Though the current project started as a series of posts charting my grief journey after the death of my mother, I am no longer actively grieving. Now, the blog charts a conversation in living, mainly whatever I want it to be. This is an activity that goes well with the theme of this blog (updated 2018). The Sense of Doubt blog is dedicated to my motto: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. I promote questioning everything because just when I think I know something is concrete, I find out that it’s not.
Hey, Mom! The Explanation.
Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.
A Sense of Doubt blog post #2516 - Insurrection of 2021 - January Sixth - One Year Anniversary
A Sense of Doubt blog post #2516 - Insurrection of 2021 - January Sixth - One Year Anniversary
Hello reader, Okay maybe readers, maybe there’s two of you...
Did my image make you click and actually open the blog? Please let me know in comments here or on my social media platforms.
It’s been a year since armed supporters of former president Trump attacked the United States capitol with the intention to both overturn the results of the 2020 election – just the presidential part – and also execute many elected officials including but not limited to Mike Pence, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and probably Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez among many others.
These are the things we know from the videos, the eyewitness accounts, and a great deal of investigation that has taken place so far by a select congressional committee.
Last year, I was teaching online only. My classes did not meet on January Sixth, which was a Wednesday, and so when they did meet the next day, Thursday January Seventh, a year ago today, I tried to avoid inflaming the passions of the right-wing-minded or conservative-identifying students, and simply asked if they had been watching the news and encouraged them to continue to watch the news as the events unfolding were among the MOST HISTORIC of my lifetime, and so surely of theirs as well. And this historic event follows on a 2020 of equally significant historic events, once in our lifetimes events, like the Covid-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd, among others.
I tried to be somewhat fair and to uphold my credo that I try to teach student HOW TO THINK and not WHAT TO THINK.
And yet, within less than a week of the Insurrection, one of my colleagues challenged this view. That perhaps, when it comes to threats to democracy, people who wish to abandon true democratic process, people who seemingly have lost their minds in allegiance to an autocrat, sociopath, and a vicious narcissist, that maybe in this situation, it is OKAY to come out strong in our classes about WHAT TO THINK.
The article asked a powerful question. As educators, our value-neutral stand of teaching HOW TO THINK and not WHAT TO THINK is beautiful, but can we afford to be neutral about the value of democracy?
This is an excellent question.
I do not believe that we should be neutral all the time.
And yet, the reality of my tenuous position as an adjunct instructor hoping to be full-time who must weigh the risks of repercussions from incited students who might complain to the college president without hesitation or second thought for the impact this “concern” (or maybe we could call it “self-righteous indignation” like it is?) might have on my health, welfare, and livelihood is that I must work to safeguard my paycheck as I am not a tenured, full-time faculty member. In other words, I cannot always take a moral and ethical stand for what I feel is right.
And so on the one year anniversary of January Sixth, a Thursday now, when I teach, I simply reminded students of the historic nature of the day and the need for good news sources and a VARIETY of news sources, diverse views, perspectives from more than one talking head or columnist.
I also spoke carefully about the incident. I called it “the attack on the nation’s capitol” because this fact is not really seriously in dispute despite the nonsense spouted by some of the more wingnutty right-win-nuts. We have videos. We have medical records of the 150+ Capitol Police officers with a variety of injuries from broken bones to fractured skulls to contusions and bruises. Several have killed themselves following the events of that day. Many suffer from PTSD. All experienced extreme trauma as did everyone in the capitol that day. Some of the police officers are dead. One protestor (rioter? Insurrectionist?) was shot and killed. ONE.
For the most parts, these facts are not in dispute because they cannot be disputed.
But in class, I did not call it an “insurrection.” Instead I stated that “some people believe it to be or call it an insurrection,” but I acknowledged that this description is disputed (though it was probably clear that I do not think it should be).
I urged them to watch and read the news from a variety of sources. I encouraged them to seek and find their own personal truth.
Again, I told them that I want to teach them HOW TO THINK and not WHAT TO THINK. But I did mention the article – "EDUCATORS MUST WORK TO PRESERVE DEMOCRACY" – and the position of instructors to defend democracy and the importance of democracy against those who attack it while also acknowledging that the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms does exist for the assembly and preservation of a free, citizen militia for the expressed purpose of over-throwing an unjust government if the needs arises.
I am sure that my belief was clearly implied that such is NOT THE CASE in regard to those who stormed the capitol on January Sixth, 2021 with the intent of stopping the peaceful transfer of power from Trump to Biden and to instead install Trump as president, believing his bogus and unsupported lies about a rigged and stolen election, lies that he used the power of his office to promulgate that he actually won the 2020 election even though there is ZERO evidence to support his claims.
Some people backed by evidence, studies, and analysis have argued that our American democracy is gone and instead we now live in an “anocracy,” meaning “partial democracy” – a country that is neither fully democratic not fully autocractic.
And so, I concluded my acknowledgement of the one year anniversary of January Sixth by reading an excerpt from Seamus Heaney’s “The Cure at Troy,” which I published on Thursday November 12th, 2020 as part of a post about Joe Biden winning the presidential election and the poetry he used as part of his campaign messaging. I read the poem to my students with no explanation or reminder that Biden used it as a campaign message.
