supine (adjective) 2. failing to act or protest as a result of moral weakness…
the example given – of this word used in a sentence – was this: “they remained supine in the face of terrible wrongdoing.”
though there are many other adjectives (and nouns) i can think of to describe what is currently happening while this administration attempts to destroy this democracy – the complicity, the evil, the negligence, the capitulating, the out-and-out lawlessness – the word “supine” seems mighty relevant.
because most of us in this country have deep ancestral roots in other parts of the world, most of us have actual relatives in other parts of the world.
in the social media free-for-all that is the current environment, we are privy to what these folks are doing just as they are – at least superficially – aware of what we all are up to. i shudder every time i think of this.
i wonder what on earth they are thinking – as they watch the pathetic taking place here in these un-united states. i wonder if they are careful to discern what each of their american-soil relatives believe in – individually – rather than generalizing and lumping us all together in one universal stance, distilling us onto one political bandwagon and its associated numbness of morality. i wonder if they notice who is speaking up, who is tacitly – complicitly – silent. i wonder if they are shaking their heads, grateful to not be here, not to be gathered around the “family” table, not to be sitting and visiting in a lazy boy in the middle of the great divide. i wonder if they wonder about what happened to the heart of it all.
no national moral compass. fatal wounds to people’s most basic needs – physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem. nary a nod to the constitution, to the law of the land, to staunch protection of democratic principles and freedoms, to respect of the people…of all the populace.
the heat dome has driven us to this place – under the steps in the basement – back past the really big bin with roller blades and tennis rackets and a kickball and badminton set – where there are a few old window air conditioners.
we pulled one out and installed it – just like last year – in the dining room window.
but this heat dome is incessant and suffocatingly hot – particularly in our old house – a house with charming radiators but no duct work for central air.
so we went back on the prowl under the steps, specifically looking for a slimmer-lined air conditioner i remembered from decades earlier.
we found it a little further back – in the spider web zone – and pulled it out to plug it in and test it before any attempt at installation.
written in sharpie on the pull-out filter was “1999” and as i washed it i pondered how we might make the air conditioner work. both accordion pleat side wings were broken and, clearly, the unit was far too old for which to find replacement parts.
we put on our thinking caps.
after a couple of hours of rube-goldberg-ing a set of wings we uninstalled from a different broken unit – to applause by my dad – who was seemingly guiding us from the other dimension – we used a combination of 2×4, hand towel and black foam to brilliantly – and in a clearly, umm, aesthetically pleasing way – install the air conditioner in our bedroom window.
it occurred to us – during both the thinking-cap-period and the period-of-installation – that we did not know if this unit might be leaking coolant – which could be unhealthy. but, after research and some deductive reasoning, realized that the cool air pumping out of the unit belied any leak and that we were – likely – safe. (though, of course, i would be checking in on any and all physical displays of freon poisoning we might exhibit.)
problem presented. problem solved.
in the cool flow of air circulating somewhat noisily around our house – aided by ceiling and standing fans – our thinking returned to the real problem at hand – one of the reasons we literally were determined to make a thirty-plus year old air conditioner work instead of investing several hundred dollars into a new one.
the real problem? the decimation of this country.
while we watch the current administration completely destroy the safety nets, the healthcare, the retirement, the rights and freedoms of millions and millions and millions of people they clearly don’t give a damn about, while we watch congress completely – sickeningly toadyingly – abdicate their responsibility to we-the-people while revering upping-the-ante cruelty, while the republican supreme court justices horrifyingly and repeatedly make the jump from objectivity to capitulation, while we reel in shock at the rapid descent into fascist, authoritarian ideology, while safety and any security is completely undermined, we wonder what will happen.
and my sweet dad – this man who served this country in the second world war, who was shot down, missing in action and taken prisoner of war, who never fully recovered from the post-traumatic stress he voluntarily experienced to aid this country and its experiment of democracy – this man hasn’t a clue on how to guide us.
