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Sheltering Walls

Bare Trees in Fog

Silencing Our Voices

Silencing is the method for stopping voices from speaking up and out. Silencing is the tool of those who strive for power over all other voices. This is an ancient method that has proven itself over time. It starts with the small things: keeping your thoughts to yourself to avoid an unpleasant conversation or an argument. Then, when it comes time to say something that nobody else will, keeping silent becomes a way of being complicit. Follow that with outright refusal to say what you think for fear of reprisal and pretty soon, keeping silent is a way of life.


The bigger silences come when the powers to be or wannabe challenge every other voice around. The usual tactic is through fear and intimidation. Threats, whether idle or not, have the effect of silencing truthsayers or naysayers which amounts to anyone who disagrees. These days we are all witnesses to the silencing of our own judicial system that seems to be at odds with its own mission of truth and justice for all. Instead what we hear is one overarching voice that speaks louder than all the rest through a “bully” pulpit, never more aptly named and used for all its worth. This “in your face” attitude has been met with total impunity which has the effect of corroding the checks and balances of our Democracy. That, is exactly the point! I heard recently from a woman in England, an American expat, that she has been thinking about moving back to the States to work on the political campaign. It caught me up short. Haven’t I been thinking about getting out of here “in case things go bad” in the 2024 election? Self-silencing is the most resounding silence of all. We are all guilty of it.


When this blog is posted today, it will be my 40th over the span of 10 months. My original intent was to begin a dialogue. I have not managed to engage more than a handful of dedicated readers. Each week I have tried to offer thought-provoking ideas that would spark a conversation. It has not turned out that way. I feel like a lone voice in the wilderness calling out for someone to answer. . . where are YOOOOOOU? I have been asking myself why that is? The answer is not going to come from me alone.


At first I was reluctant to publish beyond my own sphere of email contacts. Truth be told, I dared not invite violent responses. When nothing came back, I took a bigger step out onto the limb and published the blog live through my own social media accounts. The number of readers increased exponentially and broadened beyond "sea to shining sea". Even so, the comments did not rise above sea level. I went all out and wrote more openly about events that impact all of us. One person responded to me privately that my take on events was "way off base" and asked to be dropped from the list. Fair enough, I'll take it, I can take it. I welcomed her honest feedback. But, the dialogue stopped there. If only she had engaged other readers by adding her voice to mine. Surely, someone else would have had a word or two to say. I won't belabor the point because I have nothing to draw from but my own conclusions. It has been suggested to me that many people knowing that voices on the internet last forever do not want to have their own comments out there for any number of reasons. Fair enough. Let's just say, if that is the case, dear readers, we are silencing our own voices, and in my humble opinion is the most egregious silencing of any and all to come from those who ruthlessly seek to hold power over "America the Beautiful". 


Some years ago, I was among others singing in the Tanglewood Music Shed overlooking the beautiful Berkshire Mountains of Western, Massachusetts, my home state. On that perfect summer afternoon, we all shared our voices by singing "America the Beautiful". It lingers even now in my mind as it did over the hills as a reminder of a lovely counterpoint to raising our voices in protest. Voices shared matter, no matter how we choose to do so.





At the end of April I will stop writing this blog not out of frustration or as a way of silencing my own voice. Words alone will not stop this rising tide against Democracy in our homeland. More action is required. In other countries, in other times when dictators seized control, the "resistance" rose up when voices were meant to be silenced. I often wondered whether I would have joined them. Sadly, there is no need to wonder any longer. The time has come here at home. America herself is on the edge of failing rather than living up to her "crowning good" of brotherhood and sisterhood. The resistance must drown out those with the megaphones using their voices against those. . . "who more than self, their country loved. . ." and who refuse to have our voices silenced.



 
 
 

The Great and Powerful SC





Dorothy was a young woman going before the power structure that controlled OZ in the way that the Supreme Court (SC) controls the US.



