True colors. This typically on point piece is rich in colors and truth. I’m not saying Sarah tells me how to feel- rather she paints the picture for you with the hard truths nobody dares mention, over and over again. It’s not the popular take, just the reality. Birds of a feather. It’s not easy to speak up and go against the rah rah masses, but that doesn’t make it any less admirable. In fact, it’s so appreciated as it’s a dying endeavor, in a world of clicks and likes. There is low tolerance in America ( or anywhere I guess?) for the inconvenience of the truth. Yet it’s undeniable and unavoidable. I cannot express my gratitude enough for having this place, in 2024, where it still exists. Thanks a ton, Sarah K!
Thank you! I really appreciate that. It can get lonely, despite so many people sharing the same views, since folks are afraid to express them and face the vitriol. I appreciate everyone who reads with an open heart and an open mind.
It does get lonely. As someone who dares to speak the unpopular truths, as well, it is very lonely. And if push comes to shove, I don't think any of these rah-rah Dems would defend me if I was in danger, or pay my bail! If you're not in the cult -- well, then you're the enemy.
I find myself in the predicament where what I'm capable of saying can't articulate what I'm feeling. Because of this deficiency, it limits the solidarity among those of us who feel similarly. The DNC was a spectacle of conformity, which they have spun as a positive unity. A defector from that script will be told that the theater is what people want. But the "lethal force" and defense of Israel remarks gave the show away as a sham. One who is supportive of a genocide is not credible as any sort of progressive human. Calling Kamala a "cop" by one commenter very likely will turn out to be prophetic. The behavior of cops, their dutiful reticence, and their inexorable augmentation has us terrorized.
Sarah's writing is a force toward a solidarity of conscience. It points to the need for respite and advancement where the respite reconciles what we do with what we intend.
W H Auden's poem "Streams" is a profound appreciation of the nobility of water. I am drawn to it as a pilgrimage to the site of our origin. To feel the presence of air, sunlight and water and a reverence for it has an unpedantic moralizing effect on us. I've found romantic poetry of the 19th century to be about that. So was the advent of English wild gardening.
Humanity went wrong long ago when the ancient Greeks proclaimed that humans are the sole noble creatures and the world is subject to dominion by us. There have been profoundly, ethically different cultures on this planet that Americans are largely ignorant of which are called backward or disadvantaged. The Church subsequently picked up this Greek ethic and developed the doctrine of acquisition by genocide. The underlying premise being that only certain humans are truly human. The creation of America pretended to undo these conventions but has revealed itself to be it's primary practitioner. As a state, it should be renamed the U S of Hypocrisy. The DNC was a showcase for the contrast between professed ideals and actual practice. As a commenter wrote: They're in power now! So where's the action? Americans largely embody this hypocrisy in their fealty to business for profit and a socially competitive consumerism they like to call "quality of life". One comment asked how is it possible here to have a career criminal and known degenerate running for the highest office? I'd like to ask, how is it possible that we ostensibly accept that our "way of life" is the ruin of this home planet? A planet the likes of which cannot be found in the universe. That appreciation needs to intrude upon anyone's aspiration to maintain the world's greatest lethal force.
In 2020, a few brave activists were saying (during organizing meetings), "I know no one wants to hear this, but no one is coming to save us." It feels like that. And it feels like 2016, again, too. Tonight's CNN interview was scary. Walz was clearly coached to avoid even the simplest of questions, which looked bad. Harris refused to answer a question about how she identifies her race, because it was beneath her. She thinks this country is too sophisticated to care -- it is not.
What Rosie said! I was kayaking on Monday and we too have herons that seem to be spirit birds, so still, so inspiring. Piping plovers along the marshy shore, reflections of trees in the water, a time out from the heart-rending news of the day.
Amen. I shuddered when Kamala said "the most lethal force." What the hell was that for?? She has so many good qualities, but she and the DNC should have let the Palestinians speak. And she should be more forthright about not continuing to fund Israel's massacre and mass destruction. Nuclear weapons aren't necessary to wreak mass destruction.
Yes. That's what's so frustrating here -- none of this is necessary. There was an opening for change that was greeted enthusiastically by Americans, and it wasn't because we have a deep longing for "the most lethal force". I doubt Harris is the person who came up with that phrase, but I'd like to know who is.
