shade stalks the homeland,

Dims the mid-day light (no longer morning;

Morning was lost to wars, its innocence drowned

By bloodied bullets in rice paddies and motorcades,

Airplanes repurposed as torpedoes).

This land is neither father nor mother; it stands

As both, as home, a geography held safe for growth,

Rolling green and golden, rising, rivered and riven,

Shaping our gods and our prayers, never seamlessly,

But ever with hope and dream and faith. As was.

Today we stand on the razor's edge, surrounded by mud:

We can in lost balance fall into the mire, lose ourselves,

Overcome... or we can reach down--steady, steady--

And grasp it, find the rich clay within and mold it,

Bring artful form from oozing muck.

Balanced on the edge of a sword,

inside a moment of choice:

To cringe inside the shadow of winter night?

To stride out into summer's early afternoon light?

To fear? Or to persevere?

S.V. Lowery

7 November 2016

Dark Fantasy (4): more e-mails? seriously?

      Just when I thought polishing and posting were all I had left to do to finish my dark fantasy, to finally escape the weight of this presidential campaign season, James Comey of the FBI revives the e-mail question.

       The surreal becomes even more so: the media, even responsible outlets, fall over each other to get the story out first and in the jumble somehow there's a whole new investigation of the Clinton e-mails.  The truffle-scandal hogs are snuffling around for more delicious fungi growing on the donkey trail.

        No one has ever explained--to my satisfaction, anyway--any actual harm allegedly posed by the Secretary's use of her e-mail server. In the case that emerged yesterday (28 October 2016), I don't quite understand how Secretary Clinton's mishandling of anything is involved when the handling was apparently done by her aide, Huma Abadin.

        By all accounts, Comey is a highly regarded official with a reputation for integrity. But in the light of the status of the campaign and past practice, and given that the FBI apparently doesn't even know what these emails are (only that they exist), Comey's report to Congress smacks of at best, sorely faulty judgement, and at worst, sabotage of Clinton's campaign.

       For those who are so disturbed at Secretary Clinton's alleged corruption--none of which is proven, remember!--why are you not equally concerned about the Donald's corruption, which is well documented? The Secretary doesn't seem to be defending lawsuits alleging fraud, as in the case of Trump University,  nor is there a documented history of racial discrimination applicable to Mrs. Clinton, while the same cannot be said of Trump and his properties.

        If one is troubled by a nexus with corporate America, the Donald's financial disclosure documents filed for his presidential run (though clearly his tax returns would be more helpful) should raise all kinds of red flags. Reading through the form (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2838696-Trump-2016-Financial-Disclosure.html), it's pretty clear that election of the Donald would be equivalent to letting a fox loose in a hen house. His varied investment interests, with an emphasis on real estate, suggest that the Bundy acquittals in Oregon would stand as the harbinger for a full-scale invasion of public lands managed by the federal government, if such lands weren't turned over to the private sector entirely.

         I hear much moaning about Secretary Clinton's ties to big banks and multinationals. Again, I don't quite understand how these connections compare to the Donald's involvement in corporate America. The Secretary gave speeches for which she was handsomely paid, true. She  apparently suggests that big business--banks or whatever--contribute to the national dialogue, that they be part of solutions rather than the problem.  She then paid tax on the handsome fees.

         The Donald uses every tax loophole available without, so far as I know, lobbying at any time to close them. Even though he now says "close the loopholes." In other words, I see no indication that he's ever engaged in public interest lobbying or public service. But now, in his new guise as possible president, he'll fix the system because he knows it so well. One looks in vain through his fifty years in business for evidence to support this sudden desire to fix a system that's been so beneficial to his interests.

          Does he get a free pass because he eschews "political correctness" and "tells it like it is"? "Like it is" is often not "like it should be" if we wish to be a  civilized society. Does anyone remember the foundation of political correctness? Civility? An effort to adjust attitudes to a respect for difference and diversity?  Should we not aspire? Must we wallow in our own short-comings?

          Awhile back, I posted a blog entry written by Spanish poet-philosopher Alejandro Martín ("The Fox and the Grapes" on 3 September 2016) which raised Nietzsche's spectre of a "hatred born of impotence that changes the value of things." As I understand his position, the animosity that can grow out of a sense of powerlessness often translates into an insistence that everyone is the same and, effectively, into a projection of our own secret failings on others to explain how they rose above us, whether their rise be social, financial or political. The Donald instinctively knows this; it's why he speaks to the worst in us rather than trying to excite our aspirations. Secretary Clinton appeals, instead, to our better selves, ignoring (apparently to her peril) the anger and resentment of those who have not fulfilled the hopes raised with the promise of transformation by Obama's election.

            Secretary Clinton is exceptionally well prepared and knowledgeable. She has worked hard to achieve her position. I might have preferred another candidate, but I have no doubt that she truly believes we all do better when we work together, and that we all have an obligation to contribute what we can to the national community. Her greatest failing may be that she seems tone deaf to the clambering cacophony from a populace that wants comforting--I applaud her for trying to recruit the nation, but the Donald's promise to protect everyone and fix everything is a siren song for many. How much better we feel if someone as flawed as we are beats someone from the elite! (How the Donald has managed to pull this off escapes me: maybe it's the exceedingly bad taste of his gold-embellished decorating? Gold is expensive so it must be good and more must be better?)

Three Fates (Mantheniel Photography)

               So as we look at the current landscape, I cannot see how the handling of emails has caused harm, either those already examined or those recently found but not yet examined.  These latter may have caused harm, but since we don't know what they are, how do we know their effect?

                I can see how Wikileaks and Julian Assange have injected shipworms into the hull of the ship of state by their handling of stolen emails. There's already been a Trump voter found who tried to vote twice because she feared her first vote was being changed to a vote for Hillary. Ah, the irony.

          Who could have imagined this election? It's enough to imagine there really are three fates with  very warped senses of humor manipulating these strings. Happy Halloween, everybody!