freedoms | The Direction of Intention

So Here It Is [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on September 20, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Well, you’ve cracked the sky, scrapers fill the air
But will you keep on building higher
‘Til there’s no more room up there
Will you make us laugh, will you make us cry?
Will you tell us when to live, will you tell us when to die?

I know we’ve come a long way
We’re changing day to day
But tell me, where do the children play?

~ Cat Stevens, Where Do The Children Play

Kerri regularly tells me to “gear down.” She’s asking me to simplify my thoughts so they are more accessible. It’s the reason I nodded knowingly when I read this in Thom Hartmann’s newsletter:

“The reason we’re at a pivotal moment in America is because most people don’t know how to answer this question: “How do you know when you’re really no longer living in a democracy?”

He makes a great point. Even though we have tanks rolling down civilian streets, masked thugs plucking people without warrant or due process, concentration camps popping up in swamps, the collapse of checks-and-balances, the intentional scrubbing of our history, an all-out assault on diversity and civil rights, a Supreme Court regularly ruling against the Constitution in support of a single man consolidating power… “Up until the last few days, most Americans didn’t think we’d lost our freedoms or are about to.”

He continues: “But everybody knows Jimmy Kimmel. So the new understanding is: ‘You know you don’t live in a free country any more when comedians can no longer criticize the president.‘”

So, here it is. Geared down so all can understand. We don’t live in a free country anymore. We can either mumble our way into autocracy or we can open our mouths and regain our freedoms. As Stephen Colbert said, “We’re all Jimmy Kimmel now.”

read Kerri’s blogpost about FREE SPEECH

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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, CAt Stevens, comedians, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, free country, freedom of speech, freedoms, jimmy kimmel, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, stephen colbert, story, studio melange, the melange, Thom Hartmann, Where Do the Children Play | 1 Comment »

Black and White [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on September 19, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Despair is a narcotic. It lulls the mind into indifference.” ~ Charlie Chaplin

It turns out that there are some things that are black or white. For instance, we either have free speech or we don’t. We either have the protections of due process and habeas corpus or we don’t. We either adhere to the Constitution or we don’t. We either have a free press or we don’t. We either champion the truth or we don’t.

We either have a democracy or we don’t.

Right now, in this moment, where all of the above are concerned, we don’t.

I’m still shaking my head at the 90 million voters who did not turn out to vote in the last election. Were they indifferent? There is certainly enough despair to go around given the sucking of wealth from the many into the hands of the few. We either exercise our power in democracy by voting or we don’t.

The system is either built for all of us or it is tilted toward the privileged few. And that seems to be the line of discord in our short history, the rope that we perpetually tug in our incessant internal war: who do we mean when we say, “We the people”? It either includes all of us in the promise or it doesn’t.

We either protect the dream or we don’t.

Lately, in a mass capitulation of courage by corporate America, the legal profession, universities…we’ve learned that despair is not the only narcotic that lulls the mind into indifference. Profit might be mightier than despair in producing indifference. We’re literally seeing our nation sell its soul. It’s become abundantly clear what is valued and what is not.

Democracy, for the morbidly wealthy, seems no match for private gain. It’s up to the rest of us to wake up, shake off indifference and loudly remind the gluttonous few that fascism has no place in a democratic republic, that our rights and protected freedoms are not for sale or to be used as leverage for the corporate merger.

We either protect the dream now or we lose it. We’re standing at the line. All of us. It makes no difference if you are on the blue team or the red. The orchestrated collapse of our democracy, the loss of protected freedoms, of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the erasure of our nation of laws and not men…applies equally to all of us.

It turns out that somethings are not black or white, they are black and white.

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost on BLACK AND WHITE

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Filed under: KS Friday, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, black and white, Constitution, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, fascism, free press, freedom of speech, freedoms, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, liberty, rights, story, studio melange, the melange, vote | 1 Comment »

Suspicious Sugar Sipping [David’s blog on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on September 10, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Breaking news! It was just discovered that most hummingbirds winter in Mexico and Central America. They are, in fact, migrants and not the benign sugar-sipping citizens of the USA as previously believed.

