Perspective | The Direction of Intention

Call It What It Is [on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on October 28, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

If you are disgusted and surprised by the Republican senators’ hypocritical jamming through of the nomination of Amy Coney Barret to the Supreme Court then it’s a good bet you don’t live in Wisconsin. Life in Wisconsin is basic-training for the stomach-turning antics of modern day Republicans. Governance is nowhere on the agenda. If you lived in Wisconsin you’d be utterly surprised if belief in the democratic process was more than bloviated rhetoric by the party in red.

Consider this: in the midst of a global pandemic, with a national economic melt-down erasing jobs and driving folks from their homes, the Wisconsin Republican-led legislature simply refuses to meet. In 195 days they’ve managed to gavel open a few sessions called by the Democratic governor only to gavel them closed seconds later. They simply refuse to debate, collaborate, or compromise (the tools of governance). They’ve only one lonely tool in their sad little tool box: obstruction. They plug their ears and drown out all other voices. They can and do sue with ease, especially when reasonable minds and public health officials try to protect citizens from a deadly virus. The good-old-boys stop the process every time so it should come as no surprise that the seven day average of new cases in Wisconsin has jumped 405% in the past two months. Obstruction has a price.

The Wisconsin Republicans are famous for their 2011 gerrymandering the legislative map. The maps are so egregiously tipped [rigged] for Republican success that fair representation is nigh-on impossible. It’s their ball and they’ll play when they want to – and they’ll only play if they’re guaranteed a win. The Supreme Court is weighing in. Though, on this day, the Supremes, in a 5-3 decision, just ruled against a voter’s right to have mail-in ballots counted in the days following the election. Our neighborhood is pocked with signs demanding fair elections and fair legislative maps. Wish us luck and don’t hold your breath.

If you lived in Wisconsin you’d not be surprised by the shenanigans of the national Republican party that is gifted at obstruction but resistant to participation. The stack of legislation sitting on Mitch McConnell’s desk is legendary. In these past four years the red party’s enabling of the-pathological-liar-at-the-helm has undermined our system of governance and given us the sad experience of flailing during a pandemic. Who isn’t sickened to hear yet again “rounding the curve” while the numbers of deaths and infections skyrocket? Who isn’t sickened by the guys-in-ties defending the lie and the liar?

MM recently wrote that he is awakening to the reality that this nation, this government is not what he’s always assumed it to be. I suspect he’s not the only person having that revelation. We are routinely lectured by our leaders about ethics, values, the virtues of moral compass, fair play, responsibility to community. As Hamlet said to Polonius, “Words, words, words.”

Politics are ugly but we are no longer in the arena of politics. For that to be true, Republicans would have to once again believe in the democratic process. They would have to stand by their words.

It could happen. But it’s a good bet it won’t start in Wisconsin.

read Kerri’s blog post about DISHONEST PERIODS

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Perspective | Tagged: amy coney barrett, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democratic process, gerrymandering, governance, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, pandemic, politics, republicans, supreme court | 2 Comments »

Consider The Circumstance [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on October 26, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

Easy Way Down. We laughed. The sign only makes sense in the context of winter and deep, ski-able snow. Just out of the frame of this photograph is a chair lift. There is an easy way down because there is an easy way up. Later, as we knew we would have to do, we matched our easy walk down with a breathless slog back to the top.

Circumstance is everything. Sense-making requires a context. Stories only make sense within a specific context. Plunk a choice or a story line into an unrelated context and it seems like madness. Or stupidity. Yank Romeo and Juliet from the context of a society deeply divided by conflict and there is no story. There is no obstacle. It becomes the story of two delusional self-absorbed teenagers. Their choices would seem ridiculous without their circumstance.

I’m certain that Captain Obvious is yawning at my pedestrian observation. Circumstance is everything to sense-making. “So what!” the good Captain sighs.

Well, stop for a moment and consider this: we are in the grips of a worldwide pandemic. That is our circumstance. On this day in these once-united-states, roughly 8 months into our pandemic circumstance, over 220,000 of our citizens have perished from the virus. More than 8 million Americans have been infected. There are 42 million cases world-wide with more than 1 million deaths.

I might agree that a mask mandate – absent the circumstance of a global pandemic – might seem like an infringement on my personal liberties. It would make no sense. However, within the context of a global pandemic, railing against simple public protective measures – mask-wearing, social-distancing, washing hands – seems like so-much-lunacy.

