COUNTDOWN TO EXTINCTION #3, News & Events For The Week Of October 20-26
And Death Shall Have No Dominion
Were it left to me to decide, whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
—Thomas JeffersonIn a way corporate America tells the story of hip hop, and [in] that way tells the story of blackness.
—Van Lathan
We do not live in a society in which the public determines policy.
—Noam ChomskyThe best work that anybody ever writes is the work that is on the verge of embarrassing him, always.
—Arthur Miller
I play the bass. Drive a Japanese car. Acknowledge anniversaries of the death of loved ones. I get by. Far away, in the other hemisphere, generations of working people are finding their own zero point, grief resetting their clock to a moment of devastation that will separate their lives to before and after irrevocable loss. It’s being done on our dime too, or will be, if this administration has its way.
I’m deeply ashamed, confessing what this has to do with me, but confess I will. Welcome to the Countdown…
I feel contextually stuck and anyway historically marked in the amber of the Big Dumb’s moment, beginning with Reagan’s Morning in America and culminating in the end of the American Century. But as we both know I’m just a dayworker and can only ruefully reflect on how it feels.
Better minds—A. Jay Adler, Seymour Hersh and Donna Greenberg should certainly examine the politics and implications of these stridently dark times because in fact they already do. I’ve done nothing in my career as a personal journalist but assert that if the voice of the people on the street ain’t the truth, it’ll do until the truth gets here.
If we can’t make it here anymore what’s going to happen to the people who never could?
—To Cornbread from Pissing In The Press Pool
I’m not much feeling the need to report on the “news and events for the week of October 20-26.” So I won’t. I feel the loss of my father acutely this time of year but sadly have only gotten by in the 22 years since he died. I couldn’t begin to motivate or organize for a better world. I lead with this media, it’s where my passion lies, even if I have nothing to say.
You’ll have to settle for these measly ‘graphs from an otherwise silent and pacifist writer. I don’t know what to do about all the blood that’s been spilled, and my own brand and deadlines pale in comparison to what’s happening now.
Love is stronger than death,
TRAINER
AUSTIN TX
May all beings have happiness and the cause of happiness.
May they be free of suffering and the cause of suffering.
May they never be disassociated from supreme happiness which is without suffering.
May they remain in boundless equanimity, free from both attachment to close ones and rejection of others.
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