Old Lion Wake
“Rise like lions after slumber
In unvanquished number --
Shake your chains to earth, like dew
Which in sleep has fallen on you --
Ye are many, they are few.”
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley; Masque of Anarchy; 1819.
During the mid-winter month, I have been e-mailing my closest associate a series of letter-essays: long-winded attempts to express the connections between the anger, hatreds and violence on an international, national, and local level. She had called me on Saturday, to discuss a three-day union conference she had just returned from, and noted that the general topics I have been writing about apply to her union activism. I thought that today -- as a winter storm has brought most activity in upstate New York’s “southern tier” to a stand-still -- I would share a few of these thoughts with you.
A small example: as a member of the local school board, I try to attend sports’ events. The level of hostility at both the boys and girls basketball games has reached a saturation point. And it is not limited to “our team vs. their team.” Oh, we did recently have the mother of an opposing team’s star-player rush up into the bleachers, to scream at students after her son missed a foul shot. Curiously, she focused her rage on a 7th grade Asian-American girl, who was not even part of the student “cheering section.” The woman was told to leave the school.
We’ve also had adults yelling, “Shut your fucking mouth!” and other similar unpleasantries at other adults from our own community; an increasing number of parents who, for reasons good and bad, are furious with their sons’ and daughters’ coaches; and an incident where local and state police had to come to restore order in the gym. A mother is now banned from the gym, for attacking a coach.
[There are, of course, many thoughtful, considerate, good and decent people. During a “break” from composing this essay, I was attempting to shovel-out enough of my driveway to be able to venture out. (I notice my driveway gets much longer in the winter.) A passing truck stopped; it was a gentleman I used to provide services to at the mental health clinic. He refused my offer of payment for plowing me out. This allowed me to come inside in time to answer the telephone: a young lady who was homeless a decade ago, and who we took in, was very upset by poisonous lies her extended family were spreading about her late father. We talked for an hour or so. I told her that she has many of the strengths that I admired in her late father.]
I recognize that I am perhaps more sensitive to expressions of anger in public places, since my cousin and his son were shot in an incident of “road rage” three months ago. I’m aware of the significant amount of Good that a small town provides in support of an extended family, when a father is seriously wounded, and his son bleeds to death in his arms on a dirt parking lot. My life’s experience has taught me that the violence that is fueled by anger and fear is not something that people control -- just the opposite: people lose self-control, and the violence takes control of them. It is diseased behavior, that is capable of spreading quickly through any given population. This results in individuals and often groups acting out.
The only legitimate response to this trend, in my opinion, is found in the examples provided for human beings by Gandhi and King. (The Shelly poem, quoted above, was a Gandhi favorite.) It requires three things: first, that people “wake up” to their humanity; second, that they recognize that even those seeking to capitalize upon the social tensions that infect our culture are victimized by it (they gain the world, but lose their soul/ human worth potential; and third, that those of good will engage in a campaign of non-violent non-cooperation against the negative forces that destroy human beings.
Among the most pressing of problems in my area involves the environment. I’ve been involved in environmental protection efforts for several decades. As I age, my contributions to the struggle have changed in nature; one major change is that I need to take more rest time in between rounds of activity. A variety of issues resulted in my stepping back in 2014. But I am preparing for a return engagement in 2015.
But what the heck does this have to do with high school basketball, you ask?
At a recent game, I was talking to some new friends. The husband and wife, both doctors, were at the game to watch their 9th grade daughter. They had recently moved here from Hawaii (the husband had graduated with my oldest brother, before leaving the small town life for the excitement of the west coast in the late 1960s). He told me how earlier in the day, a lady from the office next to his had told him that “all” of our area’s economic and social problems have been caused by me.She is the step-daughter of the infamous former Town of Sidney Supervisor Bob McCarthy, who made national news with his attack on a tiny Sufi settlement’s cemetery.
McCarthy was also a fracking advocate, who used his office to attempt self-enrichment. He and his cronies had, upon the advice of a regional energy executive, invested his savings in land, hoping to become the Jed Clampett of gas. Now, since Governor Cuomo nixed fracking, they resent the heavy load of property taxes. Rather than consider how community and county services are now paid primarily by property taxes -- thanks to the national republican’s 1% program -- they blame the environmental community. And some more than others.
Hence, my preparation -- rooted largely in my admittedly limited grasp of Gandhi and King -- includes working to not resent these people’s ignorance. To not feel contempt for their beliefs. To recognize that we are not sitting on a fence, where “good” people will survive, and “bad” folks perish. To create community.
More, by no coincidence, this includes working to accept the shortcomings of some in the environmental community -- including myself. In the past few years, during the often tension-filled days, there have been fractures within the environmental community. Thus, I’m focusing not only on what role I may have played, but on what role I might have played to lessen the damage.
“We must seek out the spiritual people because only that is going to help us survive. We have a great force -- a great brotherhood. This brotherhood involves all living things. And that, of course, includes us all. We are talking about the natural world, the natural force, all the trees, everything that grows, the water. That is part of our force.
“But when you gather spiritual force in one place, you also gather the negative force. We begin to perceive the enemy now, the power and presense of the negative force.
“There is a great battle coming.”
-- Onondaga Chief Oren Lyons
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