"Rally 'Round, America!"
John Tenniel's 1871 illustration for Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass."
Donald Trump and Bill Barr are dismantling democracy.
The two are using COVID-19 to speed up the process. They are like that old nursery rhyme:
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle;
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle.
Just then flew down a monstrous crow,
As black as a tar-barrel;
Which frightened both the heroes so,
They quite forgot their quarrel.
https://allnurseryrhymes.com/tweedledum-and-tweedledee/
John Tenniel's 1871 illustration for Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass."
The origins of Dum and Dee go back to a factionalized rivalry. In 1725, poet John Byrom expressed his opinion that Handel and long-forgotten Bononcini had little to distinguish them:
On the Feuds between Handel and Bononcini.
Some say, compar’d to Bononcini,
That Mynheer Handel ’s but a ninny;
Others aver that he to Handel
Is scarcely fit to hold a candle.
Strange all this difference should be
’Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
--John Byrom
Here's the thing: the battle they are waging is not against one another. It is against you and me. Bill Barr and Donald Trump want to roll America back to a time when old white guys called all the shots. They are systematically and methodically breaking down all the norms and rules America has always attempted to live by. Trump is a spoiled, sadistic brat, but Barr is a spoiled, sadistic brat with an intellect and an agenda.
He, as America's top law enforcement official, is sponsoring state-sanctioned violence all over this nation. Bad cops are getting bolder than ever, knowing that Billy Barr backs them. He backs them when they assault white women and men, because they might feel that "Black Lives Matter."
The federal law enforcement divisions are complicit. They seem more than willing to apply 'enemy combatant' rules on American soil--against American people. Donald Trump and Bill Barr are the Dum and Dee of the American Apocalypse.
The BLM movement might be the "monstrous crow" that made them "forget their quarrel" and unite in nefarity. These men, and many Americans like them, will maintain the minority rule by any means necessary. They have taught black people to blithely refer to themselves as 'minority' when by most measures, there are more of us than there are of them.
The One Percent do not seem to consider themselves 'American' anymore. These are international, jet-setting types who feel they belong to the Pantheon of Wealth and Whiteness. One of the key tenets of mythology is the idea of acting outside of morality and social mores--without compunction, and without fear from the miserable human beings over whom they hold dominion.
If we do not live and breathe "of the people, by the people", for the people from here on out, the greatest promise of this nation will be lost.
When is a blogpost not a blogpost? When it tells you it is about to be a news report, and you stop right there.
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