I’m still moving through molasses. I got nothing accomplished yesterday and nothing so far today. My wrangler, Bri is doing their best. Wish them and me luck. It’s taken me all day to start writing this. In addition to work on the computer I have to do laundry and go shopping. The one bright spot, I’m finally icing my sore elbow. If history is a guide that will fix it in a few days.
It is now the next day. If I was going to fight my way through the molasses I needed to use the effort to make the Budgiedome schedule. I sent it out to the Bri to send to the artists for confirmation. We are going to have a hell of a lineup. I never connected with a few people I wanted to but got a few FRFF first timers that I pushed to enter the Emerging Artists. I don’t want to jump the gun, Paul will post the lineup today on the Budgiedome Website.
Bri did their job wrangling me. I need a full-time wrangler. I’m now thinking of the other things I need to do and feeling overwhelmed. That leads to me doing fewer of the things I need to do, not more. That is the heart of my problem. Bri is great at helping me not feel guilty. The guilt makes things worse.
Here’s an example of how my anxiety works. I have a ton of laundry to do. I am running out of clothes so must get it done The laundry room uses cards, not quarters. Beruthiel gave me a card. I don’t know where it is. It might be in my wallet. It might not be. To do laundry I have to find the card or buy a new one. I don’t want to look in my wallet because if it is not there my heart will start pounding and I’ll get that feeling in the pit of my stomach. If it’s not in the next place I look, not even sure where that is, it will get worse. Yes, I can just buy a new card and I might end up doing that just to break the anxiety. Then I’ll feel stupid for wasting money.
That’s enough of a look at the dark recesses of my psyche.
This is ironic. Bri called me and now I might not have time to do laundry. I just made plans for tomorrow I better be able to do laundry today. Clean clothes are a good thing.
I’ve been meaning to write about President Trump but part of me shies away from it. The problem is that most of My Gentle Readers agree with me. Most are aware of what he’s doing and why it is wrong. There is no reason to excite the base, Trump does an excellent job of keeping everyone angry and energized. I don’t want to write just so people can nod their heads and go, “right!” I’ll write because I can’t ignore my own anger. I just want to be constructive expressing it.
The most disheartening part of the debacle is that despite all he’s done more than 40% of the people still approve of him. People who were apoplectic about Obama’s “Apology Tour,” which never happened, are fine with Trump’s trashing America to praise Putin. I try to not be angry. I pay more than lip service to the liberal ideal of not condemning entire groups; and even more to the ideal that to a large part people are products of their environment. It’s the conservatives that reject those notions.
What frightens me is that Trump and is apparatchiks are shaping that environment. People are loath to admit a mistake, even to themselves. Rather than condemn actions by Trump that they would have previously deplored they now accept them. What mistakes he makes are venal not mortal sins? There are people, there’s someone I know, that condemned people critical of cops that killed unarmed black kids. They thought anything but total support for law enforcement was unamerican. Now they are fine with Trump impugning the integrity of the FBI and the intelligence services. They attack the civil servants that have devoted their lives to the country. They attack the press for doing its job. Given the evidence that Russia interfered with the election some have taken to supporting Russia for doing so. They are sliding down the slippery slope.
The latest outrage is Trump threatening to cancel the security clearance of former officials that criticize him. He is attacking the messenger. The heads of intelligence and FBI have been highly critical of Trump and he wants to use the power of his office to punish them. This is in line with him declaring the press an enemy of the people. These are the actions of dictators and autocrats, not of a leader of a democracy. When I posted about this someone defended Trump because it was legal. He gave no thought to morality. Democracies function not just by the written laws but the unwritten understandings. We have evolved a system that can survive regime changes as people are confident they will have their chance again in the future. If people accept that we don’t have to live by those understandings democracy will be a danger to , not an ensurer of freedom.
We who oppose this must make sure we don’t fall into the same traps. In the summer and fall of 2016 so many of my friends made light of the Russian interference. So many posted; “Forget Russia hacking the Democrats computers. What matters is what they revealed.” They considered Hillary Clinton a greater threat than the Russians.
Getting even closer to home. I was part of a pro-Hillary Facebook group. People still post on it, but I had to leave it. Someone posted an article that condemned the New York Times and justified it with a total mischaracterization of one guest opinion piece. People in the group were gleefully declaring the Times “compromised.” They made it sound like it’s a tool of Trump. No one who takes the time to actually read it can believe that. There are highly critical opinion pieces on him every day. When I pointed out how the piece that was posted was inaccurate they didn’t care. They cited no examples, just said that the Times is compromised. I left the group.
That’s what happens, we bend to our peer groups. It’s how the justified French Revolution devolved into the Terror. For our own well-being we have to walk Trump supporters back from the precipice. What is the alternative? Armed Conflict?
Now it’s late and I have to go shopping before I go to the Met game. God knows when I’ll do laundry. I can’t waste more time. This entry misses the mark, but it shows the turmoil in my mind. Here’s a thought. No matter how messed up I am, I’m doing better than the Mets.
Wise Madness 