When is enough ENOUGH?

It is the honey which makes us cruel enough

to ignore the death of a bee.

- Munia Khan, Author and Poet

Is anyone truly surprised?  I mean, really, are you surprised that 45 pardoned Sheriff Arpaio?  If so, why?  Was Charlottesville not enough to show you who 45 is?  Did you need to have him betray not only humanity (again) but the rule of law (again) with this latest travesty of a pardon to reveal his character, or, in truth, gaping lack thereof (again)?  Oh, the times they have a-changed....

I would like to think that it's not out of cynicism but a well-considered (re-)commitment to reality that has left me unfazed by this latest 'presidential' travesty.  (There's that word again; sorry, but it just fits....)  In fact, I assumed that it was only a matter of time, especially since 45's supposedly coy men allusion to the possibility at his previous travesty this week, the rally in Phoenix.

[Parenthetical reflection: in what has to be some kind of presidential 'record', 45 backed up a frighteningly unhinged rant in Phoenix - to a blessedly small crowd, thankfully - with a pardon of an unrepentant law breaker who's a skilled and committed racist, too.  And we thought Charlottesville was bad.  How many times in this presidency are we going to say, with horror, "What a week!?!"  Like, perhaps, every week?!?]

So now a supposed "law and order" president has pardoned its antithesis, a sheriff so racist, unlawful, inhumane and unrepentant that he was on the verge of being jailed for defying the very law that he was sworn to uphold.  The cravenness and inhumanity are stunning ... but par for the course.

I probably should spend some more time buttressing my argument with the facts about just how bad a person and government official the former sheriff is/was, but, frankly, I'm tired of the b.s.  He's just so abominable that I can't summon the energy to recount the horrors that prove why.  It's been done well by too many others too many times already....

What I can summon the energy to do is to explore the 'why' behind this latest presidential travesty and seek to help us figure out what to learn and anticipate from it.

Suffice it to say that I don't think that rewarding a loyal campaign supporter who also happens to be a fellow inhuman is the entire story behind this pardon.  In fact, I suspect that it's only a pretext.  Not to be too jaundiced, but I really think that this pardon is just the latest in what will prove to be a long series of "celebrations of the cynical" that will ultimately be the legacy of this presidency (and potentially our downfall as a country).

My suspicion is that 45 has a whole host of these morally callow and repugnant moves up his sleeve, in part because they reflect the utter callowness and repugnance of the man and in part because they're excellent political theater and strategy.  Think about it: what aren't we now focusing on because we're being distracted by this pardon inanity?

Certainly Russia.  Certainly 45's use of the Presidency to enrich himself personally.  Certainly his seeming glee in nominating (similarly[?]) stupifyingly unqualified candidates to key government posts.  Certainly his willingness to abide, condone and tacitly support the propagation of the myriad -isms that have plagued and continue to plague our beloved country.  Certainly his forfeiture of the role as the American president of being Leader of the Free World.

I could go on, but why bother?  It's clear that 45 is the most unqualified person ever to hold this office, both from a technical and personal standpoint.  Sure, we've had racist/xenophobic/etc. presidents before, but none so brazenly so now that we as a society supposedly condemn such inhumanity.  Sure, we've had incompetent presidents before, but none so determinedly so as to nominate non-scientists for influential science posts or sweatshop promoters for key labor posts or ... well, you get the picture....

What troubles me is that it's still unclear how low we'll allow 45 to take us before we revolt both figuratively and literally.  I remain amazed both at the fervence of his sheepish flock and at the seeming ambivalence of the 'moral majority' that appears willing to entertain its antithesis so long as its members are not affected directly and personally.  And I wonder just what it's going to take for us not just to resist - as, thankfully, many millions of us are beginning to do impactfully - but to bring down this order of the profane and deranged and replace it with a true government for the people by the people, a novel experiment to which we must return if we hope to salvage whatever can be made to remain of the American Dream.

What will it take for us to rise up together and shout in word and deed "ENOUGH!?!"  Not just enough of 45, but enough of the fraudulent, money-fueled system that produced him.  Not just enough of identity politics that mask the class war that's still being waged successfully centuries on in our history, but enough of the focus on the interests of the few over the many.  Not just enough of the combination of fake religion and fake patriotism in which too many of our fellows wrap themselves, but enough of the failure to respect and value our differences and uniqueness in addition to what we share.  Not just enough of lying to ourselves and the world about who we say we are, but enough of the failure to live up to our professed creeds that affirm us as equal beings gifted with unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

When will enough be ENOUGH, America?

I say that we start now....

I just wish that every responsible and concerned person would step back

regardless of race or gender and just take a closer look

at what's really going on in the world today

and say enough is enough.

 - Lonnie Earl Johnson, Convicted Murderer (Executed, 2007)

If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention....

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy

of this period of social transition

was not the strident clamor of the bad people,

but the appalling silence of the good people.

- The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,

Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (1957)

Charlottesville.  I can't write.  I'm numb.  I can't write.  I'm deeply sad.  I can't write.  This is so wrong.  I can't write.  But this is America.  So I must write....

The time has come to choose sides: you are either for holding ourselves accountable for living up to our professed creeds - including that all people are created equal - or you are for favoring some over the others, which typically means the few over the many.  What is your choice?

We can no longer sit by and watch a president - small 'p' intended - alternatively encourage and absolve a group whose ideals are the antithesis of our republic's ... unless we want to admit that our ideals were never quite what we claimed them to be (or, to the point, in this modern era, we don't want them to be so).  There are no other options: the situation is binary ... just like the choice before all of us.

You must either stand on the side of humanity, diversity and inclusion or you must continue to defend our country's shameful legacy of inhumanity, supremacy and exclusion.  What is your choice?

A young woman died yesterday protesting the legacy of hate in our country, you know, the one that so many false patriots claim is the greatest and thus can't be criticized.  Actually, yesterday's tragedy proved the hollow falsity of this lie: if you can't criticize what happened yesterday - as our president didn't - then you really can't and don't care about our country.

Why?  It's quite simple really: what happens when it's your turn to be the hated?  I'm guessing that you'll want some special dispensation, the kind that you give to today's haters and withhold from their victims.  But as history shows, none will be forthcoming, especially, God forbid, if your 'side' loses.  Woe to you when the lessers rule....

I want to honor Heather Heyer, so I write ... slowly, painfully and partially numb, but I write.  I want to make hers the last such sacrifice on our torturous road to extending our constitutional rights to all.  I want to make ours a world that's so much better than we showed ourselves to be yesterday ... or, truth be told, any day in American history (with few notable exceptions).

What we saw yesterday is reality, not an aberration.  It's who we really are collectively: the far less noble denizens of a country that has sometimes subtly and often overtly encouraged the violent practice of -isms that, in the end, hurt us all.

We are not raised by racism, we are lowered by it.  We are not raised by sexism and misogyny, we are lowered by them.  We are not raised by ethnocentrism and xenophobia, we are lowered by them.  We are not raised by religiocentrism and religious bigotry, we are lowered by them.  We are not raised by gun-toting and violence, we are lowered by them.  We are not raised by classism and elitism, we are lowered by them.  Etc.

So, America, what is our choice?  Heather Heyer's legacy hinges thereon....

I love America more than any other country in this world,

and, exactly for this reason,

I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

- James Baldwin, "Autobiographical Notes,"

Notes of a Native Son (1955)