The pandemic is our circumstance. Despite whatever noise and misdirection is being circulated within the fox-bubble, the pandemic is our circumstance. Denying the existence of a pandemic while the rates of infection break records daily is the madhouse equivalent of dumping Frodo and his mission into a Hallmark movie [a Hobbit with a mission finds himself in Christmas town where nice looking citizens offer him hot cocoa and the opportunity to find love in a tree farm]. It makes those within the fox-bubble crying “HOAX!” seem angry, petulant, delusional, and self-absorbed. It makes their dedicated resistance to mask-wearing and social-distancing infantile. It makes their gun-toting, testosterone-riddled protestations puerile.

The pandemic is our circumstance. It is the circumstance of the world. Denying it does not make it go away. As Doug might have said, “Wow! Every goddamn country in the world is pretending to have a deadly pandemic just to throw an election in the USA! I’ll bet that took some serious diplomacy!” [note: his language would have been much more salty]. Denying our circumstance creates worldwide incredulity at our utter stupidity and, above all, facilitates the spread of the virus.

I’m certain that theatre companies across this land are planning productions of Romeo and Juliet set in America 2020. Romeo is a child of the Blues, Juliet is the child of the Reds. The two youngsters, for a moment, with hearts full of new love, transcend their circumstance. Their society’s dedication to division will, of course, kill them both. Remember, too, that other cherished family members die along the way. Mercutio. Paris. It’s an old story asking a current question: how many will have to die, what [or who] is the loss so great that it/they will finally and at last open our eyes?

The pandemic is our circumstance.

read Kerri’s blog post about EASY WAY DOWN

Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Perspective, Seeing, Story | Tagged: choice, circumstance, context, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, pandemic, pandemic deniers, romeo and juliet, seeing, sense making | 4 Comments »

Split The Symbol [on DR Thursday]

Posted on October 22, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

One of the great pleasures of having a bevy of cartoons-that-went-nowhere is to pull them out and see them anew through the lens of changing times. Space Invader – which begged for the addition of a mask – has taken on a whole new meaning in these days of COVID-19.

It’s funny and it’s not. Each week we hear stories of the collision of mask wearers and pandemic-deniers. Each week we are witness to the aggressive posturing of the mask-free.

This little piece of fabric has become a split symbol: for those of us who believe in science, a mask saves or could save lives. To wear it is to care for the well-being of others. For those who deny the science and gorge on the rhetoric, wearing a mask has come to represent an affront to their personal freedom. To ignore it is to care only for themselves. Space invading is now a bellicose statement.

These once-united-states has 4% of the world’s population and boasts over 20% of the world’s deaths. This is not an accident. It is utterly predictable. When the simple science of mask wearing and social distancing is whipped into a fruit-smoothie-of-controversy, a dividing line for division, more people will die. More people are dying.

The split-symbol goes further. It has come to represent America-the-Ridiculous. My pals in other nations shake their heads in disbelief at our mask-wrangling. They express sadness for our plight but a river of incredulity runs beneath their concern. Were Americans this superficial all along?

My imaginary future professor, preparing his notes for the seminar, “2016-2020 – What Were They Thinking,” will no doubt utilize the mask as symbol for our collapse. The symbol of the divide. The marker of how shallow, glib, and selfish we came to hold our notion of freedom.

The original. From the time when space invasion couldn’t kill you.

read Kerri’s blog post about SPACE INVADER

space invader/flawed cartoon ©️ 2016 david robinson, kerri sherwood, john kruse

Filed under: DR Thursday, Perspective | Tagged: covid-19, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, flawed cartoon, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerri sherwood on itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mask, masks, pandemic, society6.com/flawedcartoon, symbol | Leave a comment »

Hunt Wabbits! [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on October 19, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

When the current occupant of the White House declared this “Character Counts Week” I, at first, fell on the floor laughing. How is it possible that someone so completely empty of ethic and absent a moral compass could ask the rest of us to focus on the virtues of character? We live in strange times.

My head must have hit the floor when I fell because I had an epiphany. This grotesque pretender wasn’t asking us to focus on positive social attributes, he was asking us to choose a character to perform! He wants us, like him, to take on an imaginary persona! While he plays the role of president, he wants us, the citizens of the nation, each to choose a character to play!