I suspect that they read this profile by Maureen Dowd in the NYT. Both profiles are worth reading. The one on the right is beautifully written. Yes, I know the publications and the possible bias.
That was VERY strange. I hoped it was a lapse in thought, it was very, dare i say, weird.
In any case: she took no controversial position at all, her speech was very anticlimactic, and well, meaningless. Also, I'd assumed her father was deceased, but he is not. He is just not supporting her. Wonder why?
Nobody writes better than Sarah - with well-earned certainty and conviction and none of the self-aggrandizement of journalists and commentators seemingly deemed safer in a society scared by objective reality.
Sarah, one of the greatest skills of many people is looking the other way! It explains a lot about politics today! How else could a convicted felon be nominated & selected as a candidate for president? How can innocent children be slaughtered?
No kidding! That's why I barely see this as an "election" at the federal level: the criminality is so egregious. The worst, most serious crimes -- treason, genocide, sedition -- are treated as something that can be "voted out", but you cannot vote out the mafia. Trump is touted as a regular bad candidate when he is a career criminal who should have been arrested a half century ago. His coup-plotting mafia party is allowed to make laws that protect the mafia, the courts are packed with criminal judges, and the Democrats refuse to acknowledge the nature of the threat -- transnational organized crime -- much less fight it. For that would force them to acknowledge the role of Israel, and to confront their own complicity in war crimes. So it's silence and spectacle across the board.
The difference between the parties matters much more at the local and state level, where Democratic officials feel more obligated to protect their constituents from criminals masquerading as institutionalists. (Unless, of course, you live in St. Louis, where the Democrats *and* the Republicans oust your anti-war Democratic representative with record dark money from a foreign state...)
Or Texas where the DNC campaigned for Cueller🤮 The pro forced birth, criminally indicted "Democrat" over a Latino progressive. The DNC have gotten very good at bait and switch.
I've always prided myself as a Truman Democrat (sans atomic bombing & rail strike) and I just can't anymore. I can't deal with Biden's restraints on Ukraine while he gives free reign to Bibi Netanyahu. I can't deal with his appointment of Garland, who has abdicated all DOJ activity regarding voting rights, equal rights and the prosecution of treasonous Republican office-holders. I can't deal with a Federalist Society controlled Supreme Court that answers to no one but Leonard Leo. I can't deal with the Iraqi war criminals that walk among us.
American politics needs a massive upheaval to reinvent this democracy. Again.
My plan is to vote down-ballot for Dems -- and either do a write-in, or leave blank, for president. I can't do it again, I can't betray my own heart and knowledge, again.
Oh I know -- people have been threatening to kill me for over a decade. At one point I had to have a bodyguard. It's scary but the idea of abiding this is scarier.
I am reminded of, after the 2020 elections when voter suppression laws were passed, the 2020 organizers said, "We cannot out-organize this."
We elect people to enforce the law, among other things -- and they have refused to. Biden has let 5 people on the Court run the whole world -- and he just shrugs.
How can tens of thousands of people say they are joyful at attending a super-spreader event? (Among other things, of course, as Sarah writes... but this is so patently obvious, no thinking required, to be shocked and appalled.)
I live in a coastal redwood forest and spent this Spring learning to recognize the live music of both coastal and forest birds using the Merlin app from Cornell University. Now I can tell who is chiming in when I sit outside on the deck.
I spend time on these rare temperate days in clean fresh air gazing at beautiful bouquets from the Farmer’s Market, knitting items to wear at our daughter’s wedding, and digesting ugly, horrifying, stunning truths reported on social media platforms and independent news outlets.
Like you, I saw a window open when Genocide Joe dropped out, only to hear it slam shut and lock. Last week, Killer Kamala became Holocaust Harris. It was the worst case scenario.
I realized over the weekend my “mental health” goal is not to be okay. It’s impossible. Instead my goal is to ground myself truth and refuse to be lied to.
Like you, I find the fortitude to bear witness to and name the atrocities committed by my country, in my name, with my tax funding by also bearing witness to and naming the beauty that surrounds me. For you that looks like hiking in the forest and for me it’s hiking in the forest and on the bluffs. The herons here camp out above the crashing surf and soar above golden fields dried from months of rainless summer days. I have also seen them resting on the shores of rivers that feed the sea.
