Today I would like to stretch way back, to the 40,000 foot view of what is going on in this world, thanks to the “economy” that The War Machine has created, and that keeps us enslaved. But first, a bit of hyper-local news that begins in the same warlike vein, but then switches, to offer peace-full contrast via empathic communion with another.
Okay, here goes.
This morning, ultra distracted, I did not one, but a number of dumb things:
First, I forgot to lock my car (or even hide my purse) when starting out on a 3-mile walk in a long park a 15 minute drive from home with puppy Scampi. So I turned around when I remembered, 1/4 mile later. (There goes that walk! Will have to sandwich it in later.)
Next, I didn’t realize that mine would be the only car in the lot, though I should have known since the temp was only 19°.
Which meant that I would have to take my phone on the walk, given black ice on roads and especially paths. What if I fell like I did last February, on black ice, and broke my wrist? I would need to be able to call someone, but the jacket I wore had only shallow pockets. I would have to put the phone in my pants. Yuck.
So after that frustrating misadventure I went to our local co-op for weekly groceries.
Oh but wait! I had no readers in my purse, so would have to head home first to get them before heading to the store. Yep, none of my at least ten or so Dollar Store readers were in my car or purse . . .
When it came time to check out, the clerk, sweetly polite, asked how I was doing, and I blurted out, “horrible!” — kind of as a joke, but secretly, inside, true. Damn true. How could I get so discombobulated, and end up “wasting an hour” in my usual highly patterned day?
But here’s the kicker, and the reason I tell this story. The oldish woman behind me in line at the co-op burst out with, “I’m so glad you feel horrible!” “Because I’ve been in despair, ever since the election.” Which ignited my usual harsh rebuttal: “Well, I DON’T.” But even as that word “Don’t” was uttered, my voice began to soften, empathic, finishing with, “I know. A lot of people feel that way.”
Somehow this exchange, with my tonal shift mid-word, mid-sentence, pretty much neutralized the “horribleness” of the earlier part of my morning. And though I was still fighting distraction, another thought crept into my head: it seemed to me that for this woman it was a point of honor to feel horrible after the election. That to say so would signify unity. But, good for her! Though surprised, she then took my “Well, I don’t” in stride, and then, because I had softened, what could have been rancor between us never got a chance to poison the atmosphere.
Yes, unity. Not ideological or political; simply human.
We all have feelings, and sometimes we feel horrible, or in despair.
Okay, speaking of poisoning. This post by Marjorie Taylor Greene may be the most succinct and yet thoroughly articulate elucidation of the fact that, and how, our entire economy is militarized, without our even noticing it. Worse, this happened decades ago, and we “citizens” have been living in willful ignorance ever since. I think, for example, of the gigantic Crane Naval Surface Warfare Center, only 25 miles SW of Bloomington . . . with all the businesses that feed into and out of it, the tax base it requires and acquires, on and on. That’s not even to mention the bloodlines leading into and out of it from Indiana University. . . . with academic research grants, etc. etc. all to support the global killing machine that we pretend is “defense.” On and on. All the tiny capillaries of this bloody technocratic, inflationary monster that we, the people, pay for, re-create and keep going, simply by going about our daily lives inside it.
