Decapitation
Why “Decapitation” as a title? See end. A dew days ago I responded to someone else’s post as follows: “Outstanding. Now if we all can really believe that we are the ones who will make the difference, one person, one action at a time“. Barbara K, responded to my response: “Richard, I have posted this Marge Piercy poem here a couple of times, but seems fitting to do so again…thinking of “one person, one action at a time”: The Low Road“. It’s worth your time…
Other recent and related posts: 3/6 Aftermath; 3/7 Garrison Keillor; 3/11 Dept of Education; 3/13 Social Security; 3/15 Acquiesce
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Today is St, Patrick’s Day. Five years ago today, a friend and I were going to meet for breakfast, but the restaurant was unexpectedly closed. I wrote a bit about it a few days ago in an update to the March 6 post, “Aftermath”. Here’s what I said:
UPDATE March 9, 2025: Five years ago, mid-March, 2020, my ‘world’ changed: I think it was March 18, 2020, that public functions in Minnesota closed by state order. (I had planned to meet a friend for breakfast on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, but the restaurant closed early, and unexpectedly, the previous day.) As any of us around at that time in history know, mid-February to mid-March, 2020, was the time of reckoning about Covid-19, for even the most skeptical. Death was loose among us. It wasn’t until more than a year later, about May, 2021, that there was some confidence that we were past the worst of the pandemic and life slowly returned to normal.
[emphasis added] This morning, March 9, 2025, I feel the same as I felt in mid-February, 2020. Something ominous seems to be on the horizon, and slowly but surely the warning signals are being sent. Will we listen, is the question I have. Are we facing a self-imposed political and financial pandemic which will claim lots of victims? I don’t know, neither do you, but I’m certainly paying attention.
Below is an opportunity to consider what we’re facing at this moment in our history.
Yesterday, a good friend of long-standing, a retired Professor, forwarded a post that came her way from Facebook about what I would call the “Musk faction” presently dominating the American government conversation.
The ‘meat’ of the post, begins at the paragraph which begins “Finally…”. I have made it more easily readable in pdf form: Follow the Money Feb 9 2025. I urge you to read this. Make up your own mind. Of course, your comments public or private are welcome.
(If you have a Facebook account the entire post from Feb 9, 2025 – one month ago – is likely still accessible here.)
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Of course, all of our routines changed about March 17, 202o, and for a long period of time after. Everyone has his or her own memories of the impacts of that awful time period which ultimately took over 1,000,000 lives and scarred us in assorted ways forever.
Today, March 17, 2025, I plan to have breakfast with the same friend at the same restaurant, five years later. The hi-lited paragraph, above, will be on my mind as it has been for some time already, and will continue to be on my mind, by my count 56 days into “the first 100 days” of what is turning out to be the attempted reign of King Donald the First….
I headline this post Decapitation for a specific reason: The obvious intention, it seems to me, is for the Donald Cabal to behead the beast they fallaciously call “the Deep State”, which is everyone of us, and in so doing assume control of the enterprise (which will suddenly become a paradise built in their own image).
The best definition I’ve seen of what we are all facing today was shared with me by a former adversary, then colleague, in 1987. It was a collection of tactics he had learned in a 1974 organizing workshop in Michigan. Here it is, from his notes: “P.R. everything. – disrupt – confuse – challenge – display anger.” There were more similar notes, in all on one side of a single sheet of paper, The rest are here, if you wish: AFT Organizing Tactics001. (Don’t get lost in the terminology. This was about bargaining elections pitting one teachers union against another. The two competing organizations merged in 1998 and are now known as Education Minnesota.)
I learned of these tactics 13 years after they were used against us. Then, we saved our scalp by a “Hail Mary”. We decided to go on the offense, rather than chase the bouncing ball of one charge after another. In the end, we won a large election easily, but we were nervous till the votes were counted.
The solution today, it seems to me, is for us to exercise the immense power that we have – the 75 million of us who didn’t want the present alternative. We are, after all, the body which the opposition is trying to kill. We have a huge amount of unrealized potential, which only we, as individuals, can unleash, one action at a time. The ball is in our court. Period.
Have a good St. Patrick’s Day and go to work for a great future.
About as close as I can get to a Shamrock for St. Pat’s from the Busch farm early 1900s collection.
We are all a bit nervous about what President Musk and his sidekick, the insecure and narcissistic five time draft dodger who would be king, donnee, will be doing as they continue their already underway effort to destroy democracy and the rule of law.
We all have moments locked into our memories — shared experiences with everyone. Like an avalanche, never stopping until it runs its course. Thank God for advancements in medical science; e.g., MRNA and vaccines that greatly slowed the spread of Covid19. How will the next global pandemic be addressed? Not looking good with the current anti-science MAGA crowd in charge. Recall 25 years ago in May 1970, another memory locked in my memory: Kent State anti-war Vietnam protests resulting in four students being shot dead by the National Guard. Will we turn a blind eye to blatant disregard for free speech protests on college campuses today? Stand UP! “One person, one action at a time.”
I read…Follow the Money and cried. What can WE the PEOPLE DO? The author left us with no strategies to regain our democratic constitutional government….damn it, you write this and leave us no hope…!
I have just returned from a Town Hall where Oregon Sen. Wyden and Rep Bynam responded to questions from not 20 people…but a standing-room-only college gym filled with about 600-700 constituents. Questions from the constituents were good. One person yelled out that we’re doomed! The Rep responded: “Stop! I’m Black. My people have led a horrible existence in this country since its inception but they get up every day and move forward. I believe in our constitutional democracy and that we the people will prevail.” This is what we yearned to hear tonight but in light of the technocrats taking over… for some who see a bigger picture, this pep talk fizzled. IS THERE ANYTHING WE THE PEOPLE CAN DO TO STOP THIS COUP?
This was the big question on people’s minds at the Town Hall. I felt for the first time in person with others….that there are more people on the same page now then there has been in a long time… but we feel helpless/hopeless to do anything about the take-over. We are waiting for a leader that isn’t there. Wyden spoke of his parents, who were Holocaust survivors in Nazi Germany, warning him that this could happen here in America. Wyden was saying the Courts are still holding. (constituents protested that t-p and company are thumbing their noses at the law. Wyden’s response was that the Federal Marshals will come forward-some laughed in disbelief). Wyden said all AARP members need to call their congressperson(s) everyday to protest what is happening and to contact all your family and friends who are AARP members in other states and have them do likewise. We have to keep the pressure up. Rep Bynam said the power is in the people.
I believe many of us at the meeting were encouraged to keep on letting our voices be heard…but many are still discouraged by what is happening to our government…our social security money…our programs for the the most vulnerable among us and in the world…our support to Ukraine…our civil rights…. etc. etc.
I encourage everyone to demand Town Hall meetings of their representatives and then spread the word for people to attend – there is strength in numbers. It was good to get away from the screen, books, podcasts to be with actual people.
That’s where it’s at for me….neighbor to neighbor which I see/experience starting to happen. This gives me small hope.