Like you, when not metabolizing incomprehensible collective sadism, I have been meditating on the greens in the forest. I’ve planned out a green “resplendence” fingering weight shawl in nine shades of forest green. It took me weeks to figure out the accent color of leaves shimmering in the sunlight. I finally settled on the palest shade of warm green in lace weight “pistachio cream.”
It’s a rhythm now. Practicing bearing witness to the multifaceted way truth reveals and expresses itself. Not neutralizing or negating the horrors of our era but rather facing them squarely fortified and strengthened by beauty.
“Instead my goal is to ground myself in truth and refused to be lied to.” YES a thousand times. I think this is my new mantra!! Thank you for articulating this!
I live among and with the largest Arab community outside the Middle East. All of them, not just those of Palestinian descent, are especially aggrieved and rightly, rightly so. Their grief is palpable. And you are so correct in pointing out that the genocide abetting has pulled the Democrats to the side of the neo-liberals. The sin is compounded by looking the other way as aid workers, the Good Samaritans among us, were also killed. And yet there's no shame, no shame.
Your post is poignant and profound. It gives a somber, dignified and righteous voice to the Palestinian dead and reminds us that we may have moved beyond the humanitarian plane and into the unending darkness that's littered with broken morals and ethics.
THIS is what I was grasping for, when I listened to Kamala's speech and thought, "There must be another way to love a place." Knowing it, caring for it, being in mutual responsibility with it. Not the obligatory celebration of hegemony that every political speech must include.
What I don't get is, why are they saying they are going to DO all these things, when we have a Dem president NOW, who refuses to do them? Are they trying to get us to believe that we'll have a Dem house AND 60 Dems in the Senate? Do something NOW- Biden has the most power an American president has ever had, and he is throwing us to the wolves, letting 5 people on the Court decide the fate of the country and by extension, the world. And he wont lift a finger. Harris promises nothing better. Why are we even in this election against a criminal? 3 (?) states took t. off the ballot, and the Court forced them to keep him on. And Biden just shrugs. He has thrown our democracy to the wolves, all of it. Now we're supposed to go and party, about that? And btw also celebrate how many people will be going home from that party with possibly permanent illness??
I keep having the feeling that reading your works here causes me depression and gives hope simultaneously, which doesn’t make sense, but so little does. I don’t think this will be a straight repetition of 2020, first because the pool of voters for democracy is different; there are new voters who I think will stay engaged and push the Harris administration (as will I) and finally while legacy news media infrastructure still exists it is now utterly and completely bankrupt of its obligation to the American people, and will be supplanted by what I hope will be dependable sources, the likes of whom many of us now depend on. Sarah, I’m choosing to think this way.
"Push the Harris administration" — exactamundo. We citizens have lots of work ahead between elections, and hopefully millions will understand and unite our efforts. Public pressure, people!
A frustrating reality of the DNC I found was all the emphasis on “future” and “moving on”…. ”hope and change, a redux.
It allows the plutocracy to prosper while avoiding the dirty work of standing up to the kleptocracy.
I support moving on in the sense of ending this elderly abuse of propping up sundowning elderly men as leaders, but, please, can the Democrats grow a spine and pursue justice?
Trump is openly professing (everyday, nearly) how he will lock up political opponents and settle scores.
Can we at least get an honest investigation into all the crimes of Jared Kushner? The Republicans blocked a basic inquiry into his Saudi deal a few months ago. Why? We know the answer, I’m sure.
Merrick Garland is the perfect symbol for this attitude—don’t rock the boat, even when the boat is full of pirates sailing to pillage and plunder.
As I vote for Harris - or rather, against trump and everything he means for this country - I also commit to opposing US support for the genocide of Palestinians. Which, by the way, does not mean that I value Jewish people any less.
I refuse to see the world in this polarized way; I choose to turn my boat and see the colors reverse as I shift my perspective.
It is imperative that we keep our attention on what the next administration will decide to do in Gaza.
I recognize that Harris, as the still serving Vice President, has limited choices in what she says publicly at this time. She is not free to break from the policies of the Biden administration. She could compromise any traction that exists behind the scenes to end the crisis. Assuming there is any.
That said, it was extremely clear that AOC was invited to speak, and the rest of “The Squad” wasn’t. The pro-Palestine members of Congress were conspicuously absent.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris did not attend Netanyahu’s address to Congress.
