The passage of the American Rescue Plan Act is good news for a nation still reeling from the ongoing pandemic and resultant economic crisis, but it is perhaps even better news for another element of America that is sick: our democracy.
As part of America’s culture wars, the Right loves to go bananas over banalities, like the fact that, last week, Hasbro made Mr. Potato Head gender-neutral by dropping the “Mr.”
I used to think that the turning point in the battle against climate change wouldn’t come until the impacts were too obvious to ignore. My fear was that, by this point, it would be too late to forestall the worst outcomes, but at least humanity would wake up to and deal with this existential crisis.
On the third Monday in January you’ll find me
writing an ode I can’t quite finish, like a New Year’s
resolution I’ll stick to next time, I promise.
“Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.” – John Lewis
What if all this time, energy, and money were spent, not on the illusion of security, but rather on building a more just, prosperous, and beautiful democracy? I suppose that’s a dream better left to comic books and video games.
After four years, it has come to this:
I fear that all I love will go to ruins,
and my little son is playing on the dunes.
I am a concerned citizen writing to ask that you immediately remove Louis DeJoy, the Postmaster General of the Postal Service, from the Board of Trustees of your esteemed nonprofit.
If politics is war, Republicans have historically waged it more ruthlessly, and more successfully, than Democrats and Independents
To be trapped in an era, this era,
is the poet’s nightmare and delight. O future
readers—if there will be readers—what will you make
of this? What shall I—what shall we—bequeath you?