Enjoy This Day, But...
Keep your eye on what matters most of all
The weather has finally turned glorious in much of Michigan, and on this last day of May, I am relatively certain it won’t snow again. I want to run around with my Australian Shepherds, spend time with the person most important to me and work on writing projects that have nothing to do with what’s happening to our country.
I intend to mostly do that, but … we can’t allow ourselves to completely forget. Not now, not ever. Keep this in mind: Donald Trump is an absolutely appalling human being, and has installed a corps of ruthless, malevolent and/or incompetent people who are determined to destroy much of what’s good in this country, and make it largely impossible to ever restore it fully.
We have to resist him, and them, in every way we can. We, and especially, our children and future generations will have no future, or incredibly bleak futures, if we don’t. Robert F. Kennedy, the original one, told students suffering under apartheid in South Africa that every time they fought back, took a stand, it mattered.
“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
Next Saturday, it will be exactly sixty years since he said those words.
Today, it may seem hopeless. And yes, his son and namesake sits in Trump’s cabinet, a ghastly parody of the hero his father once became. But that doesn’t matter.
What matters is what we do. Trump, Stephen Miller and the rest of their monsters want to divide us up. We need to give a contempt-filled “fuck that” grin to anyone who attempts to defend anything they are doing. Trump has declared war on our democracy, and all of us who loathe and question the hate he is trying to spread.
Now, more than ever, we need all the bright, somewhat selfless lawyers we can find to fight all the criminal and unconstitutional things Trump is doing.
And most of all, we need to ensure that Democrats, any and all Democrats, rack up the biggest victories possible in the midterms, and see that they are led by members of their party who have spines. And something else:
What matters most is not Israel, not Gaza, but the United States of America, preserving our democracy, our rights and freedom. A woman who I respect told me that she could not possibly vote for Abdul El-Sayed because she feared he would vote against helping Israel’s Iron Dome defense system.
That way of thinking is dangerously wrong. Not only is his vote unlikely to sway anything, NOTHING is as important than restoring Democracy to America.
I’ve been accused over and over of being a toady for or actually being paid by AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying and propaganda shop. But I have no tolerance for anyone who would put Israeli interests ahead of our own. I wanted to yell at all those Jews, mainly Orthodox, who voted for Trump because they thought he would be better for Israel.
Really? Giving Netanyahu a free hand to commit atrocities makes Israel more secure? Do they give their toddlers steak knives to play with? Don’t they realize that the Christian right only loves Israel and the Jews because they see them as a sort of Hamburger Helper. They think supporting Israel will help bring on the Rapture, at which point, one of them once told me, “All the Yehudis will be cast in the lake of fire.”
Do those Arab and Muslim Americans who “vote Gaza” really think the other Arabs give a damn about the Palestinians, except as pawns? Please.
Whatever your outlook and heritage, we have to save democracy and neuter or remove the Trumpies, period. A few years ago, I was giving a talk during the first Trump administration, and a 20-something woman asked me how this would all turn out.
I told her if we were very lucky, long after I was dead, one of her grandchildren would learn about this history and ask her, “What the hell were you people thinking?
So I’ll close today with a bit of advice that was a slogan during the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s:
Keep Your Eyes on the Prize.
Hold On!
Right on, brother!
Keep preaching. It matters. I’m right there with you. See you at the next rally!
WE THE PEOPLE!!
Every word you said Jack. The hum of fascism gets louder every day. And you are right, we need to focus on restoring and maintaining our democracy above all else. No other issue should be as pressing to us. Resist, protest, march, write, call, register voters, volunteer to be a poll worker, get active by any means necessary. We cannot let up now. We are at the foot of the avalanche and need to hold the line.