Gone
The lyric penned by Chrissie Hynde is more true now than ever.
We must resist temptation to believe “the system” is going to take care of us. The system is an abstraction, a collection of imagined, dream-like benefices, (democracy protects everyone’s rights, captalism-gets-us-all-ahead, etc.) quite divorced from the way things actually work, the sharp-edged reality. Whether by the slow extractive grind of capitalism, or the insertion of gratuitous violence by paramilitary ICE, localities are decimated.
A town or a city is like this song. Lyrics and great guitar licks in sublime combination. Violence is a killer.
Tonight there is to be a emergency meeting of the city council here in Batavia. An ordinance will be considered forbidding ICE the use of village property to stage their operations. I plan to be present at the meeting. Hopes and prayers are irrelevant when action is called for to preserve life, and pubic well-being.
