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A Moral Center [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on November 4, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

I was grateful for the meme. It gave me simple language, a shorthand, for something I was wrestling to articulate: We are not having a difference of opinion. We are having a difference of morality.

I wonder that it took a meme to open my eyes. This in not about information bubbles or dueling points-of-view or fact-checked-information.

We are on the eve of an election. This election is unlike any other in our lives. The choice before us eclipses policy differences. On the ballot is democracy or not-democracy. A constitutional republic or an autocracy.

The maga-candidate sows division, darkness and grievance. He is a pathological liar. He is obsessed with retribution. He vows to use the military to silence “the enemy within”. He promises to arrest his opponents. Last week he suggested a firing squad for Liz Cheney. In a multicultural nation, a nation of immigrants, he promises mass deportations.

This is not empty rhetoric. As we’ve learned from his overthrow of Roe, he will do what he says. He has a Heritage Foundation plan called Project 2025 to dismantle our democracy. He disavowed it when public knowledge of his embrace of this extreme fascist blueprint hurt his chances for election. It is his milksop pattern: by pretending he has no knowledge he abdicates responsibility for his words and actions. It is a damning statement of his lack of character. It is a characteristic of an authoritarian narcissist.

What is also a damning statement of character is to vote for such a man. To turn a blind eye to all that he has said, all that he has done, all the lies that he has told, is a statement of our character.

Presidential historian Jon Meacham recently reminded us that within the spirit of the Constitution lives the character of our leaders – and also the character of the led. Our national character. “Out of many, one” is more than a quaint Latin phrase printed on our currency.

A character check: compare the maga-candidate’s daily mantra, “I have no knowledge” with the sign Harry S. Truman proudly displayed on the resolute desk: The buck stops here.

A vote for the maga-candidate is literally a vote to suspend the Constitution (his words). It is a vote to suspend our national character. It is a vote absent of a moral center.

We choose our leaders as a reflection of ourselves. It is why this election is unlike any other in our lives. The image the maga-candidate reflects back to us is at best repugnant. It is empty of character. It is the opposite of our nation’s identity.

If you see yourself in this man, a misogynist, xenophobe, racist, filled with rage and retribution…we are having something much more profound, much more serious than a difference of opinion.

We have a difference of morality.

Decency matters. Conduct matters. Language matters. Character matters. Principles matter. Intentions matter. Discerning the difference between right and wrong, between good and bad behavior, matters.

It’s the spirit living in our Constitution. It’s the character our leaders ought to reflect back to us because it’s the character we should demand from our leaders.

And so we vote.

Democracy or not-democracy.

Will we live and act from a moral center, striving to fulfill the promise of a more perfect union, or will we throw it away and spiral into a fascist void?

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE ELECTION OF OUR LIVES

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Filed under: Edges, Identity, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, character, Constitution, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, decency, democracy, discernment, division, e pluribus unum, Harry S. Truman, Jon Meacham, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Liz Cheney, moral center, moral compass, morality, principles, Project 2025, story, studio melange, The buck stops here, The Constitution of The United States, the melange, unity, vote | 1 Comment »

One Basic Choice [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on November 2, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

I heard this phrase this morning: supra partisan. Transcending party. I heard the “supra partisan” phrase relative to 400 historians – of all political backgrounds and stripes – endorsing Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Their message: the urgency of the moment requires all of us to transcend party and vote for country. We’ve not seen a threat to our existence as a democracy like this since 1860.

Their statement is not hyperbole. The threat posed to our democracy by maga and their aspiring dictator is undeniable. It is historic. It is on our doorstep.

In maga-land, the patterns and lessons of history are threatening precisely because they reveal maga as a fascist movement. It is the reason that their Project 2025 blueprint includes the elimination of the Department of Education. Currently, they are banning books and waging a war on the nation’s libraries. They desire a willing and ignorant citizenry who will without question give over their rights – give over their minds – and follow the lies and whims of the great leader. No debate. No opposition. No questioning. No choice. No thinking. No voice.

No freedom.

