Appeal To Heaven? (Gravity, Four.)

And where the body of the people, or any single man, is deprived of their right, or is under the exercise of a power without right, and have no appeal on earth, then they have a liberty to appeal to heaven, whenever they judge the cause of sufficient moment. And therefore, though the people cannot be judge, so as to have, by the constitution of that society, any superior power, to determine and give effective sentence in the case; yet they have, by a law antecedent and paramount to all positive laws of men, reserved that ultimate determination to themselves which belongs to all mankind, where there lies no appeal on earth, viz. to judge, whether they have just cause to make their appeal to heaven. ~John Locke

...

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

I just saw this, not too long ago.

I'm sick of this shit.

Not just Sam Alito and his Christian Nationalist and insurrectionist symbolism.

But even of the fact that the Pine Tree Flag...a bit of historical trivia that I barely remembered from, like, elementary school, until I looked it up...has been appropriated (and yes, I use that word deliberately) as a Christian Nationalist symbol at all.

Because the whole goddamned point of the Pine Tree flag...as the first pull quote should point out...is that it's an affirmation of the Right Of Revolution and a specific rejection of the Divine Right of Kings.

In other words, in a time when modern ideas of "Left" and "Right" (which stem from the French Revolution) didn't even exist yet, the Pine Tree Flag was about the furthest-Left of far-Left and ultimately secular symbols.

And remember, the idea of secular symbolism hardly existed at the time, which made the idea particularly revolutionary.

Along with the idea that there even could be such a thing as an appeal to God that did not go through Kings and State-backed religious institutions.

So of course Republicans have to dirty that shit up and rub their dicks all over it and they do so hoping that other people won't get the symbolism...which, honestly, it's Okay if ya don't. I only happen to know about it because Christian schools of all kinds Love them some Colonial and Revolutionary War history. Largely because so much of it was, and so many of the struggles within the pre-US-Founding colonies were, explicitly Christian. 

Like, yes, this is even why a couple of states exist now. Rhode Island (for example) was originally a community of religious dissidents from Puritan Massachusetts. That's the environment that birthed the debates that led to the founding of this country and symbols like the Pine Tree Flag. And even I barely remembered it...but something told me to look it up and I at least remembered that I'd heard of it before at that point.

And in a world where Donald Trump has such a grip on the Republican Party that even Nikki Haley (for so long the principal opposition to Trump) now feels the need to bend the knee, because she's not ready to give up being a Republican...I think it's necessary to point out that even the symbolism these motherfuckers appropriate to justify their bullshit doesn't even mean what they think it means.

Donald Trump is All About the "Divine Right of Kings" or at least, his own imagined "right" to do whatever the fuck he wants, and of course Republicans won't stop sucking off the narcissist.

Thankfully, Nikki's voters appear to not be going along for that particular ride.

Which is good, because if you want a better country, you have to be a better citizen.

And that doesn't mean slavish loyalty to Party over country.

That doesn't mean letting people bullshit you, even if you want what they're saying to be true.

History, like Gravity, is a testable thing.

Remember that, because it's going to be on the test, later.

Why the fuck else you think Republicans don't want kids reading books?

Слава Україна!

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco

Three

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning.

I turn this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.

I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
~Facing It, by Yusef Komunyakaa, US Army Veteran