Redtree Times

Well, it’s been a crazy week, hasn’t it?

I wrote a whole post the other day but decided against putting it out there.  What good would it do?  Even though I’ve been avoiding the news and political talk shows, there were already too many words out there online and on the airwaves.  People were just babbling– trying to figure out how this happened, why it happened, who to blame and what was coming next.  Even where to march in the streets or where to run and hide.  It has been practically a Tower of Babel and it has turned into a drone that is incomprehensible to most of us, with little meaningful communication being made.

In the past few days, I’ve calmed a bit.  Oh, I am still angry at the sheer absurdity of the whole thing.  I am still angry at an electoral system that allows one candidate receiving almost 2 million votes more in the popular vote than her opponent, as the future final outcome is now being estimated, to somehow lose.  2 million votes,  That is like saying to someone in a state like South Carolina or Oregon that your vote doesn’t matter.  It is that many votes being disenfranchised.

I’m less angry at the Trump voters.  It’s not like they came out in droves as the press initially indicated.  Mitt Romney had more votes than Trump in 2012.  I still am a little incredulous that they bought what he was selling, considering that two years ago he embodied everything most of them hated– a smug, privileged, big city, big shot who bragged about the college that attended and only flew over the heartland in his jets on his way to his private enclaves.  Why they believed that he is somehow going to bring back coal mining and steel factories is beyond me.  Given his background and  his past performances, how they came to see him as the savior of blue collar jobs is beyond my feeble brain.

I am most angry at the Democrats who just sat this one out when it was an election that was easily within reach and had so much importance in the direction of our country.  All of the gains achieved over the past few decades in equal rights for all, environmental issues (clean air, clean water and climate change), renewable energy and energy independence, women’s rights, universal healthcare and in so many other issues are definitely in peril.  Not to mention Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press.

And based on the people (many lobbyists and far right ideologues, by the way) that have been put forward as possible players in this administration, it seems like a credible threat.  Regaining those things that may be lost will take a huge effort, a lot more than it would have taken to protect them my simply voting.  All the Dems had to do was show up and this could have been avoided.

But while I still somehow believe there is still a chapter in this story not yet revealed, that  there will be a plot twist in the next few months that will shock us all,  we have what we have.  I hope for the best and pray that my fears are completely unfounded.  I hope that Trump somehow transforms the reckless, hateful candidate into a president that represents all of us, including the 62 million who voted for his opponent.

To the 60 million or so Trump voters, including the some 20% of you who voted for him even though you believed him to be temperamentally unfit to be president, I say, “Congratulations.”  He has a lot of promises to answer for and I urge you to hold him to them.  And he should be able to move quickly now that he has a GOP House and Senate to back his every move.

No excuses now.  It’s yours and Trump’s baby now.  Let’s see some results pronto!

But a reminder: those of us who didn’t vote for him hold you responsible for his actions.  You have more or less a co-signor on a loan with Trump.  If he defaults, you will be asked to pay for it.  And if you know his background, get ready to open your pocketbooks.

And to the 90 or 100  million of you who didn’t vote: get your head out of your ass and get into the game.  You might think it doesn’t affect you but it actually reaches deeply into many aspects of your world.  Participate.  Don’t let someone else set the course on your journey.  Vote, for chrissakes.

Okay, enough of that.  For today’s Sunday Morning music I was going to, since I consider myself a great fan of his music, play a Leonard Cohen song in honor of his passing this week.  But I thought instead I would play something that might seem curious to some.  It’s the garage band classic 96 Tears from ? and the Mysterians.  You might think it references the tears shed this week from the Dems but that’s not the case.  It’s actually a break-up song that is about exacting a little future revenge, about turning the tables on the one who hurt you.  Making them feel the same pain you felt.

This is a neat version with the lyrics from the band.  So, for all you folks out there struggling to come to terms with this election, sick of hearing the gloating from GOP trolls and pundits, keep this song in your heads.  Let it be your mantra moving forward.

Hey, try to have good day.  Seriously.

 

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There’s a nice review by Karen Rene Merkle of my current show, Part of the Plan,  at the Kada Gallery in today’s Erie Times.

You can read it online by clicking here.

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It is wet and a deep, dull gray outside my studio window this morning.  Dismal.

Much like it is inside.

I am at once distraught and angry.   It makes me question everything I knew to be true about this country.

I am at a loss inside that words will not sooth this morning.  It would be foolhardy to try at this point.

I am going to take a hiatus from the blog to think things over.  Radio silence.

