Miss Piggy, DJT, and the apocalypse

Reposted from Sylvia Olsen’s blog here

Dr. Sylvia Olsen is an author, story-teller, knitting designer, housing specialist and teacher, Sylvia Olsen is an eclectic mix of her creative and academic pursuits. Her books have received numerous awards and nominations and many are Canadian best sellers. Her knitting designs have received attention across Canada and the United States. She recently led a workshop “Knitting, Circles, and Story” at the Sorrento Centre in the BC interior.

Quiet, piggy

“Quiet, quiet, piggy,” said the President of the United States of America to a female reporter.

In what sort of story would this take place? Perhaps in an animated children’s cartoon when the President needs to protect the woman to keep her safe? But I can’t imagine what would come next or how a writer would build out the characters and fill in the story with surrounding events.

Oh, it’s not a story. It’s real life. As they say. You can’t make this stuff up. You wouldn’t make this stuff up. When you read it, it leaves you flat. Just flat. It isn’t even dystopia. It’s banal, trite, the worst kind of juvenile.

Yet I continue to hear friends and family say, “I don’t like Trump, but he’s doing what needs to be done.” Some of these people likely hold a sort of far-right Christian belief that great mayhem must come to herald the second coming of Jesus. Or they might be the plug-your-nose-it’s-going-to-hurt-but-it’s-necessary sort of believers, that for secular reasons think the fall of the American empire is a good thing.

While the first group have a firm grasp of the “what’s next” the second group haven’t yet explained what they are looking forward to, what will come of this revolution they are so ardently supporting.

I have, for a long time, thought there needed to be a giant redo of the American system. I frivolously used words like destroy and revolution. I wanted a massive disruption that would put an end to the domination of corporate control, colonialization and capitalism. I wanted the current, corrupt system replaced by a government that I could describe with words like benevolent, even-handed, grown-up, emotionally mature, smart…really smart in a ‘they understand complexity’ sort of a way.

After watching the January 6, 2021, Washington Capitol attack I quit using the word destroy. And after watching the first 3 episodes of Ken Burn’s series on the American Revolution I will never again wish for a revolution.

The government I wish for doesn’t come about that way. I have moments when I return to the Christian right teaching of my youth. The one about Jesus coming back and setting up a kingdom where the lion sits down with the lamb. What a comforting idea to believe in!  But while the belief itself is magical how Jesus will pull off the new world is not magical at all. It’s chaos, destruction, bloodshed and agony…for everyone who isn’t one of the ‘elect’. And there won’t be very many of those. Think about the mere eight survivors of Noah’s flood, the two survivors of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the one survivor of the fall of the walls of Jericho.

This is where the magical idea loses its appeal. This is where I am back where I started. I don’t’ want a revolution whether it is Jesus’s revolution or otherwise. And this is where I have to admit to myself that while I know what I want I can’t imagine one possible way for it to occur.

I am certain about one thing. Good will not come by way of a President who calls a woman ‘piggy’. I also know that it is past time for people to stop saying “I don’t like Trump but he’s doing what needs to be done.” The man and the actions are the same. He is a mindless, heartless, careless, incredibly unthoughtful man and he is making mindless, heartless, careless, incredibly unthoughtful change.

And then I remember I am a hopeful person and a little light eeks in to my mind. We are all seeing resistance to the madness. People are saying enough. I am now hoping that I live long enough to witness enough people saying enough.

Sylvia Olsen

Visit the takenote.ca HOME page for a colourful display of hundreds of other blogs which may interest or inspire you