It is clear that the Democratic Party supports Israel to the point of genocide. I hope that there is a possibility that Kamala Harris, once elected., will choose to mitigate that path.
It is my intention to demand that she do so.
Thank you for your beautiful writing, and for fostering a community that values nuance.
I'm ever so tired of being called a Trump supporter anytime I criticize Democrats. I've even asked these people why they aren't ridiculing Biden for building that stupid wall or if Biden illegally closing the border is racist. Funny racism only exists in the right as if Biden doing the same thing magically isn't. I've been told not to be a single issue voter. I've read tons of rationalizing the genocide away. I've told countless people genocide is a red line and I will not vote for anyone who is complicit in one. What truly frightens me is that while they're busy rationalizing genocide, ignoring, Covid, and going off on Trump and Project 2025: They're not aware of that selective service registration is now automatic, the southern border is locked down, the wall is going up, they want blimps to monitor the Canadian border, and cop cities are being built nationwide. The ruling class is desperate for WWIII and the draft is highly unpopular. Next is blue MAGA, these people are so deep in denial it boggles my mind🥴
Exquisite writing. What a lovely and necessary voice you have Sarah, thank you for sharing it with the world. Hope you and your family are holding up as well as can be, all things considered. Cheers.
Well now you have me crying...The line "They are birds of a feather and they fly alone"...My husband and I ride our bikes for about 30 minutes each evening along a nearby river...We often see a heron, along with turtles and lots of geese...We discuss the daily political madness and I bring up what I have seen on Twitter about the latest atrocity in Gaza, if I can bear to bring it up, and if I think he can bear to hear it...I am 67 and he is 70 and we agree that the genocide in Gaza is the worst thing we have ever seen in our lifetimes... Equally horrific is the response from our government, our educational institutions, our media, and our relatives. No one wants to discuss it, let alone grieve with us...I sometimes feel my will to live slightly ebbing...I wish sometimes I had not lived long enough to witness this...I pray every day for it to end...Thank you for helping us to feel less alone...
Beautiful, and filled with clarity, Sarah. Your blue herons are bluer than ours on the Hudson River. Ours are grey blue. My son and I kayaked on the Esopus creek and Hudson a couple weeks ago. So soothing to be out there, hugging the river wetlands. A family of Ospreys were perched in their nest high on a pole that had been constructed for them. As we paddled closer, there was a good deal of anxious cheeping - and two of the three adult Ospreys flew away, leaving one in the nest to hold down the fort.
I'm assuming that was Mom.
She kept a stoic eye on us, but didn't cry-cheep, and I wondered why the Dad and Uncle? flew themselves to safety. We sat in the ripples staring at the nest and I tried to assure her that she was doing a great job of caring for her little ones. We didn't want to leave her alone, yet we were the danger, so we paddled away, hoping Dad and Uncle Bob would fly back to the nest.
Sitting , watching, in a gently rocking Kayak....such a lullaby.
Thank you for reading! And I'm glad we share this hobby -- it's always interesting for me to hear about other people's kayaking and nature adventures, it gives me ideas on where to go next and I've had my eye on upstate NY for a while!
Yes, Upstate NY has lots of great spots. And if you're ever in the mood for more urban kayaking - https://www.nps.gov/gate/planyourvisit/jamaica-bay-kayak-trails.htm There's a bird sanctuary within reach too. Red-winged blackbirds on the right, hazy NYC skyline on the left. Atlantic storms have made it harder to kayak there this summer..lots of closures. But it's worth it if it's calm.
I live in Upstate New York at the Foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. Abundant kayaking opportunities, lots of hiking located in a park of 6 million acres. Come and visit!
The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
True colors. This typically on point piece is rich in colors and truth. I’m not saying Sarah tells me how to feel- rather she paints the picture for you with the hard truths nobody dares mention, over and over again. It’s not the popular take, just the reality. Birds of a feather. It’s not easy to speak up and go against the rah rah masses, but that doesn’t make it any less admirable. In fact, it’s so appreciated as it’s a dying endeavor, in a world of clicks and likes. There is low tolerance in America ( or anywhere I guess?) for the inconvenience of the truth. Yet it’s undeniable and unavoidable. I cannot express my gratitude enough for having this place, in 2024, where it still exists. Thanks a ton, Sarah K!
