My parents, my nation

A curiously symbolic day.

Today, I closed down the two remaining bank accounts that had been in my parents’ name. There wasn’t much in them, actually. We had transferred the bulk of the funds long before. But we had to keep those accounts open to deal with a few outstanding expenses, and a few incoming checks, that were in their names.

I realized that...well, this is hard to explain...but somehow, it was the final act for them. It was the last of their business. It was the moment that they were genuinely gone. They exist no longer now even as a legal fiction...as names on pre-printed checks.

It makes me sad, of course. Though, also, it is fitting, for they were of the “greatest generation.” They were not old enough to fight in World War II, but they participated in it on the home front. And, afterwards, my father served on shipboard during the Korean conflict. Then, both of them were involved in that great labor which made America the wealthiest nation in the world.

And now they’re gone.

Gone on the very same day the Electoral College confirmed Donald Trump in his presidency. Gone, indeed, on the same day that Liberalism died in America, and the New  Deal was finally euthanized by billionaires and plutocrats. Gone on the day that so many of the things which they valued and fought for...came to an end.

And I think it is in fact an end. A transition. Today, we ended our great experiment with the Enlightenment tradition. Perhaps, forever. Or, if we are lucky, then maybe we, as a culture and a nation, may some day return to democracy, and reason, and science, and compassion. But I very much fear it will not be as the same nation we were before...not the United States we knew.

And I fear, too, that that future nation, that coming America, whatever it is called, ...will not be quite so great nor entirely so wise as the one constructed by people like my parents...built by their labors...and then abandoned with such ease and eagerness...by  those who are truly, and fundamentally unworthy...

To be their heirs.

In memoriam...Mom and Dad.

Nancy Pelosi...if only you were joking

Okay, is it just me, or is this really scary?

Apparently, newly returned House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was on Face The Nation the other day. And, also apparently, she indicated that she saw no reason for the Democratic Party to do anything differently. She is quoted, at least in the transcript, as saying, “Well, I don’t think that people want a new direction.”

In a word, whoa.

We are sitting here after one of the greatest defeats in our history as a party and a movement, with an out-and-out fascist about to take over the government, with a solidly red House and Senate, with a Supreme Court that is certain to be packed with hyperconservative fanatics...and she doesn’t feel some sense of urgency? Some sense of a need for change?

And, about those people who “don’t want a new direction.” She says this after millions of voters supported Bernie Sanders. Voters who are still fuming about what they saw as a rigged primary? She doesn’t include such people in her calculations? She chooses to ignore them? So, she saying, in other words, that those “people who don’t want a new direction,” are the people she knows, and who therefore matter.  The rest of us...we don’t.

I am at a loss to explain this remarkable, almost chilling quote of hers. But a friend of mine, Rick, may have come up with the proper interpretation of her position. I posted an article about Pelosi’s quote to Facebook with the despairing comment, “Oh, F*cking H*ll.” And Rick replied with something sage. He quoted Harry Reid, a man of considerable wisdom, and then noted that Pelosi, and the scores of DNC mandarins like her, have no particular reason to want change...or to see or hear those who do.

After all, Rick went on, they... Pelosi and her tribe...will not lose their jobs. They will not lose their health care. They will be warm in winter and air conditioned in summer. They will remain members of the American power elite. Even under Trump.

And so, he concluded, they really don’t have much motivation to do anything different. Or even, particularly, to oppose Trump.

Is my friend right? Well, it would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?

Which is a terrifying thing, indeed.

The Professor Who Wasn’t There

 A brief meditation on a professor who really wasn't there at all.

https://vimeo.com/169623455

My videos

So I haven't been here in a while. Just haven't had the time.

But...I guess I should start up again. Over the new few days, I'll be posting links to all my most recent video experiments.

Stay tuned :-)