A familiar quote comes to mind:

“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” ~ George Santayana

This election should be a no-brainer but, alas, it is not. On Tuesday we will demonstrate that a majority of us have paid attention, learned from history, and vote to preserve our democracy. Or, that a majority of us chooses to ignore history and willingly, intentionally, vote to goose-step into the well-worn and well-known fascist horror story.

It all boils down to one very basic choice.

read Kerri’s blogpost about ONE CHOICE

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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, choice, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, debate, democracy, education, election, fascism, George Bernard Shaw, George Santayana, historians, history, ignorance, Kamala Harris, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, learning, libraries, MAGA, Opposition, Project 2025, rights, story, studio melange, supra partisan, the melange, Tim Walz, vote | Leave a comment »

Either Way [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on November 1, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Imaginary problems.

It is my personal favorite phrase – and point – pulled from Jimmy Kimmel’s special monologue for the republicans in our families. It’s an appeal to their sanity, a summary of the nonsensical incoherence and hate daily spewing from the mouth of their dictator wanna-be and his enablers.

He creates imaginary problems.

For instance: Imaginary problem: that there is rampant voter fraud in our elections. Reality: we have safe, fair, and free elections. There was no evidence of voter fraud in 2020. There is no evidence of voter fraud in 2024.

Other examples of a ridiculous and dangerous imaginary problem: immigrants are eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. Gangs of immigrants are taking over Aurora, Colorado. There are dangerous imaginary problems within the imaginary problem. For instance, immigrants are murderers and rapists set free from the world’s prisons and running amok in our nation. Or there is this: The border is an open door. In reality – yes, in reality – none of it is true.

The “invasion” rant, the immigrant-hate-speak we hear daily, the voter fraud screed…is nothing more or less than fearmongering. Fearmongering: (noun) the action of intentionally trying to make people afraid of something when this is not necessary or reasonable.

Imaginary problems are meant to make people afraid of something when it is not necessary or reasonable.

Imaginary problems cause real problems. Here is a real problem: A full 47% of our citizens are preparing to vote for the dissolution of our democracy. They are basing their vote on imaginary problems. They are voting for fascism as the way forward. That’s a real problem. They are voting for the end of the constitution, the promised use of the military to silence voices of opposition, the end of free and fair elections.

Real problem: People in a democracy are voting for fascism because they have been thoroughly steeped in the imaginary monsters set loose by the wanna-be-dictator and magnified by his X oligarch and the fox-megaphone. Very real problem: 47% of the voting public have lost faith in our system based on lies and imaginary problems; fear manufactured in order to sway them.

The monsters are imaginary. The hate and fear it invokes is very real.

The impact of the wild conspiracy theories and incessant lies aren’t imaginary. For instance, the refusal of the dictator-wanna-be to accept the results of the free and fair election of 2020 led to the deaths of 5 Capitol police officers. 140 police officers were injured by a mob responding to an imaginary problem. The families of the 5 officers who died viscerally know the reality of death, all due to the imaginary problem whipped up by the only president in our history who refused to accept the results of a free and fair election. Real problem: the same man – the only man in our history – who incited violence rather than carry on the American tradition of a peaceful transfer of power – is once again whipping up the same imaginary problem. Real problem: his maga-party is enabling his lie.

Yes, we have a real problem.

Keep in mind, the facade that the dictator- wanna-be is a successful business man is imaginary. Reality television is, well, not reality. Neither is his business acumen. His six bankruptcies are real. His grift is real.

His 34 felony convictions are real. His civil conviction for rape is real. The multiple felony counts he faces are real. What’s imaginary? That the charges against him are politically motivated. He would have his supporters believe that he bears no responsibility for his actions. That is a real problem.

His love of the world’s dictators is real. The world’s dictators love him, too. He is, as those who know him well and served in his administration, famously easy to manipulate. Their cautionary tale to us is not imaginary. They are screaming for his supporters, for the nation, to wake up and see what is real before it is too late. The consequences of his ill-intent are and continue to be very real.

