I awakened to the news that the Democrats appear to have won the Georgia runoffs.  That means that control of the Senate passes from the Trump Party to the Democrats.  The new Biden Administration stymied at every turn by a

Republican controlled Senate would have been a nightmare four years in duration.  For me raised in the South, to see Georgia, a deep-South State repudiate the racism, the white Nationalism of the Republican Party — gives me hope that racism, misogyny, and the endorsement of corporate capture of our institutions need not be an inevitable death sentence for our society.   We homo sapiens have the capacity to recognize and “do the right thing” when the action required is hard.  It is not an easy ask to resist the drum beat of misinformation, the half truths promulgated by talking heads on Fox News, by White male Trump members of congress dressed up in three piece suits.  In Georgia yesterday, a former slave holding state, — citizens did the right thing.

Therefor ring the bells, ring them loudly as a contest for power has been won.  For now, today we can celebrate this victory.  Tomorrow will come soon enough when the next campaign need be planned.

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In my growing up years I paid little attention to politics.  I was a child after all.  Politics is about a contest of power, how our affairs are managed, who wins and who loses.  Winners and losers, that is how the game is normally played.  The compromise that is struck often is not a humane one.  After all why in god’s name would we consign anyone to live on a “reservation.”  “Reservation” means a holding area, land removed from commerce, sequestered from social contact with the rest of us.  That is what our descendants did to the Native Americans.

Children by right ought to be protected from politics, from the thinly veiled violence that is expressed by adults usually male, in three piece suits.

As I reached adulthood, I received a rough introduction to politics.  I am certain that before I voted in any election I received a draft card. Some time afterward I received notice that my name received a low number in the draft lottery.  A few months passed and I was called up to join the war in Vietnam, to help kill Vietnamese.  That was my induction into the politics of America.  I still carry that torn, frayed draft card in my wallet.

Attention and care must be paid to politics.  Horrendous acts inevitably will be done, if we do not pay attention to politics.  Governments commit atrocities that no moral individual would condone as the moral act of an individual.

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I was taken to task by a friend.  I said that it is appropriate to express annoyance, fury, contempt, concern, and fear in the course of philosophical exchange and dialog.  Admittedly these are strong emotional states, always demanding self awareness when and how they are expressed.  Racist ideas, and racist acts merit contempt, repudiation because they are dangerous to those to whom they are directed.  They are corrosive to the common good deserving a furious repudiation.  Likewise are the misogynist intentions cloaked in “pro-life” ideology.  Dressed up anyway you like, even in a theological, scripture-quoting wrapper, — depriving any woman of the right to her body, is an assault upon all women.  From an academic, objective point of view such ideas are unreasonable, illogical.  But making the argument dispassionately, stripped of proper emotion — gets nothing done, will never carry the day in opposition to such darkness.

In deference to the Buddha, meditation, awareness of our subterranean emotional weather in order to clear a space for the cessation of inner conflict is a worthwhile practice.  But there is a time and a place when one needs to strap on the armor, and reach for one’s sword.