Choosing a character to play is serious business! My first thought was to have a go at the Road Runner (“BEEP! BEEP!”). Kerri is trying on Yosemite Sam (“Ya doggone idgit galoot!”). She made me laugh heartily with her bowlegged walk and Sam-ish-indignation so I’m leaping from my fowl first choice to a personal favorite, Elmer Fudd (“I’m hunting wabbits!”). Kerri wants me to stay with the Road Runner as a limited vocabulary will give her a break from my usual incessant running commentary.

This might be the best week we’ve had in four years! Laughter has been in short supply during this era of the bully, the celebration of the lie.

Of course, epiphanies come in bundles. Along with my insight into the real intention behind Character Counts Week came this: the moment I stepped into Elmer Fudd the world, as we currently experience it, made sense. We are living a comic book or, at the very least, a children’s version of The National Enquirer. All of the outrageous conspiracy theories (laughable were they not so dangerous), the stoking of the rage-machine, the-victim-persecutor-in-chief and his foxy-network-megaphone creating scary socialist monsters at every corner…MAD magazine has come to the nation’s capitol wearing orange face and a too-long-tie. The entire cohort is worthy of a Warner Bros. cartoon!

Perhaps history will laugh at this proclamation of character. Some smart professor in the year 2100 will offer a seminar called “2016-2020 – What were they thinking?” The students will slap their thighs and hoot at our ubiquitous-ridiculous. In the meantime, we have no better option than to jump into this week in full character.

(Me-to-Kerri: “Shhh! Be vewwy, vewwy quiet!” Kerri-to-me: “You ornery fur-bearin’ rebel! You’ll pay fer this!”).

read Kerri’s blog post on CHARACTER WEEK

[I told you that you’d miss our haiku-brevity. It’s good to be home…sort of.]

Filed under: Creativity, Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Perspective, Rants | Tagged: absurdity, cartoons, character, character counts week, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, elmer fudd, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mad magazine, play a character, road runner, role play, role playing, yosemite sam | Leave a comment »

Go All In [on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on October 12, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

They tell us that the aspens peaked a week ago but I am no less in awe of the flaming yellows and oranges that pop across the mountainside.

On our drive to the mountain we talked about the extremes, the hallmark this time. “Vote as if your life depended on it.” “Vote or you’ll lose your rights.” Fascism! Socialism! Two walls of a crevasse with nothing but emptiness between. Thoughts of shared democracy must have fallen into the void. We passed a sign for a casino, “Go All In!” it declared. “That’s the perfect statement for our times.” Kerri said.

Go all in. Leave nothing on the table. Every subculture has its language. Place your bet. Double down. Crap.

I sit on the balcony and stare across the valley at the fiery hillside. The morning light makes the autumn electric. I close my eyes, bask in the sun.

I looked up how the USA votes relative to other nations. It is enough to say that we are not even close to the top of the list of voter turnout. We are either a glass half-empty or half-full, depending on your level of optimism. Apathy. Disbelief. Wasted votes. Voter block/blocked voters.

Voter suppression. Free and fair election. Another crevasse. A system of extremes. Gerrymander. Electoral college. Politicians picking their voters rather than voters picking their politicians. Jim Crow.

Winner-take-all.

Two deer just meandered across the meadow. I wonder what it must feel like. I doubt they despise the other deer for their particular point of view. People are funny. Given to story, sorting to the negative. Attached to the ugly. Lost in illusion. If you believe the Greeks, we were created to appreciate Zeus. Nothing more, nothing less. If Zeus is a metaphor for all-of-nature [and not a hairy-thunderbolt-hurler], then I am fulfilling my purpose sitting on this balcony.

Witnessing is easy. The crevasse is easily made. Bridge-building takes some courage and ingenuity. Apathy is easy. Participating takes some care and effort. Reach. Give voice. Go all in and vote. Or, as my pal MM once said, “You have no business complaining.”

read Kerri’s blog post about ALL IN

Filed under: Edges, Language, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: apathy, autumn, autumn hillside, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, gambling, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, language, participation, subculture, voice, vote, zeus | Leave a comment »

Know How To Use It [on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on October 7, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

Kerri has started a new collection of images. It began a few months ago on our walk through Des Plaines. Why did someone discard their mask on the river trail? Her collection is the discarded mask collection.

Look around you. They are ubiquitous. Star Wars masks and smiley faces, Mickey Mouse masks and the garden variety medical mask. They are on sidewalks and in parks. They are in less obvious places like a nature trail.

I suppose a few of the masks in her now vast collection fell from a walker’s pocket. Most were tossed aside. As cultural studies go this one is many layered. We are consumers. Mostly, we know not where our garbage goes as long as it goes away.

