The county issued a total ban on open fires this week, and last night's thunderstorm made things worse, producing more lightning than rain. As I drove back from the gym today, I saw smoke coming off one of the mountains a couple miles away. The dispatcher said fire crews were already on it though.
The forest in my narrow valley has a lot of beetle kill. This is partly because winters are warmer now, and partly because a majority of the trees here are of the same age, having sprouted soon after the area was logged in the 1920s. The trees are all becoming susceptible to beetles simultaneously. Logging operations from a hundred years ago are still messing with the forest's health today, increasing the risk of wildfire.
It's always worrying to see smoke on the mountain.
This post is part of a series:
Part 1: Smoke on the mountain
Part 2: Unmaking a forest
Part 3: When the water comes rushing in
I'm responsible for a small part of this forest, and I want to be a good steward. Last summer, before the election, I tried to connect with the Forest Service to get advice and maybe some assistance in managing the standing dead. Now, with the devastation the new regime has brought to federal agencies, I don't think I can count on getting any help at all.
I've spent the past few months here in Colorado, away from my west coast apartment, in a mental and emotional retreat from everything that's going on. Since July I've been removing brush and laying down gravel to make a fire resistant perimeter around my little cabin. I'm especially aggressive in ripping out the wild junipers, because they can light up in an instant and burn as hot as gasoline.
I've also been digging trenches and building retaining walls, addressing the erosion that comes from clearing vegetation on steep slopes. Digging in stony ground is hard. My arms hurt, and for the first time in my life, I actually wore out a shovel.
I said I was retreating from everything that's going on, but that's not quite accurate. I still monitor the news and analysis. The fascist takeover is proceeding much as I thought it would. Here's how I described the tactics I thought they would use, in a letter I wrote to a friend a week after the election:
The incoming group has indicated they will use a maximal approach to consolidate power as quickly as possible. They will create dozens of separate procedural and policy crises that force the opposition to spread its attention too widely. Whereas institutions usually "hold" by virtue of procedural delay or bureaucratic inertia, the incoming group doesn't intend to do battle on that terrain. Instead they will appoint individuals who will try to defund, dismantle or monkeywrench civilian agencies and institutions where possible, and in other contexts they will simply ignore and bypass any regulations and injunctions. They hope to enact their sabotage more quickly than courts or political gravity can catch up with them.
I expected the fascist onslaught. What terrifies me, provoking me to hide in my little patch of forest, is the lack of opposition in response to it. The inaction is difficult to fathom and impossible to justify, but to overcome it we need to understand it. I'm trying to.
Turning my critical regard first toward myself, I realize I've become paralyzed into inaction by the horror and hopelessness I feel witnessing other people's inaction and even complicity. My own inaction makes me a hypocrite, of course, unless I can shake myself out of the paralysis and start making a difference.
How to understand other people's responses though? Most people aren't doing anything at all. Of the few people who are doing something, their efforts don't seem adequate to overcoming the problem. Here's an informal census of my encounters during the summer:
- One friend said that many in her circle have simply stopped monitoring the news, figuring that if things get really bad, someone will tell them about it.
- Another friend and longtime activist is teaching people in her suburban community how to grow food to save money and survive in lean times. That's valuable, and it might be vital, depending on where all of this goes. But it isn't going to get rid of the fascists.
- Another activist friend is mobilizing small groups of people to prepare mailings in service to Phil Weiser, the better of the two Democratic frontrunners in the race to be Colorado's governor after 2026. Of all the things I've seen people doing (or not doing) this summer, that's probably the most useful one. As the state's Attorney General, Phil Weiser has been aggressive about challenging the fascist overreach in court. The other frontrunner, Michael Bennet, has been shameless in voting from his perch in the Senate to confirm the regime's nominees. He plans to end his Senate term early so he can continue avoiding the fight while holding a different office. So points to my friend Betsy. She's accomplishing more than anybody else I've spoken with this summer.
- I had some t-shirts printed up that say "Democracy not dictatorship." For much of the year I've worn one of the shirts almost every time I've gone out in public – to the gym, the grocery store, walking down the street, etc. Exactly seven people have commented favorably about the message. Most people don't even seem to notice it, or if they do, it produces no visible reaction. (The message is printed on the back of the shirts rather than the front, so people won't feel weird about staring at me long enough to read it. I monitor their reactions out the corner of my eye though.)
- One person commented unfavorably about the message on my shirt. It was in a truck stop restroom in eastern Oregon, and he was able to read the shirt because I was facing the urinal. He literally said, "We voted for a king."
- The Democrats in this rural county have organized a few roadside protests. Their No Kings event drew about 250 participants. Only a handful of the protesters were under 30 years old though, and most were over 50. Among the people who drove past the protest, approximately one in eight responded with encouragement, honking, etc.
Taken together, this doesn't suggest that America is preparing a formidable challenge to the people who are ruthlessly enacting the demise of our democracy and the destruction of our society. What I've seen this summer suggests most people don't even realize the extent of the damage being done by the regime. Most people are checked out.
This regime is looting our country, stealing our future. They're mobsters. They won't stop until they are stopped, and so far, we're failing to stop them.
And I'm here to say no, they can't have it. Our nation is not theirs to take. Our planet isn't theirs to own and destroy. Our fundamental rights remain ours, even as the regime’s armed agents try to bully us into believing we don’t have those rights.
They need to be stopped. We need to stop them.
I think there's a narrow path that could lead us out of this mess, even though chances are slim that we'll actually take it. I'm striving to be hopeful though. That's the reason for this post and subsequent ones over the next few days. I hope the series will tie some ideas together for people here at Daily Kos and give them avenues for action that can produce a real solution.
This website represents a community of activists who know how to mobilize people. There's a great deal of work to do, and I hope we can do it together.
Note to readers: the "diary" portions of this series of posts were written in late August and early September.
