Speak Truth to Power

While watching the presidential election returns in November and disbelieving the results, this poem kept going through my head:

 

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry

                                                Used with permission

 

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,

vacation with pay. Want more

of everything ready-made. Be afraid

to know your neighbors and to die.

 

And you will have a window in your head.

Not even your future will be a mystery

any more. Your mind will be punched in a card

and shut away in a little drawer.

 

When they want you to buy something

they will call you. When they want you

to die for profit they will let you know.

So, friends, every day do something

that won’t compute. Love the Lord.

Love the world. Work for nothing.

Take all that you have and be poor.

Love someone who does not deserve it.

 

Denounce the government and embrace

the flag. Hope to live in that free

republic for which it stands.

Give your approval to all you cannot

understand. Praise ignorance, for what man

has not encountered he has not destroyed.

 

Ask the questions that have no answers.

Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.

Say that your main crop is the forest

that you did not plant,

that you will not live to harvest.

 

Say that the leaves are harvested

when they have rotted into the mold.

Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus

that will build under the trees

every thousand years.

 

Listen to carrion — put your ear

close, and hear the faint chattering

of the songs that are to come.

Expect the end of the world. Laugh.

Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful

though you have considered all the facts.

So long as women do not go cheap

for power, please women more than men.

 

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy

a woman satisfied to bear a child?

Will this disturb the sleep

of a woman near to giving birth?

 

Go with your love to the fields.

Lie down in the shade. Rest your head

in her lap. Swear allegiance

to what is nighest your thoughts.

 

As soon as the generals and the politicos

can predict the motions of your mind,

lose it. Leave it as a sign

to mark the false trail, the way

you didn’t go.

 

Be like the fox

who makes more tracks than necessary,

some in the wrong direction.

Practice resurrection.

 

Wendell Berry is a renowned writer of prose and poetry, and an activist. Now in his 80s, Berry has given up the bright lights of New York and Palo Alto where he has taught and lives on a farm in Kentucky.

Berry is facetious when he writes “Love the fast profit….” Yet that is what the public in the USA has elected—a man who has little care for the future, nor for people, but has entered politics to further himself and the cadre of the superrich.

The next four years will be a especially difficult for reproductive health issues. The new administration has pledged to get rid of Obamacare, which has put health insurance within reach of millions of people. One of its best benefits is the availability of contraception without copay. Furthermore, the proposed Health Secretary is a foe of abortion.

There are actions bubbling up all over the country and they have already started locally. Dan Olson wrote about “Our 1st 100 Days”: “…a number of folks in the community are organizing a major campaign to combat the hate, fear, and lies so common in this last election cycle by growing and invigorating local efforts to advance social, environmental and economic justice in our community.” For more information: WWW.OUR1ST100DAYS.US.

RESPOND is offering a day of free classes on January 21st. For more information: www.respond2017.weebly.com.

The worst global crisis is climate change. Durango has already responded with a chapter of the Citizens Climate Lobby; https://www.facebook.com/DurangoChapterCCL/?fref=ts. CCL will be showing a video, “The Age of Consequences”, on Wednesday 15 February at both 5 and 8 PM. It will be at the Vallecito Room of the Student Union Building at Fort Lewis College.

In mid-February “Truth to Power: Writers Respond to the Rhetoric of Hate and Fear,” will be available at Maria’s Bookshop. The scores of voices there, including Berry’s, collected and published by local writers Pam Uschuk and Will Root, can strengthen our resolve for the next 4 years.

If you are unhappy about the direction our country is headed, join with your neighbors to regain control. Participate in local actions!

© Richard Grossman MD, 2017

Afterword: This piece is most relevant to the Durango area, but there is concern and action all over the globe–including a demonstration that was held in Antarctica! No one knows what is going to happen, but I am certain that the current administration will set back human rights–especially women’s rights–terribly.