Soapbox

This is not our first rodeo.
    But here we are in training class, because that's what we do. Every time, we practice it first. We practice every pen stroke, every  tick-mark and circle to be colored in. We go over how to connect the machines, where to put the flags, even where to find the card with a few helpful ASL signs in case we need it.
   It takes a while, but every detail counts in democracy. Your vote means nothing if we don't do our job correctly.
   You joke about the preponderance of old folk sitting at the roster tables, how you may as well be voting at a nursing home for all the white hair and orthopedic shoes, but if you thought for 10 seconds about how important our job is, you wouldn't be quite so impatient when the old guy with the coke-bottle glasses takes the time to double-check your signature before he sends you over to your booth. If you realized what a brutally long day it is for us, you would be less amused and more impressed by the octogenarians around you.

   It's always cold at 4:30 AM in November, dark and still. There are boxes to unpack, tables to set up and not quite enough coffee to keep you energized as you count the hours in your growingly uncomfortable chair, realizing that 8PM is a long way off.
   But there are also cheerful and familiar faces, intelligent questions and happy families teaching their children what citizenship is all about. And  this room full of people, however old or young they might be and whatever political persuasion guides them, are all aimed at the same target: to help everyone who can become a part of America by voting.
   Some voters are excited about their first time, and it always makes us feel proud. Some are hopeful. Some are anxious and cynical, or bored and unengaged. But every one of them matters equally to us.

    I wish I could say to all those  congress members and governors of all the states who are trying to place more and more locked doors between America and her citizens-  this is not our first rodeo.
   Every one of us here in this training room wants every legal, registered voter to vote. We do not need your locks and chains blocking the doorway which we are guarding. We know our job, and we take us very seriously.
    We know the difference between preventing fraud and just preventing voting.  When you propose a law that forbids us from telling someone who turns up at the wrong polling place where their proper location is… we know what that's about.  When you insist that we turn away an 80 year old woman who's been voting here for 50 years but who doesn't drive any more because she no longer has a driver's license… we know what that is about, too.
  You are saying that we don't matter. That we come here to practice and get up at 4:30 in the cold dark November mornings-  for nothing at all, because America isn't  really a place where every citizen who pays their taxes and registers their name has the same say as any other.

    We take that personally. We may be old, some of us, but we're not stupid. This isn't our first rodeo, and we know a pile of bull when we see it.

    It's a question we all wrestle with whenever someone shoots up a room full of people. Why do so many of us feel that mass murder is the only answer to anger?

    Some blame  a lack of good mental health care in America, or too-easy access to guns. Others point the finger at violent music lyrics and video games. Lately we've ben told that it's because there aren't enough 'good guys with guns' to kill the bad ones. Some say it's because we don't 'let Jesus in the schools any more' and that kids would grow up fine if they just were made to pray before math class. Some insist that it's because slutty women take birth control and won't just stay home to take care of all their babies, causing the family to decay. Of course the gays are always ruining everything, and abortion makes God so wroth that he turns loose madmen to shoot children.

…and then there's shit like this.

   An Alabama Republican party newsletter just published a piece written by the husband of a county GOP official. In it the man expressed outrage that the Arkansas House (in an effort to keep much-needed federal dollars flowing into Arkansas)  voted to use the Obamacare health insurance exchanges to expand medical services to the state’s poor.
   In other words, they agreed to use the free market to allow poor people to get health care.

The writer called it 'a betrayal' that will 'lead us down the road to socialism' and told readers that really, these legislators should become 'bullet backstops'.

      "We need to let those who will come in the future to represent us [know] that we are serious.  The 2nd amendment means nothing unless those in power believe you would have no problem simply walking up and shooting them if they got too far out of line and stopped responding as representatives. It seems that we are unable to muster that belief in any of our representatives on a state or federal level, but we have to have something, something costly, something that they will fear that we will use if they step out of line.
If we can’t shoot them, we have to at least be firm in our threat to take immediate action against them politically, socially, and civically {sic} if they screw up on something this big. Personally, I think a gun is quicker and more merciful, but hey, we can’t. "
 

    Really? This is what passes for political opinion in conservative Alabama? For the good of America, if someone says something you believe is wrong… SHOOT 'EM? This is what you think the second Amendment is for- to allow you to kill people who don't share your belief system? This is how democracy works in your book?
   Huh. And to think us crazy liberals, when looking for something to make our misbehaving legislators fear, just think 'ballot box!"  This gang, they think 'bullet box". And aww shucky-durn, what a shame we can't just cut right to the chase and kill these traitors, but those pesky  law-and-order huggers will probably get upset about it.