and then he’d insist – “you can’t take it with you.”
and so, he and my momma would help others, donate money to causes, spend little on themselves (save for my dad’s love of a good pair of shoes and a sleeve of grocery store flowers for my mom).
but times are different and my parents – on the other side of the plane of existence – are rolling their eyes, nauseated by the bloated greed demonstrated by the new administration of this country.
it appears that the idolatry of the dollar (or, say, billions of dollars) is wiping out any sort of moral conscience that might have poked through the supposed-human-skin and the supposed-human-heart of the current leadership regime.
to marginalize, disenfranchise, suppress, endanger, incite violence upon, decimate – people, communities, natural resources, wildlife, national lands – all for personal capitalistic, bigoted extremist, vile self-serving, narcissistic money-hoarding gluttonous greed – is beyond my comprehension.
i wonder when it is that this country hits the place that it is beyond repair.
they – those “in charge” – have scoffed at negligence. they have gone way past corruption. they have made a laughingstock of indecency. the depravity of their mindset – everything for the almighty dollar, no matter what – is ruling the land.
and, shamefully, people – real people – the regular folks – we the people – will suffer greatly.
is that what they mean by “make america great again’?
i suppose it’s human nature. we tend to take it all for granted – our health, the place we call our home, our freedom. we are relatively complacent about it – maybe not necessarily actively grateful – more passively matter-of-fact.
until we are without it – our health, the place we call our home, our freedom.
and we want it back.
and then we wonder why we didn’t appreciate it when we had it.
each and every time i have had any kind of physical challenge, any ailment, i linger on what it was like before it began. before i broke both my wrists, before frozen shoulder, before i had covid, before…
it’s – of course – a fool’s errand and does absolutely no good save for being somewhat masochistic – which doesn’t fall under the category of good.
and – of course – the lesson i find is to intend gratitude for all in each moment we experience.
but we humans – particularly in this society – are slightly more hindsight types. and we tend to sort to the “in retrospect” view of things instead of being anticipatory or present.
so i do a heads, shoulders, knees and toes check-in and thank my lucky stars. i look around at our old house and thank this place we call home. i move about daily without restraint, making decisions about what to do, where to go – for which i am thankful.
and yet, right here and right now, we stand at a crossroads – an absolutely critical moment – when we must decide what all it is we are grateful for, what all we wish for, what all we believe in – before we don’t have it anymore.
those of us who are not in allegiance with the takeover of our democracy into autocracy, those of us who have not normalized an administration which is morally bereft, those of us who pledge our pledge to a republic and not a man – we all must decide to stand up for the freedom of this country. before it becomes one of those things we wish we had appreciated – when we had it – before it was gone.
it’s been just over four months now and i no longer recognize this nation.
i was clearly delusional, thinking we lived in a steady democracy where people valued people, where love and equity and fairness and compassion were paramount, where being our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers was important – even cherished, where we strove to provide opportunity to all regardless of any differences, where checks and balances ensured lawful practices, where collaborative government transcended singular power-mongering, where the natural beauty and environmental sustenance of sea to shining sea was protected, where the arts and education and healthcare and the citizenry vote were rights endowed upon all, where those protecting the country – like my own sweet poppo – were cared for, where those-with helped those-without, where the citizens celebrated their own ancestral and immigrant heritage just as new immigrants were welcomed and embraced, where families, friends, neighbors, communities, the country strove to be unified – together – against disenfranchising or marginalizing others and placing them in harm’s way, where a collective moral conscience embodied decency, where unbridled, vile corruption did not reign supreme.
i was wrong.
this kind of utter shameful disappointment is only overshadowed by one thing:
we pass a certain house on our way to a favorite hiking trail. it is clearly a hoarding house. there is stuff everywhere and if the garage door is open – even just a bit – you can see that the hoarding continues in the garage – piles and piles of things and things and things. it’s creepy. and you can feel it as you pass by. you feel the suffocating feeling of too-much-stuff.