And so, we vote. And the question we answer with our ballots is whether or not we are capable of discerning between what is real from what is imaginary, what has substance and and what is falsehood, whether or not we will step forward as a real democracy or step off into the dark fascist imagination of a tired angry reality tv star, a fabrication of a man whose only gift seems to be creating imaginary problems.

Our vote can be an actual solution to the wanna-be-dictator’s abundant imaginary problems.

Either way the consequences of our vote will be real.

read Kerri’s blogpost about IMAGINARY PROBLEMS

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Filed under: Identity, Language, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, elections, fabrication, faith, fascism, fearmongering, fiction, free and fair elections, hate, imaginary problem, immigrants, jimmy kimmel, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, problem, reality, reasonable, story, studio melange, the melange, truth, vote | Leave a comment »

The Guardrail [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on October 31, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

It’s a windy day and the chimes are singing to us. The wind is from the west so the temperatures are rising. We opened the windows. It feels as if the house is breathing, taking in the fresh air before the temperatures drop and the doors and windows are sealed against the cold.

I know that we are breathing. Kerri said that there’s nothing like a ride in an ambulance to give you perspective. She thought of our children. She thought of me. “Nothing else mattered,” she said. Each breath we take includes a sigh of relief.

Life can change in an instant.

We walked the rim trail. We sat on the edge of the Grand Canyon. It’s an awesome thing – especially for someone who is afraid of heights as I am – to sit on the edge without any guardrails. Full exposure. To me, it feels as if the canyon is pulling me over the edge. It’s disorienting. Of course, it is not pulling me, I know. The feeling, the fear, comes from inside of me.

I heard a powerful statement this week. With the supreme court’s jaw-dropping ruling on presidential immunity, with the Project 2025 plan ready to replace civil servants with those who will swear an oath of loyalty to the dictator-wanna-be, with a cabinet of sycophants and loyalists, there is only one guardrail left between our democracy and our nation being pulled into the abyss of fascism. The maga-clan isn’t even trying to mask their hatred, their authoritarian intention; it was on full display in Madison Square Garden.

The GOP has dissolved into a puddle of cowardice. Fearing it will lose a dollar, the business community and much of the media have tucked their tail, dropped their collective spine and are playing hear-no-evil-see-no-evil.

We are in the ambulance, now. What world will we leave our children?

The guardrail is us. You and me. Our vote. I suppose that is as it should be. A “Government of the people. by the people, for the people…” – a democracy in crisis – should necessarily depend upon the people to deliver it from the hands of an autocrat.

We are and should be the guardrail against tyranny.

It only takes a minute to read the full text of The Gettysburg Address. Lincoln’s final thought in his very concise address are as relevant today as they were the day he dedicated The Soldier’s National Cemetery, November 19, 1863:

“—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. ~ Abraham Lincoln

It is our turn. We are the guardrail. We are the generation that will determine whether or not our nation, “…conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal…can long endure.”

Vote as if our democracy depends on it – because it does.

Earth Interrupted I, 48″x53″ mixed media on canvas

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE GUARDRAIL

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Identity, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: Abraham Lincoln, artistry, autocrat, courage, cowardice, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, equality, freedom, GOP, Grand Canyon, guardrail, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, liberty, MAGA, story, studio melange, The Gettysburg Address, the melange, tyranny, vote | Leave a comment »

Shake The Sickness [David’s blog on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on October 30, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

We thought it was motion sickness or perhaps a brush with heat stroke. In retrospect, it was her first symptoms of COVID. Fever and nausea. Perception is a funny thing. We were on a pontoon boat on Lake Powell, a miracle of water in the middle of the desert. We ascribed her sickness to the circumstance of the moment, blinding ourselves to the presence of the virus.

20 days later, now at home, I called an ambulance. Searing pain in her back, intense nausea. She couldn’t move. She lost consciousness and when she came back into her body, she was utterly incoherent. She couldn’t keep her eyes open. I dialed 911. I thought she had a stroke or heart attack. It never occurred to me that it was COVID inflaming her spine. Sometimes we miss the obvious sickness in the pressure of the moment.

