I think I can take this.

[txaslftist]

I'm a poli-sci guy, and a student of history and all that stuff. To me, no book rings as true as "They Thought They Were Free, the Germans 193_ to 1945" by Milton Mayer. You can get chunks of it off of the web with google, and usually you find the best chunks. And when Naomi Wolf speaks of her experiences with fascism and how perilously close we are, I understand and agree.

And when the cute little Spanish interpreter we use in our courtroom says that she lived in Spain under Franco and that this is what America is quickly becoming, I get it. And when my clients facing deportation back to Mexico say that they don't mind so much since although Mexico is desperately poor, it is a freer nation than the US, I get that too. When I read that we have more people in prison in the US than any other nation in the world, it no longer surprises me. When I hear our news media repeating the same meaningless stories again and again while only a few brave voices give words to the dread I feel, I understand.

Wars of aggression, torture, extraordinary renditions, the burning of stacks of CDs, the vast fraud that is our two party electoral system where on the fundamental contempt for liberty all acceptable candidates agree ... this I understand. These things no longer surprise me. Oh, they did! Once they did. Once when I believed in a myth called "America is special and free". Then my cognitive dissonance was at its epitome.

But now? Now I know that we are nothing special, and that in our collapse we would rather save our baubles than our children, our phony abstract money being worth more than our vanishing abstract liberty.

But I have a bucket of abstract money and a secure home and a place of respect and many assets and friends I can count on if things get hard. I will abide and my family will survive and even if our fortune be diminished, we have come from hard times before and we can endure them until this great calamity is over. I don't worry about my wealth turning into subsistence, because I can take that. I am resourceful and educated and there will always be criminals to defend, immigrants to help and people who need my services. I will get by.

And if the nation falls, and our liberties are finally and irrevocably traded in for a false sense of security, I have friends who are wise and who owe me favors so that no matter what comes, we can take it. I can take it. My family can take it. I've made provisions for the disastrous calamity to come.

The hardest thing to take is the destruction of all of the myths of America I held dear as I was born here and grew up here. The myth of American love of freedom; the myth of American courage in adversity; the myth of American tolerance; even the myth of American kindness. To watch these myths die will be the hardest thing to take. I've made no provisions for this death in my soul and heart like I've made provision for my wealth, safety and family.

But I think I can take this. I am strong and come from strong people. We will survive deep in the roots of family and faith, even as the nation rides inevitably, screaming with glee and pain, into Hell.

[JuniperLea]

1. The future ain't what it used to be

Thank you for this well thought out and well written accounting of the current situation.

[kimmerspixelated]

2. But if we all become too complacent

things will tumble into tryanny very quickly. Your post is beautiful and something to behold. Everyone should have the spirit you bring forth. As Americans, we are tougher than we think, but we need to fight everything that is wrong with all we've got. Without the growing grassroots we have established in these years of decline, we would be much worse off, so it's chins up,chins up!We are strong and powerful, and WE THE PEOPLE must RULE!

[txaslftist]

3. When I was younger, I thought I would fight.

Not just with words, but with guns and bullets and bombs, if the powers that reside in lofty places above my head ever came to take my liberties. But now I have given hostages to fortune, and there is no one to shoot or bomb. Who would I fight? Some poor slob simply doing as he is told to protect his own people? Whose father should I murder? Whose son should I slaughter? Whose bloodline should I end?

No. Violence is the last resort of the very desperate and foolish. Things may tumble into tyranny quickly, but my people, my family and my friends will endure it, and when we tumble back out of tyranny the earth and stones and the laughter of children will testify that we never were extinguished.

As for ruling, I don't want to rule. I just want to endure and to flourish in peace and the relative calm that is life not-on-the-heights. I want liberty more than I want peace, but for my family? For my children?

I suppose if I knew how to fight or who to fight or who are real allies and who are the riders of opportunity and greed in these troubled times, perhaps something more than yielding in strength might happen. I pay my money to candidates I believe in, I walk with signs and I am a (small and minor) elected person. But the end of America is not in our laws or leaders, it seems to be in our bones and spirit.

It seems we must await a rebirth of America in a new way and with new ideas. The old models seem to be breaking apart and something evil emerging from the cracks.

