I apologize.

I apologize for losing direction.  I will correct that.

I started this blog following the election of donald trump, convinced that we had to do four things - get smart, stand up, speak out, and shelter one another.

This was my effort to contribute to that - to begin to provide a combination of links to local resources and events and to provide some reasonable, and hopefully useful, reflection on the state of things and how we might respond.

In the interim, my father has died, my marriage has ended, and I've let myself get preoccupied.  I also fell into the social media trap, endlessly responding to bullshit on Facebook and elsewhere, instead of putting most of my energy into being proactive.  I talked myself into believing that I could be proactive on Facebook, but finally accept that that's not the case. So, I come back to this, and simply use social media as much as possible - and as much as is helpful - to point people to resources, insights, and events they might find useful.

We are approaching a point where it appears inevitable that the trump Presidency will implode.  Unfortunately, we have much darkness to go before that happens, and darkness we can't yet imagine that will occur after.  Even so, maybe it won't implode.  Either way the prognosis is bad.

The light at the end of the trump tunnel is, in fact, another train.  This is because the problem isn't trump. He is just the most obvious symptom of a deep, dark sickness that has been festering - often encouraged by Republicans and the right wing - for at least three generations. Before anyone complains about blaming everything on the GOP, just shut it. Neither left nor right are virginal.  Both side have their political sins and always have.  But we are here for at least these reasons:

1. Some Republicans have cynically wrapped dark threads of racism, paranoia, and ultra-nationalism inside an ostensibly populist message.  Whatever it takes to gain power; whatever it takes to hold it.;

2. Some Republicans have chosen to avert their eyes.  They're the relatives who sit at the dining room table as the cousin or uncle conducts drug deals, and pretend they're innocent because they never touched the money or the drugs themselves. They do, however, enjoy the 60" flatscreen that the drug money bought;

3. Too many Democrats have lost the ability to blend authentic populism with policies that insist on protection for the marginalized.  They, like the Republicans, have turned one policy or another, or one set of policies or another into litmus tests. They stand on their islands of purity as the sea levels rise, thinking this political version of climate change won't affect them. They are wrong, and are at risk of being washed into the sea as we speak.

4. Too much of the Democratic establishment has let grass roots organizing rot away.  That's an orphan with a lot of parents.  Obama built an amazing grass roots fabric, then seemingly squandered it almost immediately upon taking office, leaving it to fall into disrepair, or being unwilling to share with the broader party.  At the same time, HRC, her many positive contributions aside for the moment, built an organization that ignored local issues and local organization. In the 2016 Campaign, she ignored whole sections of the country, an omission that would, to use the technical term, "bite her in the ass" in November.

That's not all Republicans, nor all Democrats. I've known many Republicans who are, at heart, decent and reasonable people with whom I could disagree but still respect.   I know many Democrats who have a solid clarity when it comes to local action building up from the grass roots into national action.

I am broken hearted - after 54 years, I have discovered that the America I believed in throughout my life not only wasn't real, but also that the progress that I'd counted on through that entire period wasn't real.

It turned out that decades of progress could all be run through a wood chipper within months by bad actors, faithless politicians, fickle voters, previously closeted bigots, and one delirious circus showman.  The cancer is running the body politic at this point, and that won't change when trump is no longer in the White House.  He's only the most obvious symptom.

Already, in many areas, we have slid back to the ignorant 70s, and before the slide ends, we may find ourselves in the myopic 50s.

So, despite my distractions, diversions, and mistakes, I'm back to my original assertion.

What we have to do is get smart, stand up, speak out, and shelter one another. 

I'm not pretending that I'm a leader in this - but I am throwing myself back, wholeheartedly, into being a helper.

Fred Rogers often told this story, which most of us have seen or heard, but it's worth seeing and hearing repeatedly:

 “My mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world.”

I don't know if we'll win or lose, at the end of the day, but I do know we will get to remain who we are, and continue owning our consciences, which many have sold. This has to count for something.  Don't be changed by the darkness.