But as if predicting the future, Biden’s choice of a poem and a message was prescient for even more events that would unfold than those that had transpired prior to his election to the office of president.
Though I am engaged in some invective here in this post, I keep returning to thoughts about how we must do better, how it’s difficult to be a human being, how we must befriend those who see us as enemies or just diametrically opposed to their world views, we must find a way to heal.
But before we do, we must talk tough.
We must hold to account those who seek to destroy our country.
Because as Trump told his supporters, if “you don’t fight like Hell, you are not going to have a country anymore.”
As with all things Trump says, one must reverse the apparent intent.
He is trying to destroy democracy.
He is the threat to “not having a country anymore.”
He and those who support him are those we must fight, defeat, and then find a way to come together and heal.
Biden spoke strongly yesterday in his speech on the Insurrection one anniversary.
Jen Psaki and Brian Tyler Cohen follow suit in these videos.
Following these videos, find my reprint of the post with the excerpt from “The Cure at Troy” and my list of links to all my insurrection-specific posts.
And remember,
“It means that once in a lifetime that justice can rise up and hope and history rhyme.”
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris deliver remarks Thursday marking one year since the deadly Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.
Speaking from the Capitol’s National Statuary Hall, Biden is expected to give a somber speech emphasizing the dangers posed to the nation’s two-century-old democracy.
Well, a demerit for using the word "further" in the video and the image above when the Heaney poem uses the correct word "farther."
But still, this video is a beautiful campaign advertisement. It's a beautiful part of Heaney's long poem. It's a great sign of hope for all the things Biden will be as president that Trump is not. And the least of is not that Biden is a reader of all sorts of things, including poetry. It may not be the most of these merits, but it's surely important to me, as I detailed in this post arguing that presidents MUST and SHOULD read.
And Trump does not.
Unless it's a photo op and the book is upside down.
Covid-19 cases are spiking nationwide. Deaths are rising. Some STATES have no ICU beds available. We're in a bad way. The pandemic is going back into exponential growth. It's going to get bad and fast.
And the "president" (Trump) is hiding in his bedroom and rage tweeting.
So useless. It's a good thing we fired him. Too bad we have to wait so long to have him truly removed from "power."
We need a man of action, integrity, and character. We elected that man. Too bad he cannot take over the Oval Office today.
#JoeBiden #Joe2020 #BidenForPresident
The Cure at Troy by Seamus Heaney | Joe Biden for President 2020
The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes is a verse adaptation by Seamus Heaney of Sophocles' play Philoctetes. It was first published in 1991.[1] The story comes from one of the myths relating to the Trojan War. It is dedicated in memory of poet and translator Robert Fitzgerald.[2]
Premise
The story takes place in the closing days of the Trojan War. Before the play begins, the Greek archer Philoctetes has been abandoned on the island of Lemnos by his fellows because of a foul-smelling wound on his foot, and his agonised cries. The play opens with verses from the Chorus and the arrival of Odysseus and Neoptolemus to the shore of Lemnos. Their mission is to devise a plan to obtain the mighty bow of Philoctetes, without which, it has been foretold, they cannot win the Trojan War.
Themes
At the beginning of the play, the protagonist Philoctetes has been abandoned on an island with a wound that will not heal. His suffering and exposure to the elements have made him animal-like, a quality he shares with other outcasts in Heaney's work, such as Sweeney.[3]
History says, Don't hope On this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme.
The passage was quoted by Bill Clinton in his remarks to the community in Derry in 1995 during the Northern Ireland Peace Process.[5]Joe Biden has also frequently quoted the passage,[6] including in his presidential acceptance speech at the 2020 Democratic National Convention[7] and at the memorial service for Sean Collier, a campus police officer who was killed in the line of duty during the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing.[8] In the opening chorus of the play, Heaney's translation emphasizes the role of poetry as "the voice of reality and justice"[9] in expressing "terrible events".[10]
At the time of its composition, Heaney saw themes of the Philoctetes as consonant with the contemporary political situation in South Africa, as the apartheid regime fell and Nelson Mandela was released from prison without a full-scale war. Heaney described Mandela's return as a similar overcoming of betrayal and a display of "the generosity of his coming back and helping with the city—helping the polis to get together again."[11]
Seamus Heaney -- From "The Cure at Troy"
Human beings suffer,
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured
History says, don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that farther shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracle
And cures and healing wells.
Call miracle self-healing:
The utter, self-revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there's fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky
That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.
It means once in a lifetime
That justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ - Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2011.12 - 10:10
Never forget. Let's never forget what they did. Let's never forget that they SET UP GALLOWS and intended to EXECUTE elected officials like something from the bloodiest days of the French Revolution in the late Eighteenth Century!!
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2201.07 - 10:10
- Days ago = 2380 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
A Sense of Doubt blog post #2095 - Hope and History Rhyme - a president who reads poetry
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