Duck and Cover Won’t Save Us

(The above image was AI generated)

Elementary school kids in the early 1960’s (I was one of them) practiced a drill called “duck and cover.” This is where you got down under your desk and covered your head with your hands. This position was intended to save us from a Russian nuclear attack. Adorable!

Fortunately, our “duck and cover” drill was never tested by the eyeball-melting, flesh-roasting horror of a nuclear explosion. That didn’t stop my arch-conservative high school US history teacher (I think it was him) from showing us a movie of just what would happen to us in the event of a nuclear attack (e.g., eyeballs melting, flesh roasting, skin rotting from radiation poisoning, and uninhabitable, contaminated moonscapes where towns used to be — you know, cheery, fascinating stuff like that). I’m pretty sure everyone in my generation was traumatized by seeing a film like that in school. Why did they do that to us? What was the point?

Maybe the point was, this is what could happen to you if you don’t do something to prevent it.

I don’t believe nuclear annihilation is imminent like some have warned, but I do believe that allowing ourselves to be intimidated by a narcissistic, megalomaniacal, vengeful, pouting sociopath with no regard for our laws or for those that make and enforce them, is the first step toward a slow and tragic capitulation to authoritarianism.

Only six, at last count, Republicans have said anything critical about the Cheeto-in-Chief’s pardons and commutations for January 6 rioters, which included clemency for those who brought weapons and ammunition to the Capitol, smashed windows, smeared feces around, and stole things from Congressional offices.

At what point did we all simply accept that what elected officials do, as soon as they’re elected, is spend all their time trying to get re-elected? Since when has appeasing their “base” and obediently doing the bidding of a lying, cheating felon been considered a form of public service?

If you were a business owner, and you had an employee who came to work every day loudly proclaiming that you were going to do absolutely nothing, and work hard to block anyone else from doing anything, you’d fire their ass in a New York minute. Yet Mitch McConnell (who, to his credit, was one of the six Republicans who objected to the pardons) spent his time as Senate majority leader saying no to everything. Mercifully, he has stepped down from that post. We have yet to see whether his successor will turn into just another boot-licking toady, doing the Orange One’s bidding, no matter how outrageous.

“Do not obey in advance.” This is the first of twenty lessons on fighting tyranny put forth by Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale. You’ll note that “duck and cover” isn’t on the list.

Last Sunday night (the night before the inauguration) I sang in the chorus for a community orchestra performance of Beethoven’s 9th symphony, which ends with the iconic “Ode to Joy.” I had the amazing experience of learning that piece when I was in college, under the direction of Robert Shaw himself (he was an alum, I think, which is why the music department was able to get him to come and do it). But I hadn’t studied translations of the Schiller poem that forms the text for the choral part in a long time. Participating in this community performance gave me a chance to dive in to the text (on my own, as we did this on just 4 rehearsals: the main chorus was made up of volunteers who have sung or currently sing with the Chicago Master Singers or another city chorus called Lux Cantorum, both very highly regarded, so 4 rehearsals was enough).

Yes, the poem is about joy and brotherhood. But it also touches on the despair of having no friends or no loving spouse, and being unable to join the joyful song and instead “creep tearfully away.”

It is also a prayer and a plea: as the chorus offers a “kiss for all the world,” it also asks, “do you fall in worship, you millions? Do you know your creator, world? Seek him in the heavens! Above the stars, there must be a loving God!”

Must be, not “is.” That’s faith. That’s a prayer – God, please, you have to be there! That’s an “I believe, help my unbelief.” (Mark 9:24)

I have to believe in a loving God. And I ask for strength in doing what little I can to maintain and defend decency and human dignity over the next four years.

Wishing you fresh air, good friends, and ways to think globally while acting locally, I remain,

Your perplexed, anxious, fighting-the-urge-to-pull-the-covers-over-my-head-for-the-next-four-years,

Ridiculouswoman