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Jon Patrick Walker's avatar

Great piece, thanks, D. Regarding your somewhat inexplicable feeling of happiness last night, I just read a piece in the Atlantic on Seamus Heaney. The author of the piece shares a quote from a poem of Heaney’s that she takes inspiration from: “Walk on air against your better judgement.” The author adds, “It gives you the ability, the permission, to hold the full complicated equation of life lightly.”

I also recently finished Rilke’s Book of Hours. Very beautiful and inspiring.

Thanks again.

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Jennifer Browdy, PhD's avatar

Back to the future...remember the old slogan "Workers of the World Unite!"? The global capitalist elite has been at this project a long time, and the ruined economies of Latin America are proof of the wreckage left behind when the corporate capitalist vultures move on. NAFTA was already a step towards nailing the coffin of American industry while exploiting workers in Mexico--a move that Canada has been happy to benefit from. Trump's tariffs aren't going to bring American industry back again...the corporations have moved on. Yes, we are all implicated, every single one of us who pays taxes, uses American banking / credit systems or has a stock investment. Short of living off the grid--which many are now doing like it or not, as "unhoused" people--we are participant-observers in the events of our time, and have to take responsibility for what's happening. What does that look like? Speaking truth to power, at minimum. We may be called to put our bodies on the line in the streets--which was pretty hazardous back in the '90s, if you remember the Occupy or NAFTA protests. I think the over-50 crowd, in particular, have a responsibility to speak up and demand that our elected representatives and court system do whatever they can to stop the criminal takeover of the United States by the corporate financial mafia you and Bolsen are describing. Yes, we should definitely be looking for opportunities for solidarity with people who have been or are being steamrolled in other countries. But we must be especially vigilant and active here, on our own streets and in our own backyards.

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