[tavalon]

8. He/She didn't say fight with violence

but further on in your post, you refer to what bedevils me so, that I don't know what else to do. I had some clarity in the year of research, after 9/11 (when I watched with horror as my country and especially my state, Texas, went all nationalistic) but I implemented each of those and they don't work anymore. I don't want revolution because that's a bloody, chaotic, throw the cards up in the air and see where they land, kind of situation. So, I know what I don't want and I know what doesn't work, now where do I go to figure out what I do want and what will work.

Yes, apparently we must just wait and watch and hope that when the time comes, we will know what is to be done.

You are a poet and a lawyer and you're in Lubbock! I never in my life imagined such a thing could exist. But hell, we had Molly and Ann, so why the hell not have a lawyer-poet in Lubbock?

[txaslftist]

13. A poet? I don't think so.

But thank you for saying so.

[tavalon]

20. This writing is poetic and evocative

You're a poet and didn't know it. ;)

[Senator]

4. K&R&ImpeachToUniteUsAgain

[robinlynne]

5. I think you feel strong in this way because you are a lawyer. My biggest fear

for this future that seems to be coming, is what if we don't have good lawyers ready soon enough?...All the rest, I know we can all deal with...

[txaslftist]

14. I don't fear for a lack of lawyers.

I fear for a system in which they are impotent. This is perhaps because in the Federal Court in Lubbock, defense attorneys ARE impotent, making brilliant arguments that the court flatly ignores. But there are procedural limitations on what we can say that are as egregious, if not more so, than the contempt that the judge shows to our words.

[tavalon]

6. Screaming with glee and pain

Wow, what a great snippet.

Of course, I think it's more like, comfortably numb in front of the mind control device. I cut the umbilical about 6 years ago and have been the better for it, though I miss getting to see the Daily show full size.

[tavalon]

7. BTW, do you really believe your sig line

Because I'm incredibly optimistic and yet, I don't see that being the reality on the ground.

[txaslftist]

15. The sig line is ironic.

It is a quote from a French writer. You see, the rich do not steal bread, sleep under bridges or beg. Accordingly, the law crushes the poor. That is the meaning of the quote. It is a rather dark thought.

[tavalon]

19. That makes sense then

I was hard pressed to understand how a lawyer, especially one obviously not deluded by the profession would espouse such a blatantly (to me) false statement.

[tavalon]

9. Oh, and one last thing

I'm not at all sure I can take it. I've waxed and waned on this question and just of late, I find myself looking at emigration to Canada and it's so much more tempting than it used to be. These days I live in Seattle and really, what is Vancouver but a cooler Seattle that uses the metric system.

[txaslftist]

16. Well, it is an interesting thought.

My distant ancestor fled Ireland before the colonies revolted against the king (I think to avoid a warrant). So certainly my ancestors were no strangers to "getting while the getting was good". OTOH, my great great whatever grandfather was a Union General, my great grandfather a sheriff, my grandfather fought in WWII and my father a career soldier. We've shed a lot of blood and invested many years in this nation. It would be as hard for me to leave as I imagine it was for my Irish ancestor to flee Ireland.

But who but a fool would have remained in Germany after 1938? Of course, if you can't see the storm coming, you can't know if you can weather it...

Which is why the thought is so interesting and complicated and scary.

[scarletwoman]

10. k&r -- knowing how to survive "deep in the roots" is absolutely the most important thing we can do.

Beautifully said.

rec'd
sw

[Fierce]

11. Yowza.

Cute little Spanish interpreter? Huh.

[txaslftist]

17. Cute in the way a colt or a VW beetle is cute.

Not cute in a sexual way at all, but precious, witty, smart and physically small...

That kind of cute.

[southerncrone]

12. Wow! Fabulous post.

I mirror some of your same thinking. I think me & mine "could take it", but not sure it will be worth having when it's over. There will be untold violence & suffering in the near future in my estimation. We have already lost our country. I see it all around me. Increasing unnecessary & sick violence (more & more by our youth), housing market collapse, energy cost skyrocketing, lack of ethics,the list goes on & on. A downward spiral into the bowels of Hell, propagated by the Republican party & allowed by the silence of the play-nice Democrats.

We are seriously considering another country. Who knows who will own this one when all the ashes settle.

[txaslftist]

18. I'm certain that we will own it.

It's the waiting for the ashes to settle and staying out of the fire part that is hardest.