The old dude finds himself mulling over words, apparently incendiary words this week.
Words like reform, honesty, ethics, corruption and yes, vote, among others.
Why incendiary? These days in some quarters, they’ve apparently propaganda.
Actions like attacking and defiling our nation’s capital, pardoning the attackers, defacing the White House, cursing and threatening reporters and judges, alternately ignoring, threatening and attempting to bribe our representatives, defrauding us of our money and imprisoning our people. All these are apparently acceptable. What a world we live in.
Lives like eighteen young service men and women who gave their lives because a power hungry, justice fearing pair of nation state despots believe words like the above don’t matter, never mattered and those young lives and their families don’t matter; never mattered.
Lives, words and actions. A young state representative with a beautiful family, striving, struggling to stake out and stick to meaningful ethical positions amidst a building cacophony of corruption and self-serving behavior from his party’s leadership and too often Kool aide infused and shiny object blinded constituents.
His opponent, pulled from much deserved retirement and forced to not so much stake out meaningful positions as feverishly jump between the roles of ER doctor and coroner of this feebly stirring state and federal body politic.
Actions. Erecting and tearing down signs. Honking horns in sympathy and gunning engines fleeing reality. Too many of us, seeking sanity, appear to be feverishly attempting to straighten the rows on the deck chairs of this steeply listing ship of state.
But, if we’re to survive, words do matter. Truthful, accurate words. Actions do matter. Standing up against hate and fear and lies. And lives do matter. The lives, futures and souls of our young public servants’ beautiful children. The lives of those young men and women returning home in flag draped coffins. The lives of folks like the old dude who’ve lived many decades in this land of seemingly endless plenty and freedom. Two humans very close to the old galoot, sadly approaching the end of their time here at hospitals not too many miles north and south of here. One served, then thrived in unionized manufacturing, the other rose to prominence in mining engineering and administration, but like too many these days, failed increasingly to see those around him he didn’t “need” for success as real people.
Damn the codger loves them both. But he’s thinking right now of the lives and words and actions of a couple of folks who connected recently under a shade tree at a local park. One, a courageous lady of seven plus decades, part of a small group taking action in 90-degree heat for almost an hour and then seeking shelter, had slowly sunk to the dry grass and closed her eyes. We rubbed her back and arms and one of us called 9-1-1. Then a voice and a figure approached. Our city administrator, a target of some in this protest, came walking up, then returned to his vehicle for wet wipes and a pair of new, apparently gifted socks he wet down with his water bottle and we placed on her arms and neck till the ambulance arrived.
In these traumatic times actions matter. Like voting. Lives matter, human lives. Words matter. Not just kind, empathetic, immediate actions and words toward folks we know, but actions toward other human beings in human concentration camps and jails 25 miles to our north and 800 & 1,200 miles to our east and south where multiple thousands of our productive fellow community men, women and children are being warehoused, shipped and yes, too often allowed or helped to die. Actions matter. Like saying no and H*LL no, to allowing ICE and other gestapo to intervene in our communities. Words matter. Like the words of the Missouri constitution which allows our citizens to determine what our laws will be.