Thank you! I really appreciate that. It can get lonely, despite so many people sharing the same views, since folks are afraid to express them and face the vitriol. I appreciate everyone who reads with an open heart and an open mind.
It does get lonely. As someone who dares to speak the unpopular truths, as well, it is very lonely. And if push comes to shove, I don't think any of these rah-rah Dems would defend me if I was in danger, or pay my bail! If you're not in the cult -- well, then you're the enemy.
Speaking of cults 🤡🥊🥊
Watching rallies like the DNC makes me feel that way- no strategy from Harris/Walz, all hero worship.
Fly high free bird!
I find myself in the predicament where what I'm capable of saying can't articulate what I'm feeling. Because of this deficiency, it limits the solidarity among those of us who feel similarly. The DNC was a spectacle of conformity, which they have spun as a positive unity. A defector from that script will be told that the theater is what people want. But the "lethal force" and defense of Israel remarks gave the show away as a sham. One who is supportive of a genocide is not credible as any sort of progressive human. Calling Kamala a "cop" by one commenter very likely will turn out to be prophetic. The behavior of cops, their dutiful reticence, and their inexorable augmentation has us terrorized.
Sarah's writing is a force toward a solidarity of conscience. It points to the need for respite and advancement where the respite reconciles what we do with what we intend.
W H Auden's poem "Streams" is a profound appreciation of the nobility of water. I am drawn to it as a pilgrimage to the site of our origin. To feel the presence of air, sunlight and water and a reverence for it has an unpedantic moralizing effect on us. I've found romantic poetry of the 19th century to be about that. So was the advent of English wild gardening.
Humanity went wrong long ago when the ancient Greeks proclaimed that humans are the sole noble creatures and the world is subject to dominion by us. There have been profoundly, ethically different cultures on this planet that Americans are largely ignorant of which are called backward or disadvantaged. The Church subsequently picked up this Greek ethic and developed the doctrine of acquisition by genocide. The underlying premise being that only certain humans are truly human. The creation of America pretended to undo these conventions but has revealed itself to be it's primary practitioner. As a state, it should be renamed the U S of Hypocrisy. The DNC was a showcase for the contrast between professed ideals and actual practice. As a commenter wrote: They're in power now! So where's the action? Americans largely embody this hypocrisy in their fealty to business for profit and a socially competitive consumerism they like to call "quality of life". One comment asked how is it possible here to have a career criminal and known degenerate running for the highest office? I'd like to ask, how is it possible that we ostensibly accept that our "way of life" is the ruin of this home planet? A planet the likes of which cannot be found in the universe. That appreciation needs to intrude upon anyone's aspiration to maintain the world's greatest lethal force.
In 2020, a few brave activists were saying (during organizing meetings), "I know no one wants to hear this, but no one is coming to save us." It feels like that. And it feels like 2016, again, too. Tonight's CNN interview was scary. Walz was clearly coached to avoid even the simplest of questions, which looked bad. Harris refused to answer a question about how she identifies her race, because it was beneath her. She thinks this country is too sophisticated to care -- it is not.
Another important and poignantly beautiful piece. Thank you so much.
Thank you!
What Rosie said! I was kayaking on Monday and we too have herons that seem to be spirit birds, so still, so inspiring. Piping plovers along the marshy shore, reflections of trees in the water, a time out from the heart-rending news of the day.
Amen. I shuddered when Kamala said "the most lethal force." What the hell was that for?? She has so many good qualities, but she and the DNC should have let the Palestinians speak. And she should be more forthright about not continuing to fund Israel's massacre and mass destruction. Nuclear weapons aren't necessary to wreak mass destruction.
Yes. That's what's so frustrating here -- none of this is necessary. There was an opening for change that was greeted enthusiastically by Americans, and it wasn't because we have a deep longing for "the most lethal force". I doubt Harris is the person who came up with that phrase, but I'd like to know who is.
Exactly. This cannot be the only way the people who stand to gain the most from this course can be happy. A much better world is possible.
I suspect that they read this profile by Maureen Dowd in the NYT. Both profiles are worth reading. The one on the right is beautifully written. Yes, I know the publications and the possible bias.
https://x.com/KTmBoyle/status/1824839459499626640?t=EDhNJl9D_aE0H1XOcfpINw&s=19
That was VERY strange. I hoped it was a lapse in thought, it was very, dare i say, weird.