Rest assured, roving bands of ICE are on it. Luckily, the Supreme Court just dismantled constitutional protections against racial profiling. Hummingbirds join Latinos as groups who can be detained without cause. Any bird perceived to be a hummingbird is now subject to arrest and subsequent deportation without due process.

The court’s ruling clears the way for ICE to detain and disappear any bird, migrating or non-migratory residents, without cause or due process, based on looks (asian, caucasian, african american, latino, indigenous*…), occupation (chef, construction worker, professor, lawyer, artist, economist, democratic politician…) or language (truth, fact, data, wisdom, knowledge) spoken in Spanish, English or any of the other approximately 7,100 languages spoken on earth.

Residents are encouraged to immediately report any suspicious sugar-sipping-behavior – or anyone who espouses moral clarity – to your neighborhood roving ICE band.

(Dear maga reader: In case you missed it, this post is purposely facetious. Facetious is an adjective and means to treat serious issues with deliberately inappropriate humor; flippant.)

***

*The U.S. federal government’s race categories include American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and White, with an option to select two or more races. In addition, these categories are often paired with Hispanic or Latino and Middle Eastern or North African to form a comprehensive list of seven co-equal categories for data collection on race and ethnicity.

Once racial profiling is legal for one group, it applies to all groups. The Supreme Court is sworn to uphold the Constitution, not to dismantle it as the six conservative justices are now doing.

read Kerri’s blogpost about HUMMINGBIRDS

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, citizen, civil rights, Constitution, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, deportation, due process, fascism, freedoms, hummingbirds, ice, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, racial profiling, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

In Our DNA [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on November 5, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Often, if you pay attention, the smallest pattern of action is a fractal revealing the bigger picture.

For instance, a small pattern of action: when Kamala Harris first became the Democratic nominee for president, many of our neighbors had to display their yard signs from inside their houses; if left outside their signs disappeared.

Bigger picture: the maga-candidate and his supporters promise to erase all voices of opposition. It is their pledge, their vow, the entirety of their platform.

Our democracy is a two-party system founded on the principle of healthy debate. In other words, opposition, the active engagement with opposing points of view is the magic ingredient of our form of governance . Our vote is the sacred epicenter of the ongoing, healthy debate. Our vote is literally our voice in the debate. It is how we sustain and perpetuate the gift of democracy.

Democracy is never finished. It is not a place of arrival. It is not a noun. It is an ongoing, living process, imperfect and messy, that generation to generation strives toward a more perfect union. It is an action, a verb. We are what we do. Today -and every day – we are the stewards of this high ideal: government of the people, by the people, for the people.

Today, unlike any other vote of our lives or our parents’ or grandparents’ lives, our great-grandparents’ lives – democracy in on the ballot. Kamala Harris has been clear: she will ensure that voices of opposition have a seat at the table. That is the way of democracy.

The maga-candidate has been clear: he intends to arrest and silence all voices of opposition. He will, if necessary, use the military to do it. He’s labeled voices of opposition as “the enemy within”. That is the way of fascism.

Removing opposition silences the debate and smothers the breath of democracy.

Small pattern: over time, more and more Harris/Walz signs showed up in yards, moving from inside the house to the outside where they belong.

Big picture: the voice of opposition grows stronger, louder, more vibrant, when tyrants attempt to repress it. That, too, is an American tradition. It’s in our dna, our national character. We don’t like it when we are stripped of our freedoms. As Kamala Harris reminded us, our nation was established when a petty tyrant tried to suppress our voices and restrict our rights; when the petty tyrant tried to eliminate our freedoms he unleashed an uncontrollable voice of opposition. We the people.

248 years later, another petty tyrant promises, if elected (ironically) to remove all voices of opposition. Opposition stands in the way of his lust for absolute power. He vows to abolish the magic ingredient. He is committed to the eradication of democracy, the birth of fascism. He’s already begun his erasure of opposition by once again claiming without evidence that our elections are corrupt.

And so, today, our choice could not be clearer. Today, we exercise our right of voice. We will either carry forward our inheritance of healthy opposition or we will fall into the petty divide and end it.

Today we weigh in on the debate. Democracy or fascism? We vote.

read Kerri’s blogpost about VOTE