DTJ - Epiphany

Once we stood tall

I had to stop and ask myself what I believed this week. And I found that very hard to answer. I cannot do it without tears. I cannot look at a tree or two coyotes playing in a field and not immediately feel their loss. I am a photographer who once recorded the beautiful world around me and now I feel I am preparing an obituary for that world.

 At the beginning of 1970's I was in Washington, DC working for a Republican Senator trying to end our involvement in the illegal war in Vietnam. Those were the days when we expected our presidents, then Richard Nixon, to go to congress and ask for their approval. He had not. 

 Republicans and Democrats had ethics then. They fought for things they believed. And individual members of both parties crossed the aisle to cooperate on bills they believed in. You bantered around terms like liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats. Now both parties seem to cookie cutter their droids. And to me that is the really scary part of this whole time line.

 I have crossed the aisle before. Now I am marching far left of the chamber. I am by labels a resistance fighter, a cry baby, a poor sport snowflake, bleeding heart liberal. I am told to get over it, leave the room, you loser.

 I know nobody should leave the room. We should all stay engaged. And we should resist the labels, the push to put us into neat and tidy categories. And make us march to a specific drum beat must be resisted. I am currently a centrist who has been pushed way to the left of where I am comfortable. If we survive as a people we must remember where we began. 

 And what we believed in our very heart of hearts.

 If for no other reason than the memory of trees or to protect those two coyotes in the marsh. 
Memory of trees

Comments

  1. Ien in the KootenaysMarch 4, 2017 at 11:40 PM

    You did not move left. The entire spectrum of politics has moved right. I am torn between exasperation, fascination and despair. My response is to separate my own life from the capitalist matrix as much as possible. Carry on resisting!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JBinford-BellMarch 5, 2017 at 5:36 AM

      I admit it feels that way. I have been posting the National Parks in the US which #45 would like to sell to the Russians to mine and let them dump waste in the rivers which run through them.

      It is one of the issues which I find myself on the same side as the ranchers and hunters. The parks protect our waters and the animals which reside in them. I don't see them as a bleeding heart liberal cause. I see them as a human cause. DT has radicalized everyone in this country be they left, right or center. The worst thing which could happen to him and his movement is if we all talked to each other.

      I wonder if it is that way in England since Britexit.

      Delete
  2. Terry RoweApril 2, 2017 at 2:25 PM

    Yes, if we care about this country we've been pushed to activitism.

    ReplyDelete

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