And She Writes

One Sister's Midnight Rant Worth Listening to:

Just turned off the replay of tonight’s Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous … no, I mean 60 minutes. I watched, admittedly transfixed, as our new con artist postured on his tacky and gauche, gilded setté, conning another one of the cons of our major networks.

Now, I’m a Celt. And that means I tell stories. I holler. I drink too much. I think too much. I talk to much. I get excited. I interrupt. I love and I heal and give with a fierceness and a loyalty that only my dog can surpass. It also means I will entertain a lot of discourse and political bantering and sectarian infighting on facebook. I will always be up for a good debate on just about any issue.

But, here is my shot across the bow.
On the subject of a filthy wall? NOPE! Come at me with anything to do with walls and that windy, militant, ig’nunt trash about roundups and deportations of millions of people and, discussion over. I will shut you down. Walls and mass deportations are pura NAZI. That’s right, I’m calling anyone calling for a wall or mass deportations a NAZI. If you count yourself among those who love me, those who love America, and your mind is on a wall or a roundup of millions of people at gunpoint, or the registration of certain members of certain faiths, you must have forgotten not only your history, but that I’m a disabled woman. We were the first victims of the Third Reich. I WILL not engage in a discourse that asks me to defend my right to exist. FFS, no human being is illegal!

Prey like a wolf or turn silently the other way –not sure which is more morally depraved at this point-- on the most vulnerable among us, and you’re culpable. Besides, in case you didn't know, children and poor people who walk your babies and change your elders' depends and pick and cook your food, and clean your houses and mow your lawns and study for medical school and law school and scientific and engineering breakthroughs that might cure your ass one day, and soldiers from these countless wars, are detained throughout this country in dog cages already! So, liberals gush away about President Obama, Deporter in Chief, and conservatives, gush away about the new bloke's immigration vision. History will not be kind to either of them. Or any of you traitors onboard with the policies of the Blackshirts and Brownshirts.

On fear: (don’t dismiss me as too privileged and
insulated from the consequences
of this election to meaningfully comment on fear
I’ve refrained up until now because, frankly, White
people have dominated the mic throughout this election cycle, and they’ve been fear-baiting the most. So, it felt courteous and
righteous to let others go first. And hopefully the first
thing people did as the results came in was comfort the ones
in their own midst before hitting social media.)

One thing I learned
when I was sick and
in the uncertain torrents
of a new cancer diagnosis, is
that fear, not cancer, is the enemy.
Lemme say that again ….
FEAR, not Trump, not even death,
FEAR is the enemy.
Fear has been the dominant currency of this election cycle.
We've all been terrorized by this broken system, some more than others. So, yeah, fear is legitimate at a time like this.
But ask anyone in remission or coming back from some other battlefield.
Prolonged anxiety, that goes
unaided and unanswered will bring everyone of us
to our knees faster than any tumor
or draconian policy, or blackboots, or goons
from the halls of power.

Had I rolled over and let myself
be paralyzed by fear and the shock of that diagnosis,
I would be dead. Let’s try earnestly to compartmentalize our fear
to short stints per day, and allocate the lion’s share
of our time and mental and emotional energy to taking
care of each other, starting with the most vulnerable, first.
I’m reaching out. I’m giving and receiving consolation.

Let’s get to gettin'. Organize. Resist. Rebuild this political apparatus and balance the power by the 2018 midterms.
We obviously have work to do!
Because, ain’t nobody comin’ to save us. WE are the heros and heroines in our own stories. Isn’t that the way it’s always been?
Please understand that only from my cold, dead
hands will they be dragging Rick or half my family
and friends and colleagues off.
I’m with you. For you. And I got you.
And, this is a big one…
Please, please, PLEASE don’t let it be
lost on us what the office of the
presidency, like any employment contract,
implies for the new guy:
We’re his boss.
He’s our apprentice.
Time to mentor the new help.
G'nite.
-Donna Davies

One of the young artists at Juvie.
(Clay) "The Wall"