Liz Cheney | The Direction of Intention

Step Into The Path [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on February 6, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“When living simply, most people’s problems were part of the breathing and functioning of The Big Picture of life, for which few humans, if any, had a large enough vision or imagination to comprehend.” ~ Martin Prechtel, Long Life Honey in the Heart

Our snake plant has easily tripled in size since we brought it home. It resides on the deep window sill in our living room and will soon outgrow its nook. We tease about cutting holes in the ceiling to accommodate its astounding reach. It is a constant source of inspiration; sometimes it seems like an alien being, sometimes kelp-like and belongs in the ocean, often the light-play on its leaves makes Kerri run for her camera.

“To the Tzutujil, people were not put into this world to have a good time; they were put here to be beautiful.” ~ Martin Prechtel

Following the recommendation of Horatio, I have been painting crap for weeks. To be clear, I haven’t been painting crap – that would be odd – rather, my work has been crap. Making messes. Rather than brushes I’ve been using rags and scraping tools. Wiping off, covering over, finger painting. It’s freeing.

My studio is a sanctuary where I can, for a little while, forget what is happening in-and-to our nation. Each day I read or receive an email with these questions: What is happening? What is going to happen? The first is easy to answer: our democracy is being systematically dismembered. The second is impossible to know.

I remembered a play titled The White Rose. It chronicles the arrest and ultimate execution of students from the University of Munich who protested against and resisted the Nazis. It prompted me to Google what the German people did to resist the rise of Hitler. It might surprise you to learn that the German people did not go quietly into the fascist dark night.

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” ~ Anne Frank

Do you remember the pro-Democracy protests in Tiananmen Square and the man who stood in front of a tank? Not all people have had freedom of speech, a free press, a society striving for social equality, the privilege of voting…they would die – and have died – for what we have taken so for granted that it is now, by popular vote, being stripped away.

The potential loss is too great to comprehend.

Did you learn about The Selma Marches* in school? Black Americans were being prevented from voting. Thousands of non-violent protesters marched and were met by violence. It was a seminal moment in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. We have in our history great examples of courage in the face of thuggery. John Lewis. Martin Luther King. Rosa Parks and Liz Cheney are cut from the same cloth.

Empowered people empower others. What is going to happen? What we allow to a happen.

Anne Frank wrote from her hiding place, “In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.” Kind and gentle spirits need not be passive or alone. They can join hands and march. Together they can face-down the corruption and indecency. They can harbor the persecuted. They can step into the path of an oncoming tank and with their courage touch the heart and shared humanity of the world.

*No matter what history the current administration attempts to erase, it is Black History Month and the history of the United States is rich with people of courage who faced incredible resistance to preserve and forward the ideals of democracy.

detail of a painting in progress: can you see her face?

read Kerri’s blogpost about SNAKE PLANT

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Edges, Heroes | Tagged: artistry, beauty, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, free press, free speech, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, kindness, Liz Cheney, martin prechtel, Rosa Parks, social equality, story, studio melange, the melange, The White Rose | 2 Comments »

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