When it comes to women, the Great and Powerful SC is as much of a folly as the "man behind the curtain" in the fairy tale the "Wizard of OZ". If you grew up in the United States in the Hollywood era, you know how the story follows this young woman on her journey through the forest while meeting characters that become her comrades-in-arms marching together up to the castle, an imposing building meant to intimidate anyone who makes it to the end of the yellow brick road. Dorothy, like many young women wanted to be heard. She thought she should have a chance to live her life the way she chose. She wanted to feel safe again in her own home. Other people thought differently.


Those people wanted to stop her in her tracks. She was under threat with each step she took in her ruby slippers. Dorothy's very life was put in jeapordy. Her new-found friends were not much help against flying monkeys and fireballs. While they meant well, they lacked courage and know-how and the stuffing it takes to go up against those who proclaim to be Great and Powerful. She had without ever trying to, made enemies of some with swift brooms who wanted to sweep her off the scene. She upset them with her own powers to which she held tight. It turned out that Dorothy was the smart one who could see through the sham behind the curtain. Lots of questions arise in stories that pit those "weak and meek" against those "Great and Powerful".


The first that comes to mind is WHO was behind the curtain, like who is wearing black robes, weilding such power? To the best of our knowledge, on the SC, one man found his place on the high bench in spite of sexual harassment charges levied by a young woman against him; One female justice was known to have signed her name to an ad that read: "time to put an end to the barbaric legacy of Roe v Wade"* That's WHO listened to the arguments and decided on the demise of that fifty-year law. Like Dorothy we knew then that "We are not in Kansas, anymore."


Another question is WHY these all-powerful, or shall we say, too powerful people have any right in the first place to make decisions of a personal nature such as the use of a prescribed medication? In the case that this (All) Mighty Powerful Court will hear today, March 26, 2024 is on that very issue. The SC never had to take this case on the so-called "abortion pill", a legal, prescription drug approved and successfully used by scores of women in privacy for decades. They clearly wanted to be the ones with the last word on women's personal protection against having a baby until and unless the time is right for her. That argument these days runs countercultural to having a baby if and when the "times" are right societally, culturally, religiously. SAYS WHO?


WHY in a country that flaunts freedom by waving its flag whether on top of the SC building in D.C. or, on the back of a pickup truck is this even a question to be decided by anyone other than a pregnant woman? The WHO and the WHY of this all important health decision belong to only the so-called "weak and meek" to decide what is best. Choosing for women undermines, underestimates, and underrates our power that each one knows how to wield be it in the voting booth or the boudoir. Women, take note!


Today's outcome will not be known until those too cowardly to face women go home for summer recess. Dorothy also wanted to go home where she was safe from harm that should never be applied by the Great and Powerful over the meek and weak. In the meantime (a very mean time), women across the US will have to click our heels and wait until November when we pull the curtain in the voting booth.



*The New Yorker February 7, 2022.


 
 
 

"All the news that’s fit to print"




I read a story in the New York Times about a man in Ohio who was observing a news moratorium that included any and all news stories from every possible source. He had developed a routine around non-news that included going daily to his local cafe without the benefit of WiFi that would infiltrate the black out. He donned noise cancellation headphones to prevent the possibility of overhearing conversations about events du jour. He planned to adhere to the black out throughout the Trump presidency. He turned his attention to other quieter things like planting a garden. I closed the newspaper as I decided to give a news moratorium a one-month trial.


On March 13, my son’s birthday, I blocked all social media, news sites, television programs. When I called to cancel my subscription to the NYT, I was asked "Why?" I replied I could no longer read all that news fit to print. I told my family and friends and colleagues not to share any information with me about anything that was happening in the world. It was harder on them than on me. It seemed some thought that I needed to know exactly what I was not wanting to know about border separations of parents from their children, Muslims banned from the U.S., meetings between Putin and Trump, so-called "love letters" from Kim Jong Un, and budding friendships with Crown Prince of Saudi Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud. You the reader know more than I about those events because I stayed steadfast in my own news moratorium like the man in Ohio. I settled into a quieter routine without the news as background or foreground. I read more; listened to music and played my piano regularly. I spent more time at my writing desk. It wasn't as hard as you might think.


