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On Omelas
and Kyle Rittenhouse
Hello Friends,
It’s been a rough week here in the US. Not only the usual pandemic state of affairs, but with two high profile (and several smaller profile) cases being tried in court. This month’s Patreon-sponsored essay is one I’ve been working on for more than a week. It’s about these trials, and white supremacy, and the whole mess our society is in regarding racism and injustice. In it are my usual questions about “what are we doing and what can we do?” I hope you take the time to ponder these questions and look at your own communities and lives.
The essay references Ursula K. Le Guin’s powerfully eternal short fable, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” If you haven’t yet read it, it’s linked at the bottom of the essay.
The essay begins:
“It was not then a question of crime, but rather one of color, that settled a man’s conviction on almost any charge.” — W. E. B. Dubois
There is no escape from heartbreak. There is no running away from our problems. The small problems, we can change. The large problems are made by interlocking systems that churn on and on and on. They are fueled by human industry, the blood and sweat of working people held under the thumb of oligarchs and plutocrats.
But, as Mario Savio enjoined us, we can put our bodies on the gears of this machine. And we must.
We must be sand in the gears of the systems that are killing us and choking the planet.
And meanwhile, we must help each other, as often as we can.
We are interdependent, and must act like it. Here’s wishing you the best, as always.
blessings — Thorn
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