John Gorka released a new album today. John is a man and a musician I greatly admire. He oozes kindness. Indulge me and take a moment to listen to this song from his new album.
Isn’t that lovely?
I try and never stop believing there is goodness in this world even though every morning I listen to the news appalled at how we are willingly taking one step deeper into authoritarianism, not closer to it, in it. Deep in it. Unilaterally overriding the will of the people by disregarding programs and funding passed by congress is illegal. I don’t care what the current supreme court says. Deploying troops into US cities to use them as training grounds is illegal. Detaining people because they look like they might be from a Central or South American country is illegal. Detaining US citizens (even the brown ones), despite them showing citizenship with their REAL ID without cause is illegal.
Requiring higher ed institutions to sign a loyalty pledge to keep funding is the work of a dictator. Targeting US cities because they have democratic leadership is the work of a dictator. Telling the military they will no longer adhere to the Geneva convention and authorize attacks on citizens of other countries with whom we are not in a declared war with is the work of a dictator and illegal.
I know that if you are still reading, you most likely agree with me. In the unlikely chance you don’t agree with me and are still reading, please consider that at some point it won’t just be the other people, it will be you. That shouldn’t be your reason though. Every innocent bystander or collateral victim of every raid, every bombing of a fishing boat, of the trauma of being wrongfully detained by ICE, and too many more injustices to list is a damage to goodness in the world and eventually harms all of us.
Dictatorships and authoritarian regimes always expand who is oppressed to keep power. It will be you and me at some point. It always ends the same way. Violence.
We must get off this path. How? I don’t know. But I know this. There is still goodness in this world.
“In a time of destruction, create something. A poem. A parade. A community. A school. A vow. A moral principle. One peaceful moment.”
-Maxine Hong Kingston.
Never stop believing there is still goodness in this world.
Oh, and maybe go buy John’s new album.
Tim Goodwin 
Tim, your post reminded me of something that Sam once said. Sure, Samwise is a fantasy character who inhabited a fantasy land, but that fantasy land was tightly linked to the horrible experiences of real people who lived through their own dark times. Sometimes art shows us the way.
FRODO: I can’t do this, Sam.
SAM: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?
But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something.
FRODO: What are we holding on to, Sam?
SAM: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.
https://notjustcute.com/2016/06/17/there-is-good-in-the-world-and-its-worth-fighting-for/
Thanks for sharing this Joe