I am finding this diary very hard to write, in the face of several conflicting pressures. For Black History month, I want to spotlight Black issues; but I have neither the experience nor the knowledge to do them justice. I admire most of what Bernie Sanders says and does; but if I focus on Bernie, the comments will turn into another episode of DKos’ most popular pie-fight. I ought to end this TRT with action items, I found it proactive and heartening when earlier TRTs did that; but in fact, I myself don’t do enough work for progressive causes in real life, and I’d feel hypocritical advising others to work harder than I already do.
Yet, these are healthy pressures, they’re salutary. These pressures push me to learn and do more, beyond my comfort zone, to get closer to the progressive that I see myself as. We are living in times of turbulence, we’re all feeling hurt, rage, and confusion. Trump’s America is so wrong, so heartless and hateful, so backwards and upside-down. We face our natural pressures, of life’s normal challenges; and the extra pressures of an America getting ripped apart by greed, selfishness, lies and gleeful hate. Our great challenge is, how to persevere through both kinds of pressures, learning from the natural ones that help us grow into stronger selves, while avoiding going crazy, from the rabid lemming stampede driving America over a cliff. That rabies is not natural, it is a sickness that does not belong in our democracy. But it has some roots in our humanity, and in America, that we must find and fix.
We need to keep hope, to keep determined, and to keep hold of each other. All of us together against the Rethugs, we have enough strength and sanity to prevail. But “all of us together” will require Democrats to reach out to more Lefties and Independents, and to get everyone on our side registered and to the polls in 2018 and beyond.
We have had two TRTs so far: Meteor Blades’ Introducing the first edition of These Revolutionary Times and subir’s These Revolutionary Times: A renewed Poor People's Campaign — both of them superb. I have written fine diaries, but I couldn’t write one like those two, or at least not without a couple months of development and editing. Even then, it would fall short of their work. MB and subir are excellent reporters, while I just write personal essays. So that is what I am doing here, with progressive articles woven into my narrative. The next TRT I write, I’ll start a month earlier and aim for quality reporting. But that’ll ask a steep uphill learning curve of me.
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