Masks, like the people they protect, in these once-united-states, are disposable. That sounds harsh but with every prediction of lives lost, with the daily horror story of rising loss of life, comes a clear caveat: roughly 80% of those who will die, those who have died, would be alive today, will be alive by January, if 95% of us wore masks.

We hear that wearing a mask is an assault on personal freedom and shake our heads.

Many years ago in a facilitation, a person bemoaned that they didn’t have a voice. My business partner asked simply, “If you did have a voice, what would you say?” The person was…speechless. Having a voice is wildly different than knowing how to use it, why to use it. The same is true of personal freedom. We have it but know not how to use it.

And, after all, isn’t that the point? To have freedom requires the responsibility to know how to use it well and to know when…well…you are being used.

read Kerri’s blog post on MASK DISCARDS

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Perspective | Tagged: david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, freedom, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mask, masks, personal freedom | Leave a comment »

Practice Thinking [on KS Friday]

Posted on October 2, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The capacity to think astutely is often undervalued in the world of action. But philosopher Hannah Arendt identified the capacity to think as the foundation of a healthy and resilient democracy. Having experienced totalitarianism in Nazi Germany, then having fled it, she devoted much of her life to studying it and its opposite, democracy. She believed that thinking thoughtfully in public deliberations and acting democratically were intertwined and that totalitarianism is built upon and sustained by deceit and thought control. In order to resist efforts by the powerful to deceive and control thinking, Arendt believed that people needed to practice thinking.” Westley, Zimmerman, Patton, Getting To Maybe: How The World Is Changed

If thinking clearly is the hard line between democracy and totalitarianism, then we in these once-united-states are in a world of trouble.

For evidence, look no further than this past week. I begin with a single word: debate. Full stop. To assume thought is to assume too much. It was painful to watch conservative pundits attempt to spin sense and justification into 90 minutes of lie-vomit and fact-abuse. It was even more painful to watch thinking people, already exhausted by years of gaslighting, grasp for some sense of what they had just witnessed. The transience of the American experiment.

I shook my head during a post-debate-news segment when a woman cloaked in MAGA swag said that there shouldn’t be fact checkers at the debates because, “People should be able to say their truth.” Where-oh-where has our thought-practice gone?

Beneath the noise of the debate was a ruling in a slander case brought against Tucker Carlson of Fox News fame. The court ruled in Fox’s favor citing,”… that given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, that any reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’ about the statements he makes.” It has not been my experience that watchers of Fox News are necessarily awash in reason or any amount of skepticism. They believe the spin they hear in that big bubble of fantasy. The judge wrote, “The “‘general tenor’ of the show should then inform a viewer that [Carlson] is not ‘stating actual facts’ about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in ‘exaggeration’ and ‘non-literal commentary.’ “

O accountability, where is thy sting? O thought, where is thy champion?

Democracy is dependent upon our capacity to discern between exaggeration and fact, lie and truth. We are now a nation that cannot grasp the simplicity of science in a pandemic. Wear a mask. Practice social distancing. Those two actions could have saved thousands of lives. They still could save thousands of lives. I shook my head in despair when people I love repeated with gusto the claim that our numbers of infection are so high because we do so many tests. I thought but did not say, “Think! For god’s sake, just think about what you are saying!” It is too much to ask.

Kerri and I have met walls of angry criticism when we ask folks to check their media sources. How dare we suggest that propaganda isn’t news! It’s easy to check whether or not you are being led by the nose if you care to do it. And that, I fear, is where the line between democracy and totalitarianism dissolves. The care to do it. We would rather be comfy and fixed in our news bubbles, gloating in our mutual agreement, than practice thinking.

Without that hard line, the foundation of our healthy and resilient democracy can only crumble.

TRANSIENCE on the album RIGHT NOW is available in iTunes

read Kerri’s blog post about TRANSIENCE

transience/right now ©️ 2010 kerri sherwood

Filed under: KS Friday, Perspective, Rants | Tagged: clear thinking, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, debate, democracy, fact check, Getting to Maybe, hannah arendt, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, media check, Right Now by kerri sherwood, right now on itunes, thought, totalitarianism, transience | Leave a comment »

Take A Peek [on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on September 29, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

We have two frogs in our pond this summer. Their names are Epic and Tiny. This is a photograph of Epic. He’s in his safe place. When Kerri took this picture she said, “This is how I feel most of the time.”

