Didn't vote? Don't complain!

We enjoyed a dusting of snow recently. A gentle reminder, this time, that we're on or in a shoulder season, twixt late Winter and early Spring. The freshly fallen snow has now melted. The afternoon sky is cloud-covered. So far, locally, there have been no weather excuses to not vote. Have you voted; are you going to; or, are you going to let those who vote speak for you get to choose who you get to pick from in the general election come November? I spend too much time and energy criticizing politics in general, and Republicans and Democrats in particular, to not have my ante in the crazy poker pot that's politics these days. In fact, the more I watch the more I'm amazed the human race has lasted as long as it has.

"Pick your poison"

On a good news front, one of my favorite resources for fixing our climate breakdown, the Drawdown Project, has released a new report, The Drawdown Review, climate solutions for a new decade. I particularly like the way they've organized the material under the headings of:

• Reduce Sources, bringing emissions to zero;


• Support Sinks, uplifting nature's carbon cycle; and,


• Improve Society, fostering equality for all

I strongly recommend you follow the link above, or google it if you prefer, and download and read a copy of the Review. As the Lorax tells us

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
  Nothing is going to get better.
  It's not.”

I'm going to be watching the results of "Super Tuesday" very carefully. The question in my mind is who do we think will make the best president we can elect from those still running. Given his track record so far (check today's Dow Jones, please) the incumbent has no business running again. In fact he has no business having a first term, let alone a second, but that's history. Let's think about tomorrow and ask ourselves "for whom would the Lorax vote?" Try to remember your answer come November if the COVID-19 virus hasn't taken you out of the game by then.

Let America Be America Again

Langston Hughes - 1902-1967

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean—
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today—O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home—
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay—
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine—the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME—
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose—
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath—
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain—
All, all the stretch of these great green states—
And make America again!

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