It is through these two experiences that we witness and interpret this moment in our nation’s history. The sickness is right in front of our faces. Is it the pressure of the moment, the circumstances, that make so many of our citizens willingly blind to the hate-filled virus? To what do we attribute the appeal of this maga-fascist movement within a multi-cultural democracy? I am writing ahead so am freshly disgusted by what we witnessed last night at the maga-rally at Madison Square Garden.

This morning I heard this question: Why do we hold Kamala Harris to a high standard for her position on issues, her capacity to articulate ideas, for the emotions she does or does not exhibit – and yet, there is no equal standard or expectation for her opponent? For him, there is no bar too low, no lie too repugnant, no assertion too vile…We’ve normalized his hate-speak; we’ve come to expect his racist, misogynistic rhetoric.

Why the disparity? His fascist rants drive ratings. In a decent society it should disqualify him.

Are we truly this sadly transactional? Is our moral center nothing more than quid-pro-quo?

Kamala holds herself to a high standard. She actually has ideas to articulate. She has and follows a moral compass. She holds fast to a firm belief in public service and champions the tenets of our constitution. She believes the occupant of the office of the presidency should lead by example, should elevate rather than diminish others, should support rather than threaten, should solve problems rather than make accusations, should embody and lead from a high standard, should take responsibility rather than blame. I’m almost embarrassed to write this as it should be a given for any candidate for our nation’s highest office: she also has a firm grasp of reality.

Her opponent and his party have no such expectation of themselves.

We’ve just witnessed a major newspaper withhold an endorsement for fear of retribution if maga-man wins the election. Jeff Bezos does not wish his future business deals to suffer in the event of a maga-win. We are witness to politicians – like Mitt Romney – who fear retribution and banishment from their party if they speak honestly about authoritarian big daddy. That our business leaders, that our politicians fear retribution – retribution from a candidate for president – this is the sickness. This is the fascist disease currently infecting the tongues and minds of those who have platforms to speak.

Think about it: In the United States of America, many of our senior republican politicians are so fearful of defending our democracy that they ask us not to hear what we hear. They gaslight without shame. In 2024, in the United States of America, some of our most successful business people, some who control much of our media, are choosing silence at the very moment we most need their voices. Or, worse, they are actively spreading the lies of the autocrat-wanna-be. Apparently, magnifying the bile could be good for business.

Quid pro quo. No virtue necessary. No moral fiber required. This is the virus attacking the courage- the spinal system – of our nation.

We hold Kamala Harris to a high standard because she holds us to a high standard. She believes that we will vote for a healthy future and not a diseased-fantasy-past. She believes that, after the maga-fever-dream passes, we will as a nation reunite, regain our health. We will hold ourselves and our elected officials to a higher standard. We will re-embody our famous optimism – and those who lost themselves in cowardice and hatred will reawaken, shake the sickness from their hearts and brains, and ask, as Kerri asked in the ER, “What just happened?”

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE VIRUS

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Filed under: Identity, Perspective, Possibility | Tagged: artistry, Constitution, covid, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, disease, fascism, hate, Kamala Harris, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, MAGA, moral center, moral compass, MSG, perception, quid pro quo, responsibility, sickness, standards, story, studio melange, The Constitution of The United States, the melange, Tim Walz, transactional, virus, vote | 3 Comments »

Climb The Stairs [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on October 29, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

It was a rare treat to climb the stairs to the rooftop deck and gaze into the night sky, unobstructed by city lights. Years ago I worked with kids in Los Angeles, teenagers, who had never seen the stars. Standing on the roof, overwhelmed by the Milky Way, I thought about those children, now well into their adulthood, and hoped that they had, at long last, found a way to peer into the endless universe.

What else might adequately provide them the understanding of the impossibility of their existence, the enormity of their lives? What else might open their eyes and hearts to the necessity of community, the recognition that their lives only have meaning relative to the people who share this planet and this moment-in-time with them? Relationship is purpose.