In any case: she took no controversial position at all, her speech was very anticlimactic, and well, meaningless. Also, I'd assumed her father was deceased, but he is not. He is just not supporting her. Wonder why?
Kamala is a cop.
Nobody writes better than Sarah - with well-earned certainty and conviction and none of the self-aggrandizement of journalists and commentators seemingly deemed safer in a society scared by objective reality.
Thank you!
Sarah, one of the greatest skills of many people is looking the other way! It explains a lot about politics today! How else could a convicted felon be nominated & selected as a candidate for president? How can innocent children be slaughtered?
No kidding! That's why I barely see this as an "election" at the federal level: the criminality is so egregious. The worst, most serious crimes -- treason, genocide, sedition -- are treated as something that can be "voted out", but you cannot vote out the mafia. Trump is touted as a regular bad candidate when he is a career criminal who should have been arrested a half century ago. His coup-plotting mafia party is allowed to make laws that protect the mafia, the courts are packed with criminal judges, and the Democrats refuse to acknowledge the nature of the threat -- transnational organized crime -- much less fight it. For that would force them to acknowledge the role of Israel, and to confront their own complicity in war crimes. So it's silence and spectacle across the board.
The difference between the parties matters much more at the local and state level, where Democratic officials feel more obligated to protect their constituents from criminals masquerading as institutionalists. (Unless, of course, you live in St. Louis, where the Democrats *and* the Republicans oust your anti-war Democratic representative with record dark money from a foreign state...)
Or Texas where the DNC campaigned for Cueller🤮 The pro forced birth, criminally indicted "Democrat" over a Latino progressive. The DNC have gotten very good at bait and switch.
Have you ever noticed how the big mob guys don't go to jail until they are too old to do anything else?
YES. Trump’s now using his strategy of running out the clock on…himself.
I've always prided myself as a Truman Democrat (sans atomic bombing & rail strike) and I just can't anymore. I can't deal with Biden's restraints on Ukraine while he gives free reign to Bibi Netanyahu. I can't deal with his appointment of Garland, who has abdicated all DOJ activity regarding voting rights, equal rights and the prosecution of treasonous Republican office-holders. I can't deal with a Federalist Society controlled Supreme Court that answers to no one but Leonard Leo. I can't deal with the Iraqi war criminals that walk among us.
American politics needs a massive upheaval to reinvent this democracy. Again.
My plan is to vote down-ballot for Dems -- and either do a write-in, or leave blank, for president. I can't do it again, I can't betray my own heart and knowledge, again.
Look out for your own safety! The mob mentality refuses to accept criticism! Seriously!
Oh I know -- people have been threatening to kill me for over a decade. At one point I had to have a bodyguard. It's scary but the idea of abiding this is scarier.
I've been openly calling the CIA a crime syndicate because that's exactly what they are. They have a fuck ton of innocent blood on their hands🤬
Good point! Accepting BS is out of the question! Unfortunately, many do!
I am reminded of, after the 2020 elections when voter suppression laws were passed, the 2020 organizers said, "We cannot out-organize this."
We elect people to enforce the law, among other things -- and they have refused to. Biden has let 5 people on the Court run the whole world -- and he just shrugs.
I’ll likely send you a DM for privacy
Democrats ARE acknowledging the GOP corruption. Take your rose colored glasses off. you do realize they have a divided senate eh??
How can tens of thousands of people say they are joyful at attending a super-spreader event? (Among other things, of course, as Sarah writes... but this is so patently obvious, no thinking required, to be shocked and appalled.)
Oh Sarah…..
I live in a coastal redwood forest and spent this Spring learning to recognize the live music of both coastal and forest birds using the Merlin app from Cornell University. Now I can tell who is chiming in when I sit outside on the deck.
I spend time on these rare temperate days in clean fresh air gazing at beautiful bouquets from the Farmer’s Market, knitting items to wear at our daughter’s wedding, and digesting ugly, horrifying, stunning truths reported on social media platforms and independent news outlets.
Like you, I saw a window open when Genocide Joe dropped out, only to hear it slam shut and lock. Last week, Killer Kamala became Holocaust Harris. It was the worst case scenario.
I realized over the weekend my “mental health” goal is not to be okay. It’s impossible. Instead my goal is to ground myself truth and refuse to be lied to.