Each day, in writing this blog, I face a dilemma. I named my blog The Direction of Intention because I desire my writing and artistry (and life) to be conscious steps toward positive creation rather than pushing against and complaining about what I don’t want. Lately, that is a tight rope to walk. I no longer feel it is possible to peek out from my safe place because I doubt in these-once-united-states that there is a safe place. Lately, each day, it seems that pushing back, peeking from my rock and croaking, “Open your eyes,” IS taking conscious steps toward the creation of a healthy spirit, nation-body and world.

I’ve long been a believer that the deep imbalances in our system, like systemic racism, cannot change by focusing on the word “racism.” The change we seek, the safety we desire, will only come when we address this completely broken and ugly system that is composed upon layers of inequity. BLM is a pressure valve. It is an opportunity to look with clear and honest eyes at the favoritism designed into our system.

At the epicenter of our dysfunction is an apparatus that pretends to be a democracy but, in fact, throws its weight behind minority rule. For instance, if the popular vote of citizens actually elected the president, Ronald Reagan would have been the last Republican to occupy the White House [George W. Bush won the popular vote in his second term but initially gained the presidency after losing the popular vote to Al Gore]. Or, consider this: even though, since 1920, more Americans are urban dwellers, the electoral system throws its weight to rural (more conservative) voters. The electoral college ensures democracy will not prevail. It goes on and on. If you want a hysterical look at the hysterical gerrymandering of the American system, visit John Oliver here.

Why would a system that purports to be a democracy knowingly allow and continually enable unfair political advantage to a minority elite? Why would a political party work so hard to gerrymander electoral maps, prevent black and brown voters from voting, whip up with no evidence the notion that, if they lose, the election will be rigged? The advantage is blatantly apparent in our tax codes, in how we fund schools and fill prisons, an on and on and on.

The gap between who we are and who we pretend to be is vast.

The game is rigged. A thriving democracy is impossible when one team, the conservative elite, do not believe in nor support democratic processes. Winning at all cost, regardless of the cost, is a tool from the fascist toolbox. it is the opposite of the democratic ideal. What we are experiencing is not an accident. It is not a mistake. It is a design. A thriving democracy is impossible when the system is designed to be undemocratic [when you are done laughing with John Oliver, weep at Umberto Eco’s list of 14 common features of fascism].

In other news, upheaval makes systems change, real change, possible. Peeking out from my rock I can only hope that we-the-people, in this turbulent time, have both the will to show up at the polls AND the courage, resolve, and clarity to stick with it until we align our words with our actions, until we pull down the institutions that keep inequity and minority-rule the name of the game – until we expect our system and our elected leaders to actually believe in democracy.

It’s epic.

read Kerri’s blog post about EPIC

Filed under: Awakening, Edges, Emergence, Identity, Perspective, Possibility, Seeing, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: BLM, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, fascism, gap, gerrymandering, inequity, john oliver, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Umberto Eco | Leave a comment »

Play A New Game [on DR Thursday]

Posted on September 24, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

“To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.” ~ Confucius

When I do not know what to do or say about the state of the world, I draw pictures. That’s been true all of my life. Apparently, when I was very young, I was in a constant state of not knowing what to do or say. I repeatedly drew an imaginary cabin in the woods. It was a place of peace and solitude. I came into this world with a bit of Thoreau imprinted on my soul.

I know things are bad when my drawings lapse into caricature. These sketches might look like nasty-grams to Mitch McConnell but they are, in truth, ruminations on our system. Last night the streets were again alive with protest. Yet another black American was murdered (in her home) and the system turned its head and looked away. A very long trail of tears. I feel like I need to climb to the top of the mountain and scream, “OUR SYSTEM IS DOING WHAT IT WAS DESIGNED TO DO!”

Suppressing black Americans, as designed into our system, is the same action as elevating white Americans. It’s a mechanism, a single action. A seesaw. This is not the first era in which citizens took to the streets to protest the inequities between black and white America. The protests are immediate and necessary but they do not come close to touching the system.

Legislation will not touch it (a system never assaults itself). Police reform will not change it as systems are great shape-shifters; a new form of suppression/elevation will arise. A system has to be acknowledged before it can be addressed and the acknowledgment can’t come from the angry people in the streets – it must come from the people in suits-and-ties who deny systemic racism exists, the ones who fear the loss of their supremacy. [Isn’t it remarkable that leaders in a country founded on slavery, celebrated lynching with picture postcards in a Jim Crow era, while a terrific battle was being fought en route to civil rights legislation were rigging tax codes and redlining and on and on and on, can deny the existence of racism? That IS the system talking].

