My first impulse, after the appalling events of this Tuesday, was simply to disengage. This is too awful to deal with, too awful to begin coming to grips with. I expect that feeling will pass, eventually. Eventually.
I've noticed a few people thinking of Gandalf's words to Frodo, a bit of rather desperate encouragement:
I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
Fair enough, and most of human history is a story of terrible men acquiring terrifying amounts of power. Mao Zedong and Pol Pot happened in my own lifetime, and my father also lived through the days of Hitler and Stalin. There's nothing new under the sun, I suppose. The one thing that surprises me, just a little, is the cowardice of people like Jeff Bezos. One expects selfishness and greed from billionaires, but I have had some trouble imagining what they could possibly be so afraid of.
Anyway, we should try at least not to fool ourselves. More than 70 million Americans have spoken and said "Racism? Fine by me. Misogyny? No problem with that. Fascism? Bring it on."
That's what happened.
The novelist A.R. Moxon observed that:
Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but of a hope for a restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.
That word is Nazi. Nobody cares about their motives anymore.
So we need to call it what it is. America has endorsed racism, misogyny, and fascism. There is no excuse for it, there is no white-washing it, no sugar-coating it. This is what they have chosen. The shame of it will cling to them forever, and the shit will land on everyone - mostly on Americans, of course, but this was yet another terrible day for Ukrainians and Palestinians.
So what can a poor boy do? Let's ask Henry Rollins.
This is not the time to be dismayed. This is punk rock time. This is what Joe Strummer trained you for. It is now time to go.
All right then. Let's go.