Like you, I find the fortitude to bear witness to and name the atrocities committed by my country, in my name, with my tax funding by also bearing witness to and naming the beauty that surrounds me. For you that looks like hiking in the forest and for me it’s hiking in the forest and on the bluffs. The herons here camp out above the crashing surf and soar above golden fields dried from months of rainless summer days. I have also seen them resting on the shores of rivers that feed the sea.
Like you, when not metabolizing incomprehensible collective sadism, I have been meditating on the greens in the forest. I’ve planned out a green “resplendence” fingering weight shawl in nine shades of forest green. It took me weeks to figure out the accent color of leaves shimmering in the sunlight. I finally settled on the palest shade of warm green in lace weight “pistachio cream.”
It’s a rhythm now. Practicing bearing witness to the multifaceted way truth reveals and expresses itself. Not neutralizing or negating the horrors of our era but rather facing them squarely fortified and strengthened by beauty.
“Instead my goal is to ground myself in truth and refused to be lied to.” YES a thousand times. I think this is my new mantra!! Thank you for articulating this!
I live among and with the largest Arab community outside the Middle East. All of them, not just those of Palestinian descent, are especially aggrieved and rightly, rightly so. Their grief is palpable. And you are so correct in pointing out that the genocide abetting has pulled the Democrats to the side of the neo-liberals. The sin is compounded by looking the other way as aid workers, the Good Samaritans among us, were also killed. And yet there's no shame, no shame.
Your post is poignant and profound. It gives a somber, dignified and righteous voice to the Palestinian dead and reminds us that we may have moved beyond the humanitarian plane and into the unending darkness that's littered with broken morals and ethics.
THIS is what I was grasping for, when I listened to Kamala's speech and thought, "There must be another way to love a place." Knowing it, caring for it, being in mutual responsibility with it. Not the obligatory celebration of hegemony that every political speech must include.
Yes exactly!
What I don't get is, why are they saying they are going to DO all these things, when we have a Dem president NOW, who refuses to do them? Are they trying to get us to believe that we'll have a Dem house AND 60 Dems in the Senate? Do something NOW- Biden has the most power an American president has ever had, and he is throwing us to the wolves, letting 5 people on the Court decide the fate of the country and by extension, the world. And he wont lift a finger. Harris promises nothing better. Why are we even in this election against a criminal? 3 (?) states took t. off the ballot, and the Court forced them to keep him on. And Biden just shrugs. He has thrown our democracy to the wolves, all of it. Now we're supposed to go and party, about that? And btw also celebrate how many people will be going home from that party with possibly permanent illness??
Boom.
I keep having the feeling that reading your works here causes me depression and gives hope simultaneously, which doesn’t make sense, but so little does. I don’t think this will be a straight repetition of 2020, first because the pool of voters for democracy is different; there are new voters who I think will stay engaged and push the Harris administration (as will I) and finally while legacy news media infrastructure still exists it is now utterly and completely bankrupt of its obligation to the American people, and will be supplanted by what I hope will be dependable sources, the likes of whom many of us now depend on. Sarah, I’m choosing to think this way.
"Push the Harris administration" — exactamundo. We citizens have lots of work ahead between elections, and hopefully millions will understand and unite our efforts. Public pressure, people!
A frustrating reality of the DNC I found was all the emphasis on “future” and “moving on”…. ”hope and change, a redux.
It allows the plutocracy to prosper while avoiding the dirty work of standing up to the kleptocracy.
I support moving on in the sense of ending this elderly abuse of propping up sundowning elderly men as leaders, but, please, can the Democrats grow a spine and pursue justice?
Trump is openly professing (everyday, nearly) how he will lock up political opponents and settle scores.
Can we at least get an honest investigation into all the crimes of Jared Kushner? The Republicans blocked a basic inquiry into his Saudi deal a few months ago. Why? We know the answer, I’m sure.
Merrick Garland is the perfect symbol for this attitude—don’t rock the boat, even when the boat is full of pirates sailing to pillage and plunder.
Nothing to see here, people. Move on.
As far as I'm concerned, Garland is complicit.
I saw the same thing you saw at the DNC.
As I vote for Harris - or rather, against trump and everything he means for this country - I also commit to opposing US support for the genocide of Palestinians. Which, by the way, does not mean that I value Jewish people any less.
I refuse to see the world in this polarized way; I choose to turn my boat and see the colors reverse as I shift my perspective.