We have seven days. In biblical terms that’s how long it took the metaphoric god to differentiate light from dark, land from sea, moon from sun, animals from humans. Rest from work. Humanity’s role in this story of creation is to appreciate the enormity of their unlikely existence. To steward. To name. To discern between merit and the meritless, between truth and lie. To distinguish good intention from ill-intention.

We have seven days until we vote. Although we might pretend this is normal, this election is like no other in our lifetimes. The issues have taken a back seat to the question of our existence as a democracy. We are determining whether or not we are still capable of distinguishing truth from lie, whether or not we are willing to toss away our freedoms and replace them with authoritarian rage, whether or not we will serve the needs of the greater community or the power-lust of an individual.

Seven days. We will either step forward as champions of light and truth or we will turn our backs on what we know to be true and fall backwards into the dark fascist promises of Project 2025.

Under the stars we have a choice: to continue our quest to realize the dream of a more perfect union, with liberty and justice for all – or to exchange our constitution for the autocratic craving of an angry despot. To honestly name what we know to be true.

There’s still time to climb the stairs, peer into the starry sky, and realize the power of our choices, what is at stake in this, our time, our moment.

read Kerri’s blogpost about STARS

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Filed under: Identity, Metaphor, Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, autocrat, choice, choices, community, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, exclusion, existence, inclusion, justice, Kamala Harris, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, liberty, lie, Project 2025, relationship, stars, story, studio melange, the melange, The Milky Way, truth | 1 Comment »

He’s Got You [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on October 28, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

I listened to a news reel last night, white men complaining that they were sick of being blamed for the ills of the USA. It was their permission-structure for voting for authoritarian Big Daddy. “He gets us,” one man declared.

I didn’t realize that so many self-proclaimed rugged men, you know, real men (“I put my feelings in my back pocket…I don’t have feelings!”) could be so fragile, so sensitive. So in denial. If I rolled my eyes any harder they’d fall out of my head.

The woman almost spit bile on me. “You liked it!” she fumed. She was incredulous that I actually went to The Barbie Movie. Apparently The Barbie Movie poses a threat to the manly-men who sit atop the patriarchy and the good soldiers and wives all the way down the man-ladder. “Art is supposed to make people think,” I thought but did not say. She had no intention of thinking.

Thinking. It is in short supply, especially for those rough-and-tumble-guys who believe that he gets you. He’s getting you, alright. Your masked-hyper-sensitivity and emasculation-fear make you easy marks. He’ll get your vote in order to toss our democracy. Remember, everything is transactional for authoritarian Big Daddy. He’ll take what’s yours to get what he wants. He’ll tell you what you want to hear as long as you turn a blind eye to what he says, who he shames, who he hurts. No evidence required. No reality needed. He expects you to swallow each lie – hook, line, and sinker.

That’s real man stuff! Grit your teeth, beat your chest, and follow the lemmings who call themselves cowboys, an independent, a rogue. Rev-up the engine of your Silverado and fly the flag from the bed of your machine. Make a bold statement! Mimic the bully. Pretend that you are in full control of your feelings as you let your rage run roughshod over your brain.

Lie to yourself as you swallow the lies of your fascist-wanna-be. Yep. He gets you, this man who was born into privilege, calls our veterans suckers and losers, demeans and strips the rights from our daughters, mothers and wives.

Keep this in mind (if you can find your mind): He’s never been in a grocery store. He’s never lifted a shovel or had to worry about where the rent was coming from. His daddy bailed him out of his multiple bankruptcies – no sweat – just like your daddy tossed money at you when you were worrying about feeding your family. He rapes women (“It was only a civil trial!” you proclaim in his defense.) Just like you? He brags about it. You, too?

Also consider, he would not stoop so low as to drive his own truck – he has drivers. And chefs. And assistants. And sycophants.* Scores of them. Just like you. Telling him everything he wants to hear so he can tell you everything you want to hear. An authoritarian echo chamber. A fascist feedback loop.