    The state republican leadership called this letter which said they deservd a bullet in the head 'scary' (ya think??) and seemed to think that this fellow's problem is that he doesn't understand what a good job Republicans in Alabama have been doing. The spokesman pointed out that hey, they were saving people money by this action and always  voted as pro-life as possible. 
    “I don’t see how as a conservative we could have had a better session.” He further argued "As for the Second Amendment, we had one of the strongest pro-gun rights session in history"

     Seriously? You actually think that in response to this threat you need to defend your voting record to this putz? This guy wishes- in a public forum- that he and his friends could  walk up and shoot you in the head any time you don't vote the way he thinks you should, and you think that the only thing  it wrong with that is his failure to recognize what a good job you're doing???
      You don't want to maybe rethink that whole  "Everybody should have as many guns as they want" plan of yours now?

    Yes America, this is how a terrifying number of people think Democracy should work : I elect you to the Statehouse and in exchange you do exactly as I tell you to. If you step out of line- if your vision of what will help people is different than mine, even on something like health care, then in a fair world, me and my like-minded patriotic friends would be waiting in the parking lot to gun you down.
   And this is what they think the second Amendment means! Skip right on past that "well regulated militia" part and go straight to the old watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants crap, which isn't exactly in the constitution and apparently the definition of 'tyran't has been expanded beyond mere "despotic king who is keeping people in chains'  and now also includes… well, anyone who doesn't share your pet conservative obsession.

   And this wasn't just some back-woods ignorant red-neck bitching to his buddies over a couple of beers. This was a piece written by the husband of a local Republican party official, and one which the newsletter saw fit to publish as legitimate discourse.

     Imagine for a minute that a local liberal official had opined in a democratic newsletter that since Obama has sold us out on the whole "Chained CPI" thing, any democrat who had voted to support Obama's policy should be shot. Say he insisted that democracy can only work if people like Nancy Pelosi believe that if she does not vote the way he wants her to, she might be shot in the head.
    I'm pretty sure our reaction would be a little stronger than to defend the democratic voting record. I expect we would call this a threat of terrorism.
     But apparently, for the Arkansas GOP, terrorism is only something which brown/liberal/Muslim folks do. To them, this was merely 'disturbing' and 'not our position'.

     Well that's good to know.

    "It's not right when the police tell you to run- just run away. Run where? You don't really know- where is 'safe'?"

   This is the real terror of an act of terrorism like the Boston Marathon bombings. Is it over? Am I running away from danger, or toward another bomb? Maybe people with guns are lying in wait!  This is the kind of fear that can scar the psyche. It's not only the terror of what just happened, but the helplessness of not knowing what the proper course of action is right now.
   I can tell you what the proper course is not. It is not to turn this tragedy into  a suit of clothes for your favorite political or religious paper doll.
    The day of an attack, the day after, is not the day to make statements about who you think is probably responsible, based not on facts from the scene, but on the way x, y and z fit in your world view. It is natural to try to fit the puzzle pieces together immediately, even when they've just been dumped out of the box and 90% of them are still upside down. Aha, this piece must go here! See how it has that little knob part sticking out?
   Yeah… all the pieces have a little knob sticking out, Ace. Just take a breath. I know you feel safer when you have some answers we all do! We all grasp desperately for answers to provide us solid ground when the sand shifts. But try to remember that fake answers offer only fake security.
 
   Let me just say that if, when you hear that there has been a bombing- or a shooting, or some other attack, and there are terrible injuries, if your first thoughts aren't oh dear god  I hope everyone is alright! and Was anyone I know there? or  Is there any way I can help? then you need to seek therapy. If your first thought is Oh, I bet it was those _____'s (fill in favorite group you hate and assume are out to get you) then you have a serious compassion deficiency, and, ex post facto, you are actually contributing to the climate of terror.
    And if your first thought is "How can I use this event to further my career/ political agenda? then you are probably (but no, not exclusively) a commentator, or frequent interview subject for FOX News.