It is imperative that we keep our attention on what the next administration will decide to do in Gaza.
I recognize that Harris, as the still serving Vice President, has limited choices in what she says publicly at this time. She is not free to break from the policies of the Biden administration. She could compromise any traction that exists behind the scenes to end the crisis. Assuming there is any.
That said, it was extremely clear that AOC was invited to speak, and the rest of “The Squad” wasn’t. The pro-Palestine members of Congress were conspicuously absent.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris did not attend Netanyahu’s address to Congress.
It is clear that the Democratic Party supports Israel to the point of genocide. I hope that there is a possibility that Kamala Harris, once elected., will choose to mitigate that path.
It is my intention to demand that she do so.
Thank you for your beautiful writing, and for fostering a community that values nuance.
I'm ever so tired of being called a Trump supporter anytime I criticize Democrats. I've even asked these people why they aren't ridiculing Biden for building that stupid wall or if Biden illegally closing the border is racist. Funny racism only exists in the right as if Biden doing the same thing magically isn't. I've been told not to be a single issue voter. I've read tons of rationalizing the genocide away. I've told countless people genocide is a red line and I will not vote for anyone who is complicit in one. What truly frightens me is that while they're busy rationalizing genocide, ignoring, Covid, and going off on Trump and Project 2025: They're not aware of that selective service registration is now automatic, the southern border is locked down, the wall is going up, they want blimps to monitor the Canadian border, and cop cities are being built nationwide. The ruling class is desperate for WWIII and the draft is highly unpopular. Next is blue MAGA, these people are so deep in denial it boggles my mind🥴
https://x.com/AcrossTheMersey/status/1826767637894103228?t=8RA_oj1rE83PqlQGXEdMiQ&s=19
Exquisite writing. What a lovely and necessary voice you have Sarah, thank you for sharing it with the world. Hope you and your family are holding up as well as can be, all things considered. Cheers.
Thank you!
Well now you have me crying...The line "They are birds of a feather and they fly alone"...My husband and I ride our bikes for about 30 minutes each evening along a nearby river...We often see a heron, along with turtles and lots of geese...We discuss the daily political madness and I bring up what I have seen on Twitter about the latest atrocity in Gaza, if I can bear to bring it up, and if I think he can bear to hear it...I am 67 and he is 70 and we agree that the genocide in Gaza is the worst thing we have ever seen in our lifetimes... Equally horrific is the response from our government, our educational institutions, our media, and our relatives. No one wants to discuss it, let alone grieve with us...I sometimes feel my will to live slightly ebbing...I wish sometimes I had not lived long enough to witness this...I pray every day for it to end...Thank you for helping us to feel less alone...
Beautiful, and filled with clarity, Sarah. Your blue herons are bluer than ours on the Hudson River. Ours are grey blue. My son and I kayaked on the Esopus creek and Hudson a couple weeks ago. So soothing to be out there, hugging the river wetlands. A family of Ospreys were perched in their nest high on a pole that had been constructed for them. As we paddled closer, there was a good deal of anxious cheeping - and two of the three adult Ospreys flew away, leaving one in the nest to hold down the fort.
I'm assuming that was Mom.
She kept a stoic eye on us, but didn't cry-cheep, and I wondered why the Dad and Uncle? flew themselves to safety. We sat in the ripples staring at the nest and I tried to assure her that she was doing a great job of caring for her little ones. We didn't want to leave her alone, yet we were the danger, so we paddled away, hoping Dad and Uncle Bob would fly back to the nest.
Sitting , watching, in a gently rocking Kayak....such a lullaby.
Nice to know you love it as much as we do.
Thank you for reading! And I'm glad we share this hobby -- it's always interesting for me to hear about other people's kayaking and nature adventures, it gives me ideas on where to go next and I've had my eye on upstate NY for a while!
Yes, Upstate NY has lots of great spots. And if you're ever in the mood for more urban kayaking - https://www.nps.gov/gate/planyourvisit/jamaica-bay-kayak-trails.htm There's a bird sanctuary within reach too. Red-winged blackbirds on the right, hazy NYC skyline on the left. Atlantic storms have made it harder to kayak there this summer..lots of closures. But it's worth it if it's calm.
I live in Upstate New York at the Foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. Abundant kayaking opportunities, lots of hiking located in a park of 6 million acres. Come and visit!