Redtree Times

Carry the Blue Flag— At the West End Gallery

I can’t run no more
With that lawless crowd
While the killers in high places
Say their prayers out loud
But they’ve summoned, they’ve summoned up
A thundercloud
They’re going to hear from me

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in

–Leonard Cohen, Anthem

Storm clouds came across and a thunderbolt rocked the Plains last night.

One word: Kansas.

I am not going to say anymore, not going to explain. But I will add, as in the lines from Leonard Cohen, there are cracks appearing and light is beginning to come through.

Kansas, of all places, gives me hope for the future. It makes me believe that people are finally recognizing the fragility of this democracy and are capable of standing in large number against the threat and treachery of minority-rule authoritarianism.

I sometimes think we have become too distracted and complacent, too docile in trusting that things will just naturally work out without our attention and effort.

However, it doesn’t work that way. Our history is one of an almost constant battle to gain and maintain basic rights and freedoms for all. The events and potentials which we face now may exceed those fevered battles of the past because all of the prior victories are at risk again. and could be quickly lost.

Kansas gives me hope that victory is possible.

It is a distinct moment in our history so please embrace it.

Look for the light and relish the fight.

As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of another such time:

If there is any period one would desire to be born in, ⎯ is it not the age of Revolution; when the old and the new stand side by side, and admit of being compared; when the energies of all men are searched by fear and by hope; when the historic glories of the old, can be compensated by the rich possibilities of the new era? This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

Here’s Leonard Cohen and his classic Anthem.