Good luck to us all…

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This is a photo that I came across online a few years back.  It is a shot of my grandmother, Frances Perry (Myers), from her yearbook at Potsdam Normal in 1918.  It would still be  two years before she could cast a vote in this country for any office.

The line written about her in that yearbook was that she was “the girl who always breaks the rules.”  I liked that.  It confirmed my belief that she was smart and tough.  A few years later she married my grandfather, a tough ex-pro wrestler/vaudeville stage manager, who was also a Democratic ward captain in the city of Elmira.  He was tasked with getting out the vote for the party in his neighborhoods.

They were big influences on my siblings and me.  Their son, my father, carries parts of both of them with him and in recent years he has been heard to say that he wanted to live long enough to see Hillary Clinton elected President of the United States.  My dad is not a touchy-feely, liberal feminist kind of guy.  He just thinks she is smart and tough.

So today with their blood in my veins, I will be casting my vote for Hillary Clinton.  I am pretty sure they would all be pleased and that later this evening my dad sees his wish fulfilled– that a smart and tough lady takes over the reins on this nation.

Get out and vote.

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My thought is that for just this year, instead of turning our clocks back an hour  for Daylight Savings tonight, we all move our clocks ahead by 96 hours.

See you Wednesday morning!

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Believe me, this presidential race is not a fight I want to climb into.  It’s not one that leaves any of us feeling better and none of our minds will be swayed at this point by anything said by someone on the other side.

But I have to say my piece because I want to be able to say in the future that I tried, that maybe I swayed one mind or got one person to shake their complacency and vote.  So let me make my case:

In Central New York the landscape above the Finger Lakes between Syracuse and Rochester is a flat glacial plain with broad fields and not a hill in sight.  But around Seneca Falls there is one large green hill that has grown over the years to a point that you can’t miss it as you approach from the south.

It is a huge landfill.  A mountain of garbage standing tall amidst the flatness of the fields around it.

At first , the idea of it drove me crazy.  It seemed intolerable that this mound of rubbish dominated the view in this area.  But as time went by, this now grass covered hillock became normal, part of the place.

But inside it is still a pile of garbage.

That hill is Donald Trump.

This is a man who has so many faults, so many deficiencies, so many negative features that he has shown us over the past several decades that to stack them all would create a mighty mountain.  Any one or two of his flaws would easily disqualify any normal candidate but his lies, his misrepresentations, his misdeeds are so prodigious that as they pile up before us we become inured to the sheer number of them. You can’t keep up with the all the truckloads of his crap being dumped on the heap.

After the past 18 months of campaigning, he and his awful behavior have somehow become acceptable in our eyes.

Normalized.

He has normalized racism with his dog-whistle overtures to the white nationalists and organized racists who support him.  He has normalized anti-intellectualism with his constant trashing of the press and scientific norms.  He has normalized a lack of faith in our government with a constant stream of conspiracies.  He has normalized bullying, the idea that opposing views are not to be tolerated but shamed, humiliated and crushed.  He has normalized the idea that nuclear weapons are there to be used and that he, an intellectually lazy real estate guy, has something to teach our generals and military strategists.

He has normalized the idea of prosecuting your political opponents. He has normalized fear and the threat of violence as a motivating force.  He has normalized division among the races, religions and ethnicities of this country. He has normalized incivility among everyone.  He has normalized empty boasting, outright lying and the coarsening of our discourse.

He has normalized the acceptance of a man with 75 pending lawsuits including one for racketeering and one potentially for child-rape as as the next possible symbolic figurehead for our nation.

He has normalized the me-first mindset.

There is so much more crap in this heap that I could point out.  But what it comes down to is that before a single vote has been counted, whether he wins or loses, he has damaged our democracy.

You wanted change?  Be careful what you wish for…

If he wins, this is the new normal– a man/baby with the emotional maturity of a 16-year old lashing out at every perceived slight or threat as he deflects all blame to everyone but himself for anything that will go wrong.  And believe me –sorry for using one of his catchphrases– things will go wrong.  They always do.  That is the way of the world and reacting to those problems is part of being the leader of an entire nation.  The president’s reaction sets the tone for our response as a nation.

And even if all the ridiculous claims leveled against Hillary Clinton were improbably proved true, her pile of trash would still be but a tiny knoll next to Trump’s Everest of lies, brags and cons.

You might get used to that mountain of garbage.  But I know that no amount of grass (or gold-plating) will hide the fact that it is made of stinking trash.

Okay, I had my say.  Vote how you will but vote.

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