   When the New York Post began trumpeting shortly after the Boston bombing that police had a Saudi suspect in custody, most of the people who took up this refrain were people eager to blame at least an outsider, ideally a Muslim, for anything evil that happens. For example, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, who passed on this stupid rumor, probably because he wanted it to be true and didn't so much care if it wasn't. Well, it's much easier to slam the closet door than to look under our own beds for the monsters. After the Oklahoma city bombing, a lot of people who claimed to know what they were talking about were SURE that it was Arab terrorists who were responsible, and had all sorts of 'proof' based on upside down puzzle-pieces that had little knobby ends on them… you know, the way Arabs/communists/fundamentalists/etc. always do.
    A guy actually asked the governor of Massachusetts in his terse and somber press conference if this  whole thing was a 'false flag' operation of the government, designed to terrorize the people and provide an opportunity to take way our civil liberties.  I can only imagie how he felt when asked this. Casualty counts were still coming in, the police and ATF were still trying to determine if there were other unexploded bombs lurking in the city. And then some yahoo asks him if the government (which includes him) killed these people on purpose.
    When you do not allow your world view to become clouded by facts,  then everything, Every Thing that happens is a puzzle piece that fits perfectly into that world view. Well, it fits if you  jam it in really hard and bend up a few corners and never even try to turn it over to see the picture on the other side. Just ignore the fact that there were no loudspeakers telling people to be calm right before the bombs went off as you claim there were, and that simple human decency dictates that while a few people might be evil and go crazy, no government is going get it  together to fake the murder of 20 school children and hire actors to portray grieving parents and traumatized police officers , or set off a bomb in a crown of spectators and kill an 8 year old child just as a pretext to take away your guns. Ignore all that- and it all fits perfectly!!
    Bill O'Reilly,  firm in his dedication to making this attack somehow the fault of the people and groups he is paid to hate, complained that President Obama, in his brief statement 3 hours after the bombing, " called the attack a tragedy. It was not."  
     Without getting into how tragic this all must seem to the people who lost their legs yesterday, it is depressing to find him still so single-minded in his pursuit of the "Obama as the root of all bad things' agenda that he could not think of anything more informative, more helpful, more comforting or hopeful to contribute to America in her time of insecurity and fear than to attack the word 'tragedy'.

    Look. There are people whose job it is to sift through information, to listen to tips and rumors and speculation in order to try to  discover who did this. But that is not what we need to do today.
  Think of all the people who turned and ran into the smoke and flames and blood. They didn't do it to stand over the  injured and shout "Oh my God, I bet Muslims/ white supremicists/ the CIA  did this to you!!" They actually offered assistance, or supported others who did. When America is injured, we need to offer asssistance, not speculation. And for 99% of us, our job today is to take a deep breath, to offer support where we can, to unite as a people and to move forward- cautious, perhaps, but not fearful and not blaming out of fear.
    Yes, there are monsters under the bed. They have always been there. They thrive in darkness. And so it is our task to keep the light of truth and basic human kindness shining when we are faced with monsters. Because when it's hard to know which way is safe, all we can do is stay strong, patient, reasoned and hopeful.

I miss the stars.
We gave them away, here in the city,
traded Andromeda for 24 hour Walmarts
and their moon-scape parking lots,
offered up the best of  Milky Way, like Manhattan,
for a few worthless trinkets of neon.

In the country, you can't get midnight movies or 2 AM chicken nuggets
but you have the Pleiades
and the stars will dance for you all night long.
I think I could live in a cabin on the side of a mountain
with no news but the morning clouds’ weather report
and the crow's warning,
tend my garden by day and at night
watch it get well and truly dark,
sit on my porch and catch the all-night sky parade,
featuring the the high-def soundtrack of the cosmos.

The rocks and hills show no sign now.
The trees look the same, greening joyfully into spring.
The wind that gathers does not tear at them, yet-
large bones, after all, are the last to break.

So it's easy for us to pretend that it's over
and we have all moved on,
washed the wound, healed, started again clean.
But the butterflies of Fukushima know what we will not see.

They crawl from their silken wombs still damp with impossibility
to unfurl antennae bent and blind,
wings, in colors unrecognizable, are curled and incomplete
unable to long support their wobbling, jagged flight;
as lacey as our own torn hearts.

We sturdy caterpillars still stump along our leaves,
up and down,
as if we can maintain  forever  this state of  heedless consumption, 
plumply indifferent to the future yet
carrying within us the embers of the bonfire.

Life in transition is always the most vulnerable,
ever the first to be blown off course by the gathering storm.
The desert dust smells of olive trees seeking deep for water
but the stillborn of Fallujah taste the difference in the wind.
Making no more sound than falling butterflies
they  emerge from their cocoons the color of heartache
twisted and blue, limbs fused, single eye weeping,
wearing their hearts outside their chests,
so thoroughly are they broken
silent mouths speaking a truth
which we turn up to TV set and try not to hear.

Butterflies and babies are the unwitting canaries
in the coal mine of human stupidity,
tiny monsters wrought of a monstrous power and arrogance
blinded by blind desires, twisted and melted into the new reality
of life on an earth in the midst of a terrifying internal metamorphosis,
answering the anti-biological imperative of teratogenic technology.
We, blind as the butterflies, refuse to see it, continue to devour- everything
as they scream their warning into the silent spring.