Since the time I was a young child I had been an avid news follower, faithfully watching the evening news with my mother after supper. I am not sure why I was so drawn in when I could have been doing other things with my siblings. I recall how it served me in my current events class because I was one of the few who could identify the cast of characters from presidents to criminals. (Who woulda thought that in my lifetime this would be one and the same person here in our own country?)


A month passed peacefully and I let the moratorium linger through Spring. I did not miss knowing what I didn't know. It was blissful, as ignorance is, and I forgot all about things beyond my own thoughts and immediate surroundings. As you might imagine, time took on a different meaning as I meandered day to day without regard for yesterday's news or tomorrow's woes. One day, noticing the flags flying at half mast was the first reminder that news was in fact still happening. I decided to ask why the flags were lowered because I feared there may have been yet another horrible school shooting which was the very thing that had driven me to my decision in the first place. I had reached my breaking point on these pointless murders. I could no longer tolerate another one of these senseless school massacres after the Parkland High School shooting in South Florida. Despite being a few hundred miles from where I live, that shooting came close to home.


My three grandchildren were all in high school on that horrible day. I was viscerally angry, completely frustrated, and empathically saddened for the families, the students who lived through it and would never forget, and for those teeenagers who had been murdered in their classroom. My grandkids spoke about it in a "once again" tone. Sometimes I overheard them asking each other if they had "gone into lockdown" at school during the day. How could they ever feel safe in the one place away from home where they needed to go each day? The very place where we parents sent them day after day? This commonplace action should never mean sending them into harm's way. Never. My blood boiled over when the news reeled on and on showing those fateful moments in Parkland. It is boiling even now, a news moratorium not withstanding, as I write about the senselessness and selfishness that has stunted any true development and progress to stopping gun violence in the U.S. Nothing has been done to prevent the next inevitability. Nothing. That we refuse to rectify the worst impulses in some warped idea wrapped in the Second Amendment "right" comes from a very dark place. Consider all those other "rights" that are trampled by the Government without regard. Yet, this so-called right is sacrosanct. There is no reasonable explanation whatsoever. None.


My news moratorium felt like a relief from feeling all those feelings, thinking all those thoughts, fighting all those rights. Friends and family scrolled on in the doomsday newsfeeds and got used to me dropping out. My birthday comes six months after my son's and I was determined to continue my black out until that date. When I emerged from the quiet days, I never resumed my subscription to the NYT. It had become clear to me during the pause that I did not need to know ALL the news that's fit to print. I had not missed being in the know to the degree that I was used to since back in the day when news came from a few reliable sources that one knew were trustworthy.


Half a year had passed before I woke up like Rip Van Winkle from a long sleep. Upon awakening, I learned immediately that we were looking down the barrel of COVID-19. My first news reports came out of an Italy in full lock down. It was shocking to see the city empty of people. The Pope cut a lonely figure standing solo in St. Peter's Square! There was nothing like this in recent history, nor in our collective memory, and certainly not in our lifetime. The news took on great significance as we inched towards our own lock down in the U.S. The news moratorium had kept me from drowning in the blood of school massacres. It would not protect me from a pandemic raging across continents. I needed to know. I turned once again to those sources that I had grown up trusting for information.


At some future time, I can imagine spending time in blissful ignorance again. It had attuned me to the world in a different way. Sadly, it didn't change the facts. The bloody truth is that since the Parkland High School Shooting on Valentine's Day 2018, . . ."In all, 103 people have been killed and 281 people injured from school shootings since 2018. In 2022, there were 51 school shootings—more than double the numbers for 2018 and 2019, which both saw 24 such incidents. Last year, school shootings hit a record, with 100 people shot on school campuses and 40 people killed.


 
 
 
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