The system is dancing right in front of our eyes. While the streets are alive with BLM protests demanding justice and equal rule of law, Mitch McConnell, awash in hypocrisy, is doing what he wants to do with no regard to precedent, rule, or ethic. The system is Lindsey Graham and his fellow red senators following their leader without shame. Laws are made of words – so are creeds and constitutions – as are ethics and morality. Words have no meaning when they are so easily discounted.

We’ve built our crumbling castle on a foundation of Manifest Destiny. A chosen people who believe they can do what they want to do to whomever stands in their way. Native Americans will tell you that government treaties were made to be broken. Words mean nothing when winning-at-all-cost is the name of the game. Laws are made of words – so are creeds and constitutions.

Winning at all cost IS the name of the game. It is the system. It is a game that cares not for who is thrust through the meat grinder. To watch Mitch is to see the system.

Winning at all cost is not governance. Undermining elections is not governance. Gerrymandering electoral maps is not governance. Suppressing voters is not governance. Whipping up fantasies about voter fraud is not governance. How is it possible that the people occupying the seats of a representative government do not believe in the democratic process?

It’s not new. It’s the system.

Our constitution and creeds will matter when our words matter, when we can say what we mean and mean what we say. Black lives will matter when the words written into our creeds and constitution guide us rather than disguise us. In the meantime, we will take another step on the road of cowardice, all the while pretending to be righteous.

It’s enough to make me return to drawing pictures of my cabin in the woods.

read Kerri’s blog post about MITCH

Filed under: DR Thursday, Edges, Identity, Language, Perspective, Seeing | Tagged: BLM, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fear, gaslighting, gerrymandering, governance, government, injustice, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lindsey graham, mitch mcconnell, racism, senate, system, systemic racism, voter rights, white supremacy | Leave a comment »

Flush The Principle [on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on September 23, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Yesterday I wrote a long note to Senate Majority Leader McConnell de-crying just a few of the amoral specifics regarding his crass, disrespectful and gleeful jig dance around RBG’s deathbed…and more generally about his and his party’s roles in bringing to its knees what had been a reasonably good land peopled by reasonably good people…” ~ MM

With the passing of RBG I have heard this phrase repeated over and over again by politicians and pundits alike as an explanation or perhaps an excuse for the the behavior of our elected officials: It’s power over principle.

Power over principle. Penny wise and pound foolish. What is gained is minimal when compared with what is lost.

On one end of the political spectrum is my mother who screamed into the phone, “I want my country back!” On the other end is my dear MM, who lamented, “I’m coming to realize that the country I thought I inhabited never really existed.” It’s a lose/lose proposition all the way around. Loss of belief is what is gained.

Catch a few of the key words in the definition of principle: a fundamental truth that serves as the foundation for a system. Fundamental truth. Foundation of a system.

In essence, as the politicians and pundits make clear, our elected leaders are willing to ignore our fundamental truths and erode our foundation for a wee bit of short term control. Is there any among us who does not know what happens to a house when the foundation crumbles?

Dare I state the obvious? Power is what happens when people come together. Control is what happens when people are divided. The politicians and pundits have it all wrong. It’s Control over Principle. The penny gained is not worth the stable republic that is lost. Instability is central to the definition of a banana republic. And so we will take the path all empires walk when their principles take back seat to their control lust.

Children in our public schools are taught a pledge of allegiance to the flag. It ends with these words: …indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. It seems we are locked in a constant battle to define this word: ALL. Are LGBTQ citizens included in ALL? What about Muslim Americans? Women? Are they included in the word ALL? What about black Americans? Is justice for ALL equally applied or is it only available for the select few?

Our pledge is either a statement of principle or it is a lie. We will become indivisible when liberty and justice are assumed and applied equally to ALL. Principles lead to power; that is the point of a principle and why they must be lived, honored. Control is all that remains to a leadership empty of principle. Division is the only tool in a principle-less toolbox.

Principles matter until they don’t. RBG knew there was a line that must be held. She spent her life fighting for principle over control. It is why, in her passing, we celebrate that she represented the best of us.

It is also why, in her passing, we shake our heads in disgust and disbelief as our senate and president represent the very worst of us. They will, of course, slobber and achieve their small amount of control. The cost, of course, is nothing more or less than our nation’s principles.

read Kerri’s blog post about RBG