Michael Beaton Profile picture
20 Jan, 17 tweets, 5 min read
It is moving seeing this display. I suppose there is a sense of coming around the last mile after a long and arduous journey, fraught with perils...and now that is over. Wounded but alive, and growing in strength just for making it home.
A promise that it will be different now.
It is a sense of dodging a deadly bullet. A sense that we might in fact find some of those better angels Lincoln talked about.
A realization that an egoist at the center is a drain on the country, & a wound that consumes all the attn & resources, leaving the citizens adrift.
A sense, not even a hope, but a certainty that the Citizens will be restored to their proper place, not as bit players in someone else's fantasies, but as the reason for the grand experiment in democracy in the first place.
And the lives of the citizens of the country will not be treated as collateral damage for the salvation of one man's solipsism but will be treated with the honor and gravity & compassion that the people deserve.
The hope comes to think we might make the effort to actually heal the wounds, not only of this pernicious virus COVID, but the other wounds of dread fears, incubating a growing authoritarianism, the wound of hopelessness, wounds of want & basic needs.
And the wounds we have inflicted on our earth.

Maybe we will grapple with one of the core wounds of racial animosities. Maybe.

I wonder if we are ready, even now, after so many tumultuous years, and so much anger, dying, abuses, to give it another go.
It seems we have to heal this one for any deep healing of any of the other issues to take hold. Listening to some of the speeches of MLKing again, not the "hope" one, but the others, more sharp & true to the moment, and realizing that we have traveled a bit from those times
but not far enough as yet.

All of this and more. More memories, thoughts, hopes, seem to be infused in these images that stand for a public ready to try again to work toward the unity and the great ideals, as yet still in process. Nowhere near done. But still trying.
Still in process.

The process now is seen in the shift from whatever that brush with death was to the realization that at least we have another shot at making the changes necessary to give us another shot at getting it right.
No Pollyanna here. I know the next leg of this journey, this ancient struggle against the lesser angels of our nature is hardly complete. And the forces that are no so moved are also strong, and also have their vision and purposes. They are not vanquished, just slithering
away for awhile, to nurse the wounds and plot the revenge of the slighted & rejected self. Meanwhile there will be plenty of skirmishes & battles with those remain with us to do their mischief.
Our defense will be in tending to the impossible work of healing and rebuilding.
There is a lot of suffering yet between now and then. But we have this difference: in the change over from whatever that dystopic period was (and it is well documented what it was) to shifting the underlying vision & purpose of our efforts as a nation & the leadership required
to make that shift. We have at least that going for us.

The road we were on was hurtling toward a chasm without a bridge. At least we have changed the trajectory, and have bought a little time. Hopefully enough to make a difference.

It feels like we just may have.
I posted this a while ago. These are the sounds and song I hear looking at this Field of Flags. The sounds playing while walking that last mile through these Flags, so full of meaning and symbolic meaning.
A remembrance of what has been lost, and honoring that loss. Embracing that and realizing that even even though the immensity of the losses have been great, not all was lost. We have been just resilient enough to come through that firestorm intact.

There will be other songs for the days ahead. All in their time. Powerful songs, full of hope, even joy. The soundtrack of the next thing. A cacophony of change.

For now this one is drilling deep.
It feels like a calling and a promise.

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More from @mhbx

19 Jan
The excitement of Trump finally being excised from the White House is a marvelous day indeed.
But it strikes me as premature to claim complete victory. This is game 3 or 4 of a 7 game series. The last games won, there remains a violent, virulent, minority who are willing to kill.
There is a GOP Senate who are still enthrall to the general project of Trumpism. There are the specific Congress members who specifically remain at their post. Faithfully being unfaithful to their oath and the country. There are the threats of violence properly being responded to
but in the necessary response demonstrate that this "series" is not over. Games are won. But the anti American Trumpies have not been defeated.

Citing an analogy from Basketball, it doesn’t seem possible, but it happened that a team has come from 3-1 and won the series.
Read 8 tweets
19 Jan
The detachment from reality is escalating. As if that even seemed possible.
Wisconsin stand on its own?
Not likely.

The important part of this story is the reflection of the mindset of this tribe. Now to be denominated as Trumpers, its underlying philosophy Trumpism.
Trumpism is a philosophy that is rooted in a severe detachment from reality.
From its founder, and his megalomaniacal, solipsistic understanding of the world as his servant, and his own magnificence as the standard of excellence.
Whether Generals who did not understand the Middle Eastern issues; Scientists who did not understand how to drink lysol to combat COVID, or the boggling incompetence at organizing the medical and logistical support and system required to combat COVID. And Etc....
Read 9 tweets
18 Jan
Trump is shunned in every quarter, except his most rabid and, in his own words “uneducated”, supporters. Those are the ones he loves. The ones he is willing to use, as fodder for his own, selfish cannon, for his own arrogant “wars”.
Increasingly no one else will have him.
Go now.
This article is a fine expression of the military angle on this momement. Recounting the history of the military with past presidents, and how they used their relationship and their farewells to honor the troops; Tr, of course, used his relationship to gild his own crummy image.
As all prior have honored the military for their dedications and work in their own way, according to the times and events, the article concludes that Trump will not have the opportunity to “thank the troops”. Having highlighted that the leaders of the military felt obligated
Read 6 tweets
16 Jan
Soon this will be in the past...

I think it is likely the only ones laughing are the cynical smirks of those who benefit from our Trumpian pratfall.

The rest of the world appears to be on edge waiting for the day this Trump era is over. Image
Related, however, is the fact that "the way things were" is inadequate. It is not only insufficient to have as a goal "return things to the way they were", but it is in its own way regressive and provocative all over again. Sweeping the problem away for another day.
What is called for is to return to a better, deeper set of values, Ones that are espoused & articulated in our founding documents but not fully realized. Make the necessary changes now. Not someday. Now.
Read 4 tweets
16 Jan
The assertion & question of unity, unifying the country, wondering what the hell the problem is, and why is all this happening is taking center stage. Dramatically.
As is the corollary question being tossed about, "How to heal the Nation?".

There is a #systems principle
that is a powerful insight into these, & related, questions.

"You cannot solve a problem at the same level it was created."

If the problem we were solving for were some detail, 'where to place a road; what $ to allocate to this or that project' sort of thing, then the way to
think about the problem, the impasse, is to appeal first to the functions of prior planning, history - meaning what did we do the last time, maybe pragmatics...Eventually, if the organization (whether business, community, or governance) may make a decision and that becomes the
Read 34 tweets
15 Jan
@tommy_pane @bethesdabeth You know what is most observable about your obsessions?

You have made no comment, that I can find, taking a stand about the Jan6 insurrection.
My suspicion is you think it is perfectly fine. That it was exactly what was needed, and Trump was just the fellow to finally do the
@tommy_pane @bethesdabeth 2/ work he was called to do, and that he "promised" to do.

What he said was "drain the swamp" that you so appreciate about Trump, has turned out to be just filling the swamp with his creatures. And in the meantime denigrating any chance of addressing any of the many challenges
@tommy_pane @bethesdabeth 3/ that beset the country. Many of them Trump's own making. Including, most vividly, his unconscionable incompetence regarding his handling of COVID from the beginning. (or was it intentional? There's a theory for you).

More could & will be said about this incompetence.
Read 6 tweets

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