For El Paso and Dayton

Dear brothers and sisters, dear enemies and friends:
Why are we all so alone here? 

All we need is a little more hope, a little more joy. 

All we need is a little more light, a little less weight, a little more freedom. 

If we were an army, and if we believed that we were an army, and we believed that everyone was scared like little lost children in their grown-up clothes and poses, so we ended up alone here floating through long wasted days or great tribulations while everything felt wrong. 

Good words, strong words, words that could've moved mountains.  Words that no one ever said. 

We were all waiting to hear those words and no one ever said them. 

And the tactics never hatched and the plans were never mapped and we all learned not to believe, and strange, loathsome monsters loped through the hills wondering why and it is best to never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever wonder why. 

So tangle, oh tangle, us up in bright red ribbons! Let's have a parade! It's been so long since we had a parade, so let's have a parade! Let's invite all our friends and all our friends' friends! 

Let's promenade down the boulevards with terrific pride and light in our eyes,  twelve feet tall and staggering, sick with joy with the angels there and light in our eyes! 

Brothers and sisters, hope still waits in the wings like a bitter spinster - impatient, lonely and shivering, waiting to build her glorious fires. 

It's because of our plans, man, all our beautiful, ridiculous plans.  Let's launch them like careening jet planes. Let's crash all of our planes into the river. 

Let's build strange and radiant machines at this Jericho waiting to fall.

I typically try to avoid talking about current events here - there's so much more and better coverage elsewhere, and current events keep changing so that as soon as you say one thing, something new is reported requiring you to edit or amend your previous comment.  A vicious, never-ending cycle.  Best to leave the news reporting to the journalists and the editorials to the pundits, and stick to writing here about what we know and what we've experienced.  

But then events like this weekend's mass shootings in El Paso and Ohio occur, and silence feels almost like complicity.  Of course, we condemn violence in the strongest terms possible as we also condemn the delusions of the white supremacists and bigots.  And we condemn the hate speech, the propaganda, and the angry rhetoric that supports these acts of violence, including, it must be said, the words of the president himself ("invasion," "infestation," "murderers and rapists," etc.). This violence and the underlying hatred is not to be tolerated and cannot be ignored.

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra, an off-shoot of the Montreal band Godspeed You! Black Emperor, recorded Built Then Burnt back in 2001, but given the recent tragedies and the current mood of our nation, it sounds as relevant today as when it was written. It's simultaneously the expression of sorrow and the message of hope that gives us comfort right now.