Austin bureau chief Caren Jeskey this week unholsters her political side and provides some welcome covering fire in our all-out melee.
I'm glad I did, and would do it again.
As I took an evening stroll I noticed a piece of paper stapled to a wooden post under a bright streetlight. It rudely accosted my eyes with its bold black letters and critique of the best hope we have today. It read “Quid Pro Quo Joe wants to lock us down, raise our taxes and take us back to perpetual war.”
It took me a moment to process what I was looking at and my mind screamed “no, no, no!” I live in a decidedly Bye Don neighborhood and this cannot be tolerated. I screeched to a halt in my Birkenstock tracks. My first impulse was to tear it down, but I stopped myself. That would not be right. We all have a right to express our opinions.
The next thing I knew I’d ripped it right off and crumpled it up in one fell swoop, a hawk ending its prey. I looked around to be sure no one saw and just then a man in a motorized wheel chair came racing by having a non-sensical yelling match with an invisible person in his head. First I thought he was reacting to my act of violence against the signage but he just kept going. Of course being the social worker that I am I wondered about this guy’s diagnosis and if he needs medical care. I opted for not intervening and just hope he made it home okay. Back to the message that need not be entertained.
Lock us down? You mean stop us from becoming a super spreader nation of unnecessary death? I’m sure I heard Kamala and Joe say multiple times that taxes will be raised only for those making $400K or more a year. I’ve been hearing in the news that billionaires are doing better than ever since COVID. According to an article last week about the super rich (www.theguardian.com/business/2020/oct/07/covid-19-crisis-boosts-the-fortunes-of-worlds-billionaires) “a report by Swiss bank UBS found that billionaires increased their wealth by more than a quarter (27.5%) at the height of the crisis from April to July, just as millions of people around the world lost their jobs or were struggling to get by on government schemes.” How much longer can we tolerate this grossly unethical and unsustainable financial structure?
Perpetual war? Kind of like what we are now at risk for since the Orangesicle has imposed sanctions that are harming innocent Iranians and putting us at a greater risk of nuclear war?
Malarky, I say and we won’t stand for it in our neighborhood; however, I still regret taking the sign down and maybe I’ll staple it back up today. The fact that it’s crumpled may send enough of a message. It must be hard for the very small smattering of red ones with MAGA and other surreal signage to exist among the sea of “Black Lives Matter “ and “Trumpkin: Orange on the Outside Hollow on the Inside” yard signs. Hard for them to watch the world stand up against the old-guard while they are still immersed. Clinging to a U S of A that hasn’t been and will never be. A place where intolerance gets a foothold and doesn’t slip.
The silver lining in all of this is that just as schools were integrated and the Jim Crow South was called to task during our last historical period of nationwide ongoing protests—at least publicly if not behind closed doors—the good people of our nation are standing up again.
The next thing I knew I’d ripped it right off and crumpled it up in one fell swoop, a hawk ending its prey. I looked around to be sure no one saw and just then a man in a motorized wheel chair came racing by having a non-sensical yelling match with an invisible person in his head. First I thought he was reacting to my act of violence against the signage but he just kept going. Of course being the social worker that I am I wondered about this guy’s diagnosis and if he needs medical care. I opted for not intervening and just hope he made it home okay. Back to the message that need not be entertained.
Lock us down? You mean stop us from becoming a super spreader nation of unnecessary death? I’m sure I heard Kamala and Joe say multiple times that taxes will be raised only for those making $400K or more a year. I’ve been hearing in the news that billionaires are doing better than ever since COVID. According to an article last week about the super rich (www.theguardian.com/business/2020/oct/07/covid-19-crisis-boosts-the-fortunes-of-worlds-billionaires) “a report by Swiss bank UBS found that billionaires increased their wealth by more than a quarter (27.5%) at the height of the crisis from April to July, just as millions of people around the world lost their jobs or were struggling to get by on government schemes.” How much longer can we tolerate this grossly unethical and unsustainable financial structure?
Perpetual war? Kind of like what we are now at risk for since the Orangesicle has imposed sanctions that are harming innocent Iranians and putting us at a greater risk of nuclear war?
Malarky, I say and we won’t stand for it in our neighborhood; however, I still regret taking the sign down and maybe I’ll staple it back up today. The fact that it’s crumpled may send enough of a message. It must be hard for the very small smattering of red ones with MAGA and other surreal signage to exist among the sea of “Black Lives Matter “ and “Trumpkin: Orange on the Outside Hollow on the Inside” yard signs. Hard for them to watch the world stand up against the old-guard while they are still immersed. Clinging to a U S of A that hasn’t been and will never be. A place where intolerance gets a foothold and doesn’t slip.
The silver lining in all of this is that just as schools were integrated and the Jim Crow South was called to task during our last historical period of nationwide ongoing protests—at least publicly if not behind closed doors—the good people of our nation are standing up again.
Desperate clinging to the good ol’ days is a bad idea. Just as we cant fight father time, we cannot stop the winds of change that are rapidly propelling us into a world where choice trumps all. We can marry who we want, self-proclaim our gender pronouns, love who we want to love, mix and mingle with whomever we chose, stand up to bullies and harassers, stop abuses of power and feel free to be who we are rather than who a washed up puritanical society tells us we can or cannot be. Where we uphold our promise to keep the church and the state separate. Oh wait, I forgot about the Coney Barrett hearings. Shit.
For now it’s progress, not perfection, and I am ok with tearing down the walls of heartache every chance I get.
For now it’s progress, not perfection, and I am ok with tearing down the walls of heartache every chance I get.