Here are my last words ahead of the upcoming U.S. Presidential Election. I cannot, in good conscience, celebrate a Clinton victory tomorrow evening. I will, however, certainly celebrate Trump’s defeat, and will dance on his grave if ever given the chance.
For all of my apparent cynicism to people who don’t know me well, I will also celebrate the election of a woman to the Presidency. I was an early supporter of Patricia Schroeder for the Democratic nomination nearly thirty years ago. It’s about freaking time.
I am proud of my vote for Jill Stein of the Green Party again this year. She has held up the vision of a more just, peaceful and sustainable society. This is an alternative that went without mention from either of the major party candidates.
I do not hope for a continuation of the sort of petty partisan conflict that has so characterized this election cycle. But I do hope (and pray) that in the coming months we shall see a heightened state of unrest. I intend to continue to do my best to foment it. It is in struggle that we become conscious. And it is way past time for all of us to wake up.
A Klee painting named Angelus Novus shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.