i once knew someone who was a hoarder. he was unable to transcend it and so his house had tiny pathways to move from one room to another. all the rest of the space was filled with books and magazines and newspapers. there were piles on every step leading to the second floor – so much so that there was no way – anymore – to get there. the second floor was essentially blocked off forever – or, at least, until someone might clean it all out. i found it disturbing to be at his house, smothered by high piles on every side of me and no place that was even near empty or calm or welcoming a sit-down. it only took one visit to convince me that i would never return. i could not breathe. there was no space.
in both of these cases – and in a farm out in the county that we’ve visited with a variation on the same theme – we were privy to – inside – a sickness of the person whose home was emitting hoarding frequencies.
THIS is how i feel about this country now. we are walking – all of us – inside the administration’s sickness. there are few places to breathe, few ways to sit down outside of the enveloping dismal cloud of narcissism and revenge and selfish cruelty. there is little calm; instead, chaos reigns.
is this what authoritarianism feels like? is this what an autocracy feels like? is this what fascism feels like?
they are hoarding away our country, with little access to its democracy, its freedoms, its decency, its humanity.
we need the junkman to come and clean it all out – toting enough dumpsters for all their project agenda – a nation-sized mr.clean to wipe it all down, trash the filthy intentions, clear a path with space and air and possibility.
we need recognize this for what it is – truly – and we need to transcend the sickness. or breathing will become impossible.
truth seems to have taken a leave of absence from this country, no longer useful or appropriate or agenda-aiding for the current administration. instead, we – as a populace – are being fed smarmy falsehoods and all manner of fabricated bull in the name of “truth”.
the ability to manipulate any story, any image, any narrative, any situation, any anything is on the exponential rise. it is hard to discern what is real and what isn’t, what communication we receive or read is real and what isn’t, what images we see are real and what aren’t.
which makes it ever more important to delve into something before jumping whole-hog into believing it.
case in point – the biggest inaugural crowd.
case in point – everything re covid, including bleach and this: “just stay calm. it will go away.”
case in point – winning the 2020 election.
case in point – the peace-loving tourists in the capitol on january 6.
case in point – “they’re eating the dogs. they’re eating the cats.”
and on and on and on and on and on, ad nauseam.
despicable.
and that’s all old news, old old news, old old old news. nothing like the news of the day: stuff made up to validate chaotic, cruel moves by the administration to accomplish hellish corruption.
the ease in which they manipulate you, your hook-line-and-sinker dedication is their frenzied rapture. truly. (it is ridiculously hard not to use bluntly profane language to make this point.)
if you are believing – without bothering to check – what this prez and his team o’ teams are spewing, you are as wrapped up in his sickness as he is. delusion is a powerful contagion and a profound addiction.
like i said, i hardly know where to start.
be a good citizen. look it all up. double-check. have a conscience. save the democracy.
i read through the lyrics of the star spangled banner, america the beautiful, my country ’tis of thee. i read the words on the statue of liberty. and i read the pledge of allegiance:
“i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america. and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, with liberty and justice for all.”
this administration is peeling back the layers of democracy. as the nucleus of this republic – in dead center – stands naked and utterly vulnerable – we continually wonder if this absolute and vile destruction is what you wanted.
if it is, this is no longer your pledge.
because – republic (noun): a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch. (oxford)
because – republic: a form of government where power is held by the people, either directly or through elected representatives…a system where the citizens hold the ultimate authority…the government is expected to serve the interests of all citizens. (AI)
and then i re-read the declaration of independence, stunned by the sheer number of current parallels written into this noble historic document. and these words: “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, serving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
nevertheless, it is getting darker and darker here.
and so i whisper the lyrics of irving berlin as a prayer: “god bless america, land that i love. stand beside her and guide her through the night with the light from above.” (irving berlin, 1918)
reverse threading 