On the Other Coast and Still Frightened by What I Saw

I had lunch with a friend the other day. That's not unusual. We talked about the state of the nation. That's not unusual either.

What surprised me about this strong and involved woman was to hear her say that she was too exhausted by the rolling plethora of worst-case-scenarios that have afflicted the nation to keep fighting in the Indivisibles group. She said she was still furious but that she couldn't talk about it any more.

Then she proceeded to talk in detail about it for another half hour. She knew more than I did about what was going on and the implications.

I would tell you her insights about the EPA and the loss of safety regulations, but I'm not actually that good at listening and I don't retain information well. I should take notes when I talk to this intelligent woman. If she knows it and I can write it, we could make a pretty good team, you know? Get my friend the lawyer involved and we could move the nation in a positive direction. But I didn't take notes so I remember that she said something that was particularly relevant to continued life on Earth but I can't remember what it was. Maybe it was something about bleaching the coral reefs and how it will affect our food supplies. Maybe it was about the cycle of life and if you kill all the stinging insects, then bees are gone and we're going to die from lack of fruit and vegetables.

I hate my brain.

We also talked about guns. That part, I remember.

We both decided that we didn't want to go to the grocery store and walk past armed men who's political opinions differed wildly from ours. (I told her about my close encounter with the red-truck-tattered-flag man.) She basically said that when a group of armed people are loose in the streets, it's a vigilante and no one is safe, especially people who want to speak out on the other side of a political discussion.

And she also said, "Think about it. If a group of armed black men in paramilitary clothing showed up in a town, any town in this country, or a group of Muslims, that group of armed men would be shot dead on the spot. When a bunch of white men do it, it's okay even though it scared the shit out of a who lot of people."

It scared the shit out of me and I was sitting in my living room, 2804 miles away, watching it on TV.

Thank you for listening, jules

A Few Questions for Eugene Robinson About Outrage Fatigue

Eugene Robinson says we can't afford to get 'outrage fatigue.' He's right. I know he's so right. We can't afford to let up. There are the problems with healthcare of millions of vulnerable people, the Muslim ban, immigration, climate change, the EPA, the status of science, the National Parks, and at the core, the status of our Constitution.

But Mr. Robinson, some of us have teenage boys we struggle to raise. Where do we stand on the importance of being present during episodes within our families? Some of us have practically suspended work on the books we were writing at the time of the election. Where do we stand on making our living, on achieving our own goals? What about the weeds, the incomplete deck, the painting that needs to be done? Where do we stand on the battle to keep our homes safe and comfortable? What about Boy Scouts, church, and the children who need to be tutored? Do we stop supporting those people within the community because we're busy flailing our heads against brick walls in protest against a narcissistic liar who funnels our tax dollars into his own profits and encourages dictators to take over our country's elections?

What good are any of our protests doing? Do our petitions accomplish anything except a clearer route to advertising to us? What about sending those faxes that might not actually print? Should we march in more futile marches, call more reluctant representatives, write more unsolicited the letters to the editor?

That's really the issue, Mr. Robinson. Of course we want to remain present within our new political diorama. It requires our presence, daily attention to damage in so many areas of the government, daily attention to our crumbling freedoms.

Some of us have to worry about coming and going in our own country, the Muslim ban, the overreach of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. We may have to worry if financial corporations are telling us the truth or just making a profit on the backs of our retirement accounts. We have to worry if our property will be seized without due process. We have to worry that our water, our air, the very ground we live on is going to be polluted by indiscriminate corporate greed. We can't depend on maintaining a free press when the press isn't even allowed access to the Executive Branch. We can't depend on being told the truth even where it can be verified by photos of thin crowds and video of the man saying the opposite of what his staff is claiming now. We can not depend on our Republican majority leaders in Congress to hold the Executive Branch to any moral or patriotic standards. We can't even hold onto our Director of the Office of Government Ethics.

So yeah, we have a lot to do to stay abreast of in our new political reality show. We can't just protest collusion with the Russians, which is enough all by itself. It's a three-ring circus act. We have to protest every part of the Federal government that is being eliminated, supplanted, or abused. It is absolutely exhausting.

And that deck is not going to rebuild itself. Then again, neither is our government.

Thank you for listening, jules