Up until a couple of years ago, we lived in the middle of a forest. Now we do not, but we did not move. The forest was cut down around us, and we now live in the middle of what is basically a 3-acre park: still surrounded by our trees, but with an ugly clear-cut just on the other side of the property line. And of course because the timber company was able to cut right up to the property line ("forest management practices"), our trees have now been exposed to the ravages of wind and weather, after over 80 years of strength in numbers. So our trees fall at a rate of about a dozen a year (the first year it was over 30), faster than we can make use of them in our single wood stove. In a few years, the landscape on the other side of the property line will start to look less like a bad haircut on Frankenstein’s monster, but for now it is just painfully ugly.
Except on days like today. We had a couple inches of snowfall last night, and even that small amount is enough to smooth things over and make the sixty acres surrounding us less of an eyesore. Parts of it actually look peaceful and lovely, a snowy meadow. It is an illusion, I know, but it is a welcome break from the ugly realities of what lies beneath the white blanket.
I have spent the past few weeks in a kind of snowy dream state of relief, following the recent election. After eight years of illegal war, state-sanctioned torture, spying on citizens, and questionable elections, we appear to have elected a chief executive who is more interested in Americans’ day-to-day sanity than in Empire. So while there is still plenty going on to be upset about, including handouts to financial giants followed by and the lack of any assistance to blue-collar industries, I keep telling myself "four more weeks, four more weeks...."
When Barak Obama takes the oath of office (and I do so hope he doesn’t wuss out, and that he actually says "I, Barak Hussain Obama, do solemnly swear..."), it will not only be historic, but, I expect, restorative. At least the insanity will stop. For a while. But what then? The signals coming from the President Elect and his team indicate that there will be no investigations of wrong-doing of the previous administration. When I bring up this concern to some friends, their response is along the lines of "Oh, he can’t go down that road, or he will not be able to govern." OK, I can see that. Sort of.
But, to use a cliche, past is prologue. Nixon broke into an office, and his successor just wanted the long, national nightmare to be over. Reagan and G.H.W. Bush did an end-run around the law in Iran-Contra, and the next President said "Let’s move on." So now our current Commander in Chief (shudder) started at least one illegal war, killing hundreds of thousands of people; and appears to have ordered illegal imprisonment, kidnapping and torture - among other things. But our incoming President is poised to raise the Stockholm Syndrome to national proportions by telling all of us that it really isn’t worth getting all flustered about.
Despite the right-wing hype over the latest "scandal" (that Obama might have spoken to, or maybe even have been in the same room with, the disgraced Gov. Blagojevich!), I’m not worried about what lawless havoc might be wrought by an Obama administration. What I am worried about the lawless havoc that could be wrought by a future administration, taking advantage of the "never mind" precedent going back, in my lifetime, to at least the Nixon years. In that span of time we’ve gone from breaking into an office to breaking into a country, and I shutter to think what’s next.
So I have asked my representatives to press on, and to insist that subpoenas be honored, and questions be answered. If nothing else, hold a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, al la South Africa. I don’t want revenge - well, yes, I do - but I want my democracy back even more. So even if we have to let the bad guys go in order to figure out how they got away with it, then so be it. Just stop it. My concern, though, is that even some of the good guys got close enough to the line, or even perhaps put a toe across it, to want this all to go away. But that does not mean I will stop asking them to do the right thing.
I walk around our property now and look at the white vista stretching out where the snags and weeds used to be. And I know they are still there, under the snow. Perhaps our winter wonderland will hang around until at least January 20th. Once the snow melts, things will get ugly again around here. But not, I fear, in the other Washington. Not ugly enough.
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