He gets you, remember. And he is poised to get his hands around the throat of our democracy. He’s been honest about this one thing: he’ll strangle the constitution and toss the body of democracy into the dumpster, just so he – and you -can feel like a man. Hot dog! Top dog!

He’s got you.

(*Sycophant (noun): toady, flatterer, fawner, doormat, kowtower, leech, bootlicker…)

read Kerri’s blog about DEMOCRACY

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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, authoritarian, cowboy brain, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, fascism, Kamala Harris, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lemmings, macho, men, patriarchy, story, studio melange, sycophant, The Constitution of The United States, the melange, transactional, white men | 4 Comments »

It’s Our Turn [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on October 26, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

You may have noticed two things. First, our weekly Smack-Dab uses the same artwork every week. Our explanation: Kerri’s computer died weeks ago and, since she is her mother’s daughter, she will resist replacing it until all possible work-arounds are exhausted. Therefore the Smack-Dab dialogue changes because we can edit it. The images…not so much.

There is creative liberation in limitation. Years ago we created a cartoon featuring the eternal optimist DogDog and the ever-cynical BabyCat conversing at the front door. The dialogue changed while the images remained constant. It was a riot of fun. The unchanging image – the visual parameters – often determined the dialogue possibilities. This morning I realized that Smack-Dab has become At-The-Door.

Second, Smack-Dab is now a political cartoon. In a recent interview, historian Heather Cox Richardson spoke of the critical times in our nation’s history that democracy was threatened and the people of the nation rose to meet the challenge and preserve the constitution. She said, “Now, it is our turn. It is our time to rise and meet the challenge to our democracy.”

We never dreamed that Smack-Dab would become a political cartoon, Neither did we ever dream that our democracy would give rise to an authoritarian with so many of our fellow citizens wholeheartedly supporting his fascist intentions.

We – all of us – are sitting at the existential door. The question we consider is basic: do we believe in democracy and the way of life enshrined in our constitution? Or, do we swear an oath the rantings of a fascist madman? He’s a cartoon but he’s not funny.

We are asking momentous questions in our cartoon. We will answer these questions with our vote. The way we meet this historic challenge to our democracy couldn’t be more serious. It’s our turn. It’s our time to preserve for future generations the Constitution of The United States.

At The Door © 2016, 2024 kerrianddavid.com

read Kerri’s blogpost about OPEN THEIR EYES

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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, authoritarian, cartoon, cartoonists, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, fascism, Heather Cox Richardson, Kamala Harris, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, limitation, limitations, MAGA, political cartoon, smack-dab, studio melange, The Constitution of The United States, the melange, threat, threat to democracy, two artists, vote | 3 Comments »

I Wonder [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on October 25, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.” ~ James Baldwin

Our Melange posts generally begin with a visual prompt, usually one of Kerri’s recent photographs. Today, for the first time in our Melange history, she offered me a quote. The photograph, the stone heart, came second.

My dad used to tell me that I’d educated myself into stupidity. He was, of course, regurgitating the sentiments of his fox-news source; those were not his words or his thoughts. He was an educated man, early in his life a schoolteacher, yet his entire life he yearned to return to the simple life he remembered, growing up in a small town in Iowa. His yearning was sincere and pervasive. He was kind to his core and generous to everyone he met. He had no idea what to do with the complexity of the contemporary world and so he found solace in rejecting it.

One of my cherished memories of my dad was the day we spent in the cemetery of his small town. He was far down the road of dementia and wanted to visit his beloved small town one last time. I was taken aback that he had no desire to wander the streets but wanted, instead, to wander through the graves – so that is what we did. He’d point to a headstone and tell me the story of the person buried there. To him it wasn’t a graveyard, it was a reunion. He could not remember what he ate for breakfast but he remembered in vivid detail the people that populated his young life, the names on the headstones.

My dad worked most of his life as a foreman of a concrete construction company. His crews were mostly illegal immigrants. For a few summers I worked on his crew and I have never been more proud of him – or learned more from him – than I did watching his dedication to the men who worked for him. He understood their plight, he valued their hard thankless work, and they were as loyal to him as he was to them.

