Campaign 2020: Let's Never Do This Again

It's not hope or change. It's not making anything great. It's just about making in through. 

image from article:
Early voting at the Hialeah John F. Kennedy Library in Hialeah, Fla.

By Matt Flegenheimer Photographs by Todd Heisler 
Oct. 31, 2020, 5:03 a.m. ET
[jb: original article contains remarkable photos]

Excerpt: 

In the course of human events that should probably be taking place virtually this year, in a house so divided that talk of jailing opponents registers as typical fare, in a country asking not what can be done, exactly, but whether anything can at this point, an election is happening on Tuesday. 

It is not a hope-and-change kind of year. It is not a moment for being made great again. 

Instead, a tour of these final, furious campaign days makes clear that the abiding theme of 2020 is something like survival: getting to 2021 in one piece, individually and collectively. ... 

[C]ampaign snapshots can double as a sort of rolling testament to national contradiction, rendered often in dizzying succession: the swagger and the nihilism, the faith and the faithlessness (“Jesus 2020: Our Only Hope” is a popular sign choice), the blithe invocation of outright fracture. ... 

There is the virus to outlive, the opponent to outlast, the threats that must be outrun, many say — eroding liberties, police violence, institutional rot — if the whole enterprise is to endure in recognizable form.

“Guillotine 2020,” read another sign displayed on a West Philadelphia porch recently, among the wind chimes and planters. “No More Presidents.” ...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Full List of Companies That Have Stayed in Russia – And The Ones That Decided to Leave [Updated Weekly]

Image
  Full List of Companies That Have Stayed in Russia – And The Ones That Decided to Leave [Updated Weekly] from Read, websiteplanet , via ame liabrunolh@gmail.com With this in mind, how are companies responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? We’ve compiled the internet’s most extensive list of multinational companies and their responses to the invasion. While some companies have been praised for their efforts, others have been justifiably accused of not doing enough. This article covers those companies that have left or partially left Russia, and those that have stayed. We’ll provide regular updates to keep the information accurate and relevant, so make sure to check back in! Disclaimer Our report can only reflect companies for which data is available from independent sources, or that have publicly stated their response to the war in Ukraine. A full investigation of all companies operating in Russia, or not, isn’t possible at this time, due to a lack of transparency. Countries wit...
Read more

[Late 20th century Americana:] The Girl in the Kent State Photo

Image
In 1970, an image of a dead protester immediately became iconic. But what happened to the 14-year-old kneeling next to him?  (John Filo/Getty Images from )  By Patricia McCormick , The Washington Post ,  April 19, 2021 Excerpt: [jb: from a well-researched (but perhaps a bit too long) article] :  Last May, when Mary Ann Vecchio watched the video of George Floyd’s dying moments, she felt herself plummet through time and space — to a day almost exactly 50 years earlier. On that afternoon in 1970, the world was just as riveted by an image that showed the life draining out of a young man on the ground, this one a black-and-white still photo. Mary Ann was at the center of that photo, her arms raised in anguish, begging for help. That photo, of her kneeling over the body of Kent State University student Jeffrey Miller, is one of the most important images of the 20th century. Taken by student photographer John Filo, it captures Mary Ann’s raw grief and disbelief at the rea...
Read more

[Excerpt:] Measure of Justice in the Chauvin Trial

Image
The jury got it right. Now the country has to get the broader questions right. From: Peggy Noonan , The Wall Street Journal , April 22, 2021 6:46 pm ET [on the Chauvin trial, see .]  Excerpt: Some of our policing problem is connected to a problem that affects everything: They came from us . Our police come from modern America, that jittery, jacked-up, broken place. They don’t really come from health and stability but from families that are fractured and a culture that is crude and violent, from hypermedia and videogames, from a society that doesn’t cohere. They don’t come from something boring and solid like the cop on the beat 50 and 100 years ago did; they don’t come from a world that went out of its way to teach them manners, morals, faith. How to act.  All the cops, and the perps, they came from us. image (not from article) from
Read more