this reminds me of the song lyrics: “what goes up must come down/spinnin wheel gotta go round/talkin ’bout your troubles is a crying sin/ride a painted pony, let the spinnin’ wheel spin….” (david clayton-thomas). spinning wheel is a late 60s song – popular by blood, sweat and tears.

john denver’s quote is likely from ten to twenty years later: “things go up and down. if you can survive the down it will come back.”

both encourage holding on for the long haul – which is precisely what we need right now. to survive.

though as i write this, i am pondering the wisdom in simply riding a painted pony and letting the spinning wheel spin. we need something different now. inaction in these times is not survival. it is how a democracy perishes.

it is a bit like the recent flippant current-administration quote “just sit back and relax. it will all work out well in the end – it always does.”

for who?

that makes my skin crawl.

every single day the new news astonishes us and, yeah, doesn’t astonish us. it’s always more of the same – gluttony, cruelty, bigotry, corruption – exhibited and acted on by people in positions for which they have no credentials but for sycophantic loyalty.

sitting back and relaxing because it will be well in the end is merely complicity. it’s going down with the ship without even trying. to go down and to not come back.

the words “it will work out well” are suspect. they are the cavalier words of a dictator. and, in a twist of twists, these are the words – the recommendation – of the leader of the free world.

is this really where two hundred fifty years has brought us?

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this MERELY-A-THOUGHT MONDAY

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