I can only imagine what he would think of the rhetoric of mass deportation, the radical dehumanization of the men he spent his life working with, the racist lies. I wonder if his yearning for simplicity would cloud his perspective or would he recognize the ugly authoritarianism masked in the maga mass-deception.

He was, at his core, kind. Generous. I cannot imagine he would sign on to the oppression and denial of basic humanity that runs rampant through the maga rhetoric. And, since I am “woke”, a progressive, a man dedicated to learning and asking questions, a believer in open minds and hearts, I am now one of the vermin populating the fox-maga-storyline. I doubt he would sign on to that.

I wonder, if we were sitting on the patio drinking a beer, if he’d question, as I do, how his rural America, his imagined simplicity, became so ugly, so lost in the rantings of a fascist. So un-American.

I wonder if he, from his resting place in the graveyard, wishes now for a better story for his small town, for all small towns – the story of generosity and kindness he remembered as hallmarks of the people who populated his early years, the people and narrative who shaped him, his goodness, his life.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about OPPRESSION

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Filed under: Identity, KS Friday, Story | Tagged: artistry, authoritarian, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, deception, generosity, goodness, humanity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, learning, loyalty, MAGA, narrative, open heart, open mind, progressive, simplicity, small town, story, studio melange, the melange, woke | 2 Comments »

A Perspective Giver [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on October 24, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

I could have sat all day on the porch and stared at the sculpted landscape, the fingers of Lake Powell reaching into the canyon. My artist’s soul rejuvenates in the southwest. It excites my imagination while quieting my mind. Just as the high desert sun warms me to the core of my being, the geography invigorates the core of my artistry.

It’s been two weeks since I sat on that porch and looked with awe at the horizon and watched the colors transform from hot orange to dusty purple as the sun progressed across the sky. It was akin to looking at the ocean surf, a rolling touch of the eternal. A perspective-giver.

While sitting on the porch I pondered our nation’s inability to fully reconcile with its past. It’s impossible to drive through tribal lands and not consider the full history of our nation. It’s been much on my mind recently since it is a central theme of my latest play, Diorama.

Think about it: just this week the maga-candidate-for-president suggested he would stop funding schools that taught about slavery. Nikki Haley, while running for the Republican nomination for president, said that there’d never been racism in the United States of America.

I sometimes wonder in these divisive times if the USA is like an alcoholic that refuses to admit that it has a problem. Why so much denial? Why so many blatant lies? In fact, it’s not new. Take a gander at the Lost Cause narrative propagated throughout the south (and the nation) following the civil war, a tale of happy slaves and benevolent slave owners. You might recognize it as it has resurged as the official curriculum in the state of Florida (and other states) in 2024. Twelve generations of brutality white washed and to what end?

Of course, it is the white-washed America that the reds aspire to inhabit – and to achieve their fantasy they necessarily need to ignore the full scope of our history. There’s no responsibility in a white washed history. In cowboy brain there are only good guys and bad guys so the good guys need never question their actions or confront their shadows. It’s an infantile narrative, not only unworthy of a maturing nation, but crippling to its growth.

The fourth step in the AA twelve step program suggests that, in order to restore our sanity – in order to grow up – we must be willing to make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. We must not be afraid to admit when we are wrong or recognize when we have strayed from our ideals.

A fearless moral inventory. An honest look at our complete history, the good, the bad and everything in between. As Aldous Huxley wrote, we are in a race between education and destruction. An educated populace would never tolerate the lies of the would-be-autocrat and would easily see through the crazy revisionist history that he manufactures and spews. Perhaps that is why he vows to dismantle the Department of Education.

The question before us in November is whether or not our democracy will prevail and mature or will the white nationalist monster, in a celebration of ignorance, eat our collective freedoms and send us swirling into the immoral (and infantile) fascist nightmare outlined in Project 2025? A fearless moral inventory or the path of the Lost Cause cowards?

The choice is ours to make. The story is ours to tell.