Trees are Leafing Outside My Window

As stuck as I feel, I have only to look out the window to see that nature and life are plugging right along, COVID-19 or no COVID-19. The trees in my back yard are leafing out and there are daffodils in a corner of our yard where a squirrel planted them.

 

And I see, by way of the Internet and social media, that the planet is recovering and wildlife is thriving, returning to places where they haven’t felt safe for decades.

 

So there is a silver lining for us in all of this. We have proof that we can save this planet if we stop acting like we’re the only ones who matter on it.

 

Every creature is a who. Every tree and mineral is a plus. We aren’t the only being who needs rescuing, but we are the only beings who can do what it will take to rescue us.

 

That’s good news and bad news.  And we see the tug-of-war over who values what at a time like this, in ways we rarely get to witness during calmer/busier/workaday times.

 

Paradigm Shift

 

We see the so-called “pro-life”/”family values”/”far right”, self-proclaimed Christians calling to open up churches and beaches and businesses again even as scientists, doctors, nurses and other people on the front lines are telling a completely different story, a story about too many dead people to bury or keep in refrigerator trucks, and about trying to keep as many people isolated and safe as possible so they can do their best to save the many who are now infected and fighting to survive in hospitals.

 

I sit here and just shake my head, wondering when people are going to wake the hell up and see what has actually become of the Grand Old Party and, to a lesser extent, the corporate powers that be in the so-called Democratic Party, the self-proclaimed Party of the People.

 

On the GOP side, the rich “representatives” in ivory towers are saying that essential workers are expendable–that they don’t need enough money to survive without holding down multiple jobs with no benefits or perks, or enough PPE to stay safe… and besides, most of them are people of color, or poor, or in some other way not part of the “elect few,” so they aren’t entitled to anything more than the dimes on the dollar that the GOP decides to leave on their plates after they’ve claimed the lion’s share of the stimulus money that was intended to help small businesses and struggling families.

 

https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=224041712218423&notif_id=1587941098950990&notif_t=live_video

 

On the DEM side, we have weak-kneed “compromise pros” who say they have to get what they can because the GOP is in power until at least January 2021, and you can’t fight City Hall.

 

If that’s the case, then why are they even there, if they don’t think they can hold their own against the greedy, compromised bastards and sons-of-bitches on the other side?

 

I’m so tired of seeing limp-wristed (no offense intended to gay folks) “gentlemen” and “gentlewomen” promising something better tomorrow as long as we vote for them.

 

We DID vote, and it got us (for the most part) compromised (corporation-obligated) representatives, most of whom are rich (or became that way after getting elected) and haven’t a blue clue about what it’s like to be anything less than well off. (If they ever did, they have long since forgotten it, as so many rich people tend to do. It’s lovely to be able to forget the pain of struggle, so most of them promptly do that.)

 

I’d like to see some fire in DEM’s eyes, like the fire I’ve seen in Bernie Sanders’ and Elizabeth Warrens’ and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s eyes.

 

I want to see someone standing up to the pilfering that’s happening at the top with every stimulus package that passes (and everywhere else every time money gets spent in D.C.). Watching rich GOP and DEM agents skim off the top and almost down to the dregs every damn time pisses me off.

 

Mitch McConnell is every bit as depraved and greedy and evil as Donald Trump is. They’re two of a kind. They know their days are coming to an end and they don’t think they have enough money yet. (They have plenty for two traitors who should spend the rest of their days in jail cells for violating their oaths of office and throwing monkey wrenches into the wheels of a government that is purportedly “of, by and for the people.”)

 

So, the trees outside are growing and greening and here we sit, cogitating on what we need to do next to be sure we come out of this period in our history with a better understanding of what it means to be human, humane and completely, utterly wide awake. It takes an alert, activist peoples to make sure we don’t go back to business as usual when this is all over.

 

Business as usual got us COVID-19, Donald Trump and a government that thumbs its nose at we the people and the planet we live on.  That way lies death.

 

And if that’s the way it’s going to be–if we decide to do nothing about it–I say, let’s just get it over with. The planet will survive and recover without people on it a lot faster than it will with people on it. And if we aren’t, after all the proclamations and self-congratulations,  a better species than we’ve been behaving like, we don’t deserve to live.

 

Any being with our power has a responsibility to serve,

not to subjugate and slaughter.