The Furious Spinner

I wrote 3,200 words on my new novel today. I hope they're mostly good words. One of my characters said today, "My motto is be involved until it’s solved."

I kind of like that. Thanks, Winnie.

I'm seeing signs of people being involved all over, deciding for themselves how they're going to live. Watch what's happening with food and agriculture. A food revolution! I've been saying for years that we need to eat locally and organically. I'm glad others are seeing the light! By the way, if you haven't seen the Meatrix, now's the time. It's an amusing and accurate summary of the current state of agriculture.

Bill Moyers has come back, as I mentioned before. Bruce Fein and John Nichols were on Bill Moyers Journal. Their discussion was the best I've heard about impeachment. They say impeachment is not a constitutional crisis; impeachment is the cure for a constitutional crisis. Impeachment is a strong reminder to the president that s/he is not king. I hope Nancy Pelosi listened to this program. I won't paraphrase them; you can watch it here (under the picture, you can click on the video). Make certain you listen to Part 2; it's especially enlightening and right on point. I hope everyone in Congress saw it—everyone in the country!

Do you ever listen to Progressive radio? I'm still quite annoyed with Rachel Maddox for applauding Obama when he said he'd go into Pakistan and bomb people, but I have been enjoying Thom Hartmann lately. I like him because he really knows his stuff. He knows more about economics than any of his guests. And he doesn't talk about the same thing over and over and over like some talk radio hosts do. He doesn't scream either. Too much.

On Friday he was talking about impeachment, among other things. (A cure for a constitutional crisis, not a symptom of one.) He read from They Thought They Were Free by Milton Mayer. Mayer went to Germany soon after WWII and extensively interviewed 10 "regular" German citizens to try and figure out how the people of Germany had allowed Hitler to happen.

This is what one of the people told Mayer. (I believe this person was a professor, although I'm not sure. Read it outloud if you can. It is chilling how familiar it all sounds.)

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security....

"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter. ...

"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it - please try to believe me - unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, 'regretted,' that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these 'little measures' that no 'patriotic German' could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.

(Thom Hartmann writes, "In this conversation, Mayer's friend suggests that he wasn't making an excuse for not resisting the rise of the fascists, but simply pointing out an undisputable reality. This, he suggests, is how fascism will always take over a nation.")

The German man talks about that famous quote by Niemoller.

"Pastor Niemoller spoke for the thousands and thousands of men like me when he spoke (too modestly of himself) and said that, when the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy, but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing: and then they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little uneasier, but, still, he was not a Socialist, and he did nothing; and then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on, and he was always uneasier, but still he did nothing. And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something - but then it was too late.

"You see...one doesn't see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for the one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even to talk, alone; you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble.' Why not? - Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.

"Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, everyone is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there will be slogans against the government painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this. In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, 'It's not so bad' or 'You're seeing things' or 'You're an alarmist.'

"And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can't prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don't know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. ...

"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That's the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and the smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked - if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in '43 had come immediately after the 'German Firm' stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in '33. But of course this isn't the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

"And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying 'Jew swine,' collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in - your nation, your people - is not the world you were in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God."

So you see, each time we stand up, each time we decide how we will live, each time we don't give in to fear, we are saving the world, we are preventing fascism-even if it's only for a minute. I'm beginning to believe that we can't be attached to the outcome—even though that is extremely difficult when events are so dire. We just do the work—whatever we've each decided that work will be for us.

I think of Mario all the time and the work he does at the local elementary school. For one hour a week, every week from April through October, he pulls weeds at the school. This simple act has kept the school from using pesticides for three years now. He has saved the children in that school from being exposed to pesticides; he has saved the town from being exposed to pesticides. One hour, once a week.

Today I was thinking that happiness is not one long stretch of time. Maybe it occurs in bursts. In scenes. Moments. On Mario's afternoon break today, we walked away from our house toward the town center, holding hands, and the wind brought to us the sound of bagpipes. We looked at each other and smiled. Which one of the town's three bagpipers was it? George, our town wizard; Mark, a local teacher; or Bill, who always wore his kilt when he played. We listened. The song was perkier than something George would play. It must be Mark or Bill. I guessed Mark. We kept walking until we saw Mark under the shade of one of the trees growing alongside the courthouse lawn. We sat on a nearby bench and listened to Mark and the wind create music. When he finished his song, we clapped, got up, and continued on our way, back to the library.

I was very happy.

I always want to live in a town where I occasionally hear the sounds of bagpipes. Or a violin. Maybe a flute. I always want to live in a town where the crows pick off walnuts, hazelnuts, and acorns from townie trees and then drop their treasure again and again until the shell breaks open and the crows feast on the meat inside. I always want to live in a town where I hear ospreys looking for lunch. (They're noisy hunters.) I always want to live in a town where a three-point buck and I can have a stare down in my backyard. I always want to live in a town where the checker at the grocery store, the bank teller, and the postal clerk all know my name and I know theirs. I always want to live in a town where the green spaces and houses live together in almost perfect harmony. I always want to live in a town where I greet the Old Maple and the Old Oak every day. I always want to live in a town where I pass my day humming along with the hummingbirds...

...Or at least within walking distance of such a town.

I would also like to live in a town where I can sleep even when I've been working on a big project most of the day...although I'm guessing that what town I'm in ain't got much to do with me not sleeping.

I shall try to sleep again...again.

May You Be Involved Until It's Solved in Beauty!

P.S. Why can't it be Dennis Kucinich? He's got what the environmentalists, gays, labor unions, working people, anti-warriors want; he's solid on all our main issues. Come on. Put all these groups together and we're a formidable block. He doesn't avoid the issues. He answers questions. He's got plans. He doesn't change depending upon which way the wind is blowing. Why can't it be Dennis Kucinich?

Labels: democracy watch, sustainability

2 comments

2 Comments:

Alas, Kucinich may not be a commie, but he's enough of a liberal that he would change the status quo. So we're going to get a slightly-right-of-center Prez like Hillary or Barack. Money's conservative. That's just how it works. Alas.

Great quote about the loss of freedom!

And Mario's even cooler than I thought he was.

By  Will Shetterly, at 2:22 PM  

I'm a hopeless hoper, I'm afraid...

Yes, Mario is cooler than anyone knows. The absolute essence of cool.

By  Kim Antieau, at 8:43 PM  

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