Any conversation I have now with good friends is shadowed by, or turns directly and painfully, to politics. Even responding to a polite “How are you?” can require great creativity, to somehow be genuine but not devolve into tears or rage. “Considering the state of the world, I am fine,” is one of my usual responses.
In one discussion, a good friend said our country is now more and more a nation at war. Another said we’re a nation ruled by an incompetent, oppressive, and wannabee dictator.
DT is clearly turning our nation if not into a war zone then into a zone of lawlessness. He says he is the only candidate who can protect America, but whatever lawlessness is happening now is already during his watch, and he is certainly provoking the violence and is one of the nation’s biggest lawbreakers.
For example, he sends Federal officers, in violation of the constitution, without identification, to create havoc in cities with Democratic Mayors, who are hosting protests against racial violence and injustice. And when white militias show up In Kenosha, Wisconsin, and police allow a militiaman with a gun to shoot and kill 2 people, DT barely mentions the murdered victims in his GOP Convention speech, likes a tweet supporting the murderer, and his supporters blame the protestors.
As Mayor Ted Wheeler of Portland, Oregon said on Sunday (8/30): “It’s you [DT] who have created the hate and division. It’s you who have not found a way to say the names of two Black people killed by police officers… And it’s you who claimed that White Supremacists are good people.”
He dares to call himself “the law and order President.” Talk about the Big Lie. No President has been sued like DT. He has been impeached by the House, committed more corrupt acts, has had more members of his administration indicted, has undermined not only laws but the rule of law and the constitution itself⎼ and he calls himself the law and order President? He’s the father of disorder, the violator of law and the violator of the constitution.
He lies so blatantly and caustically that many words and concepts have become haunted with his venom. Think of ‘media’, ‘immigrant’, ‘fraud’, ‘election’, ‘liberal’, ‘socialist’, ‘mask’, let alone terms like ‘Post Office’, ‘fake news’, ‘health care’, ‘pre-existing conditions’, ‘Social Security’, ‘first responders’, and ‘essential workers’. Although there are some words and terms that have taken on more clarity, that wake us up, like ‘vote’ and ‘Black Lives Matter’.
Our mouths, minds and hearts have been mined with emotional time bombs, traumas, which appears to be exactly what DT wants. Sometimes it seems to me that he is infesting the world with chaos and blindness, a chaos that he finds reassuring.
So many places in the world, so many times in history, are or were in worse shape than we are now. Think about all the wars, violence and disruption caused by oppressors, dictators, kleptocrats, and tyrants. Think about Syria today and Europe facing Hitler.
Of course, we’ve also had leaders who cared about the rights and lives of all the people of this nation and helped us face dark times, like FDR during the depression and World War II, Lincoln during the Civil War. But these examples highlight even more dramatically how incompetent and malignant DT is, and how important it is to take action now, so our country doesn’t descend any further into the violence, chaos, and destruction of freedom that these awful times, people and places birthed.
One such dark time, way before our nation was created, was mid 8th century C. E., in Tang Dynasty China, when revolts and invasions led to great disruption, dislocation and a devastated population. The loss of life was anywhere from 5 to 16% of the world’s population. But despite this, the century saw the rise of three of China’s greatest poets, Tu Fu, Li Po and Wang Wei.
I have been reading Tu Fu. And besides being inspired by his poetry, I have been inspired by his ability to write after losing his position and income, being forced to flee from his home, separated from his family, and at one time being imprisoned.
Tu Fu was at times a government official. He discovered later in life a deep compassion for those around him whose lives were disrupted or destroyed by war. He meditated. He was able to face what was happening and yet find peace and clarity in himself. Even as wars raged around him, he wrote not only of the plight of common people but about seeing a deer at the “bramble gate”, and feeling “so close/here, we touch our own kind in each other.” In this other breathing being, he found a mirror to himself.
He desired to restore peace and the rule of law, just as we, today, desire to protect each other from the pandemics of COVID-19, racism, sexism, and DT’s malignant mismanagement of our government.
The poetry of Tu Fu gives us a door to inner depth, a refuge for a few minutes, and an example of living through a crisis with inner strength intact⎼ so we can find our own strength and resolve to take action to prevent our society, today, from descending any further into the chaos and oppression that DT is inflicting on us. Such poetry might also help us free our language from the taint of DT’s malignant lies.
**Of course, if you’d rather read a collection of more contemporary poetry, one of my favorites is Teaching With Fire: Poetry that Sustains the Courage to Teach⎼ or sustains the ability to face tough times with courage and compassion.
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Photo by Koshu Kunii on Unsplash