September 1, 2020
W.H. Auden in his poem September 1, 1939*
Expressed his foreboding regarding the coming onslaught
On democratic values as the world stood on the brink of WWII.
On September 1, 2020 the United States stands on the brink of dictatorship
A president who in 2016 said:
“Real power is—I don’t even want to use the word—fear” **
Has, using fear—the fear of spineless politicians—of a caustic tweet
Captured the narrative of the country:
He has amazingly managed to control virtually the entire government.
The attorney general is his private attorney and is alleged to have had FOX news
Muzzle Trump critic Napolitano.
His gross negligence and incompetence has allowed the US to have the dubious distinction if have more cases and deaths than any other country on earth.
He has corrupted virtually every branch of the US Government.
His entire program has be to dismantle almost everything Barack Obama accomplished
Highlighting his vicious vindictiveness.
His crimes are too numerous to recount, but well known.
But he and his enablers have also interfered with the election by throttling the post office to wreck voting by mail
Republican governors have passed voter suppression laws facilitated by the Supreme Court and have systematically purged voter rolls of black and brown voters ***
If he wins the election he has everything in place to “democratically” achieve one-man rule
And as he did at the RNC literally put his name on the white house.
If he loses he is positioned to incite massive violence which he is currently using to
Further his electoral chances.
Most worrisome, he is the leader of the right wing parties around the world.
He lauds dictators such as Putin, Duterte, Sisi, Erdogan and Bolsonaro is following Trumps lead.
With four more years he can continue, and we can easily see him arresting journalists and critics and ending our democracy as we know it.
All with the support of laws passed by sycophantic congress and affirmed by the courts as “legal”.
Since if he loses he faces jail and loss of Russian financial support the next 60 some days will seen an unimaginable assault on our institutions as they are bent them to his survival.
But there are also very progressive forces at work striving for meaningful change to correct many of our societies wrongs—indeed, there are thousands of points of light out there.
But, are we where Auden was on September 1, 1939?….
*September 1, 1939
W. H. Auden – 1907-1973
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism’s face
And the international wrong.
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.
From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
“I will be true to the wife,
I’ll concentrate more on my work,”
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
From Another Time by W. H. Auden, published by Random House. Copyright © 1940 W. H. Auden, renewed by the Estate of W. H. Auden. Used by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.
**Bob Woodward Fear: Trump in the White House . Presidential candidate Donald J Trump in an interview with Bob Woodward and Robert Costa on March 31b, 2016, at the Old Post Office Pavilion, Trump International Hotel, Washington, D.C.
***Greg Palast How Trump Stole 2020.
Howard P. Charman, MD