Thursday, December 22, 2016

You couldn't live with yourself if you didn't at least try



A friend sent that to me in a facebook message today. It's a conclusion I had come to since the election.

I had reached a point in life where I felt I have been fighting something or other forever and where I am tired. It was like in Fellini's movie, "The Clowns." His camera crews traveled around Europe contacting and interviewing all the famous clowns from European circuses. As an aside if you watched carefully you would see the crews pull off some of the great clown tricks. There is a scene where they pull up to an address in a small car and before you realize it, 20 people have come out of the car carrying all manner of movie-making equipment. But the point of telling this is the last scene
in the movie where Fellini staged a grand circus parade under the big top. But as the elephants and the acrobats march around the tent, we notice three of the clowns sitting on the ring itself. Asked why they are not in the parade one of them says, "not any more, I am just too tired."

I could take that as a reason not to fight or like Chief Joseph of the Nez Perse said after defeating the U.S. Cavalry and then trying to lead his people into Canada, "I will fight no more forever."

In the Fifties, believe it or not, we objected to complacency, not a big fight, but still. In the Sixties came the Vietnam War and civil rights, and for a bit more spice, women's liberation. After that came the whole environmental movement. By the Eighties  I was driving a boat in Alaska waters and seemed to be far from the battles. About then SeaWorld came to Alaska to capture our whales and then Exxon spilled oil all over our ocean and shores. Those took care of the Eighties, Nineties and 00s.

After that I put in a sitnt at a newspaper and that's a place you are constantly exposed to the world's battles, all of them, on a daily basis. Choose your medicine. It never goes away.

Some time after that I thought I could enjoy retirement as I felt I had reached a point where I could say I did what I could and now when I was tired and would fight no more forever.

Then came the 2016 election. I was one of those naive persons who could not envision Trump winnning. I might as well have been punched in the stomach when he did. And even since, every time I think of it I react physically. On top of that there are those people who now have a majority in both houses of Congress who want to cut Social Security and Medicare. I depend on both of these and would be pretty much reduced to poverty if they succeed. I am outraged. I have been paying into Social Security for more than 50 years and now they want to take it away from me because they hate  Franklin Roosevelt.

I stewed over it for some time until I realized that's not going to help. Also I can't just write about it. If I am not going to sit by passively and let it happen to me I have to do something. But what? A blog post doesn't do much, after all most of the people who read my blog agree with me. So, I made a start. I sent a serious email to all three of Alaska's representatives (all in-line Republicans) in which I pointed out that 83,000 Alaskans receive Social Security benefits, most of them retired people. That was a start.

The missing senator wrote back first. What I got was a condescending (it might as well have started out "Dear Stupid) note explaining what the GOP says is wrong with Social Security. Our other senator said she was examining the issue. I never heard back from our only U.S. Representative, but then he says he only represents those who voted for him.

So, that was a start. Obviously more needs doing and fast. At the moment I am in the deep woods, a good place to devise a plan. Unfortunately I am stranded by a broken-down, brand-new snowmachine so I have a lot to contemplate, but I am thinking through what I can do in the fight to keep the benefits we've earned. I guess I will fight at least once more forever. So thanks, Shelley, for the kick in the pants. I just hope it doesn't kill me.

A COUPLE OF COMENTS FROM FACEBOOK
10-4. my sentiments exactly. retired. moved back to the woods to live on a very small income but lots of time to do art, meditate, walk in the woods and smell the roses. also thought no way in hell america would elect an utterly incompetent, psychotically narcissistic baboon. but we were wrong and now we have to fight again and again until we die in the trenches. this time the battlefront is so multifacetd it's overwhelming: social security, economic freedom for lower and middle classes, racial
and LGBQT rights, women's rights, environmental survival. .... anon.... there is no moral or just cause this satan-spawn isn't attacking. my experience w Dan Sullivans office to phone calls is the same----yawn. who cares about what you peasants think? and Young, of course , is like Trump---- he feels
he was divinely anointed and overtly hostile to constituent opinion. i will continue to call them, donate $ where i can, and just be the squeaky wheel. anything else that occurs to me is illegal. mostly i plan to just live long enough see these jack-offs in their graves after they have destroyed everything – GRETCHEN SMALL

Gretchen Small that matters except what is inside my soul. like Gandhi. "i will not obey. you can kill
me but then all you have is another dead body. you still will not have my obedience."

Former congressional staffers tell how best to influence members of Congress.

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1 comment:

  1. HelenDecember 23, 2016 at 1:42 AM

    When the election results were announced I went into a kind of disbelieving withdrawal, watching the daily horrors unfolding before us and trying to understand what happened. I still don't understand it, but I can no longer just sit and watch the unraveling. I'm not sure what finally set me off, but if you look at my Facebook posts of the last week you'll find some pretty interesting posts and comments. Hundreds of them. As a writer, I believe in the power of words, and I have seen what they can achieve when put together right.

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Memorable quotations

The best way to know you are having an adventure is when you wish you were home talking about it." — a mechanic on the Alaska State Ferry System. Or as in my own case planning how I will be writing it on this blog.

"You can't promote principled anti-corruption without pissing off corrupt people." — George Kent

"If only the British had held on to the airports, the whole thing might have gone differently for us." — Mick Jagger

"You can do anything as long as you don't scare the horses." — a mother's favorite saying recalled by a friend

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“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” — Ernest Hemingway

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.― Kurt Vonnegut

“If you wrote something for which someone sent you a cheque, if you cashed the cheque and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”―Stephen King

The thing about ignorance is, you don't have to remain ignorant. — me again"

"It was like the aftermath of an orgasm with the wrong partner." – David Lagercrants “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.”

Why worry about dying, you aren't going to live to regret it.

Never debate with someone who gets ink by the barrel" — George Hayes, former Alaska Attorney General who died recently

My dear Mr. Frost: two roads never diverge in a yellow wood. Three roads meet there. — @Shakespeare on Twitter

Normal is how somebody else thinks you should act.

"The mark of a great shiphandler is never getting into situations that require great shiphandling," Adm. Ernest King, USN

Me: Does the restaurant have cute waitresses?

My friend Gail: All waitresses are cute when you're hungry.

I'm not a writer, but sometimes I push around words to see what happens. – Scott Berry

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Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stared at walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing. – Meg Chittenden

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. – Franz Kafka

We are all immortal until the one day we are not. – me again

If the muse is late, start without her – Peter S. Beagle

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain Actually you could do the same thing with the word "really" as in "really cold."

If you are looking for an experience that will temper your vanity, this is it. There's no one to impress when you're alone on the trap line. – Michael Carey quoting his father's journal

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. – Benjamin Franklin

It’s nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums of money to get rid of. – Shirley Hazzard

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence -- Bertrand Russell

You know that I always just wanted to have a small ship to take stuff from a place that had a lot of that stuff to a place that did not have a lot of that stuff and so prosper.—Jackie Faber, “The Wake of the Lorelei Lee”

If you attack the arguer instead of the argument, you lose both

If an insurance company won’t pay for damages caused by an “act of God,” shouldn’t it then have to prove the existence of God? – I said that

I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. – Eugene O’Neill

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Swiss General: “Well, I suppose every one of my soldiers would need to fire twice.”

Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.—Gloria Steinem

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One thing I do know, if you keep at it, you usually wind up getting something done.—Patricia Monaghan

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It is a very simple mind that only knows how to spell a word one way.—Andrew Jackson

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