I just finished the remarkable new book by Nancy Pelosi, The Art Of Power. It was on the one hand an inspiring first hand account of indomitable courage and determination in the face of difficult odds and a history of the major political struggles I’ve witnessed since 1987. On the other hand it’s an account of a time of civility in politics and government that has frayed and all but collapsed since the rise of Trump.
I feel both pessimistic and useless in the face of what’s coming. I now find myself reading books about the lead up to wars; Eric Larson’s The Demon of Unrest, about the five months preceding the first American Civil War, and The Proud Tower, by Barbara’s Tuchman, about Europe and America before World War One. Each marked the necessary transition from one state of civilization to the next. I find that reading history helps me out of a state of helpless depression, perhaps it helps me to accept that what’s likely to happen has happened before.
Yesterday I saw Coppola’s new and perhaps final film, Megalopolis, which is a rather surrealistic fable depicting the conflict between creativity and stagnation in a world of decadence and decline. It ends in a rather fanciful and/or hopeful conclusion, where creativity and progress apparently triumphs over our clinging to the past.
I was reminded of the film that has had a strong impact on me this year. Civil War depicts in realistic and down to earth terms a likely scenario should the USA descend once again into bloody conflict. In interviews, both the director and the actress Kirsten Dunst refer to Lee Miller, upon which her character is based, and the subject of the newly released Kate Winslet film, Lee She was a World War Two photographer who bore witness to some of the worst atrocities of that conflict.
I’ve come to believe that the likelihood of an election without violence and a peaceful transition of power is unlikely, no matter who wins, and the only thing you or I can do to alter events is to choose not to participate in the violence in word or deed. We must refuse to spread the hatred and fear being directed by so-called leaders, against the poor, the weak and the ‘others’ in order to advance a bid for supremacy and power. We must recognize the seeds of fascism that are being encouraged everyday, and deny them from taking root within us.
I’ll be driving up to Denver to take a flight to Cleveland to visit family on October 24th and will return to Santa Fe the day before the election. I wonder whether this trip will mark a rise or fall of the world we’ve known. Right now I’m not betting either way.
Arclist 