amnesis
This is what there is at this late Tuesday morning moment as we watch and wait for the Weather People to keep their promise of a storm. Some folks love storms, I always have except that my love of watching summer lightning storms come in off the Gulf of Mexico turned to fearful anxiety when Joseph was struck.
Hurricane Michael of course, two years and counting.
And, this would have been seventy-five years ago - - out on the Cove School playground one day as we boys gathered and talked about a hurricane that was threatening - - long years before weather radar and OR gaming and nobody knew for sure what weather might do - - we spoke with some dread that it might hit us - - but one boy, who was here because his father was stationed at Tyndall, spoke out that he hated Panama City and "I hope the hurricane hits here and wipes Panama City off the map" so he didn't "have to live here any longer" - - and my shock and instant feeling of vehement hatred toward him. It would have been, what? maybe I was ten? fifth grade? IDK. But it's hiding somewhere in my mind as one of my storm stories. I have no memory of his name, or his face, or whether he was in our class the year before or the next year. I do remember that the hurricane gave us a miss except for windy, rainy weather.
The news, news comes to me online, so I read it on my computer screen more than watching it on TV. Impeachment trial? Justice in America has become more political positioning than anything about integrity. We have three branches of government, supposed to be independent, and the judiciary seems to be holding their distance even when the Executive thought it owned them; but it's sickening to watch the Executive bully the Legislative and Congress take it, fearfully kowtow to the Executive lest their electorate vote them out in the next election. Sense of dread, that I've lived into the republic's best and most promising time, only now to watch it begin to disintegrate, deliberately torn down by evil and dishonor.
Why?
IDK, but it includes those who are at the bottom of the "INs" barrel sensing that "INs" are rapidly being displaced by "OUTs", and that as that happens they will find themselves at the bottom of everything and powerless. So use power, force, to stop the shift. It's Fear, eager to hear and believe lies, manifesting violently as hatred. Most of them are certitudinous Christians of a specific cast and ilk. Worse, worst, it's human nature at its most evil, wicked, dangerous, despicable: predictable, historic, inevitable.
Anyone who dismisses it as a passing phase is a fool. In the century of my lifetime, it happened in Germany starting from before 1933 to 1945, wearing brown shirts, then black uniforms, bullying everyone in their way, murdering everyone they decided to hate. A memorable motto after we defeated them then was "Lest we forget". We have forgotten. And I don't visualize anamnesis.
As a national narcissistic character disorder, evil is incredibly blind to itself.
What to do, how to stop or delay or redirect it? Does the End justify the Means? How to respond without also becoming unspeakable? How to redirect without atrocities that would only deepen our national shame?
T