Ink Tea Stone Leaf

There’s no lesson to be learned.

It is said that those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it. The fact is that those of us who do remember history are doomed to “repeat it” right along with the rest of you, so as far as being a social prophylactic goes, memory is bupkis.

History is the surface of a bubble, exploding outward at incredible speed, and we’re all strapped to that surface, hurtling in all directions into the unknown. At any given time most of us can’t even remember that there is anything to remember, apart from ourselves and our immediate material circumstances. We graduate, and we give ourselves permission to forget.

Nobody is evaluating our performance in this moment, except for ourselves and our posterity. The opprobrium of future generations for the leaders we have elected (or allowed, by our inaction, to be elected) and the inhuman agenda they are pursuing will not have changed that agenda, or even freed one frightened child like Liam Conejo Ramos from the concentration camp in which he is presently detained. Only the present changes the present, and nothing can change the past, despite the efforts of those same leaders to erase it.

Isn’t that funny, that the political propaganda of the authoritarian relies so much on erasing the past, when so few people have any idea of what “really happened” in the first place? When history is something that is widely regarded as not worth knowing, it’s almost impossible to hold leaders accountable for lying about it, or for burying the truth.

Sigh.

I’m not going to “stop” writing about history and politics, because I can’t, can I? Every issue is political, every moment is part of history, and everything ultimately comes down to the reaping of whirlwinds. But dammit, I want to write poetry, or muse about my novel, or ramble about art and music and video games. Next weekend I am going to, no matter how many people like Alex Pretti Trump’s goons murder in the streets, or how many journalists like Don Lemon he arrests for the crime of reporting the news. If I also have to also denounce whatever fresh hell he comes up with by then, I’ll do that too. I have the time, I can write two posts.

Today there is a general strike being held throughout the United States, in support of the opposition to Donald Trump and his consolidation of fascism through the abusive practices of ICE. I hope it will make a difference, by which I mean I hope it will be one of many meaningful actions taken to check the administration’s efforts. Trump and his cronies will not be cowed into behaving themselves by any single manifestation of backlash. The constitution grants him three more years in control of the executive branch, and until he leaves it, by whatever means he does, he will keep pushing. We need to push back with every opportunity that presents itself.

We are all tired of this. But some of us do remember history, perhaps more of us than one might think during an especially pessimistic moment. We will remember individuals who acted courageously, and people who acted en masse with the courage of their convictions. We will also remember the reverse. We will learn something about ourselves, even if the next generation has to learn it all over again.