Lament on a Busy News Day, 11/29/17

The past month has seen Trump the Chump crack his knuckles as he steps into full-blown dictator mode. As someone who is waking up nearly every day to a news report about another public figure I once respected (Conyers?!) being called out for truly reprehensible behavior towards women, I’m feeling fatigued just by that facet of our adhd news cycle alone.

That’s exactly the point of this media deluge. I mused earlier today that with all the shouting that is taking place over these crucial, often overlapping, causes of outrage – the CFPB leadership debacle, the J20 trials, the continued suffering on Puerto Rico, the Catalonia situation, the Rohingya genocide, Duterte’s war on drugs, the continued torment of indigenous people in every settler-controlled state, Modi introducing Trumpism to the world’s largest democracy, US/Saudi war crimes in Yemen, the death of net neutrality and its impact on the dissemination of information and media outside of the corporate backed mainstream, daily reports of Palestinian apartheid, local issues surrounding homelessness, deportations in my sanctuary city and state, the cops raiding the resisters camp in Olympia WA this morning, Hollywood Babylon and the whistleblowing within the media — I’m almost shocked people noticed North Korea launched a missile yesterday.

If it feels like you’re getting waterboarded, understand this too is a move out of the PsyOps playbook. It would be abnormal if you didn’t.

NK’s launch received second billing on the Democracy Now headlines this morning, following an opening brief about the tax plan that looms ahead.

For those of us opposed to Trump, days like this where the maelstrom is hitting its hardest and showing no sign of stoppage, I plea for unity as we face such uncertainty, locally, regionally, nationally, and globally as this rash of monsters tightens their grip on the (largely imagined) power they seek to impose on others.

White folks, listen, listen, LISTEN to those voices coming from the margins. Understand oppression is oppression, and that true compassion is not selective. Some communities have already been fighting for their lives just by being themselves in America’s white supremacist society, and as they face greater oppression from the regime, the mark of a bad ally is to equate your white liberal outrage to the actual suffering of those who Trump’s tweets, orders, or remarks directly affect. Hate crimes are on the rise. Be mindful of this as you hear narratives from communities that are not your own.

And for God’s sake, BELIEVE THEM.

I offer no single solution, other than that we all acknowledge a higher power. As we represent Creation, we have beyond doubt a Creator. Regardless of color, class, or caste, we all come from God.

May that commonality cut through the divisions foisted onto us, may identity politics take its rightful seat alongside class warfare as the other great obstacle to negotiate before we achieve peace, and may that same commonality — a shared kinship from having come from the same source — be what brings about peace.

Spiritualize, America. Nothing else will make sense until then.