Democracy Ablaze

It appeared those ghastly fires in EuroMajdan to be a Nation falling into ruin, civil war had begun from peaceful protests and harsh dictatorial reactions.  The Puppet Man in charge of Government allowed the strings to show, and the people- even the people who supported  Yanukovych  were appalled at his weakness.
It is true today that most Ukrainians prefer the Devil That They Know- Russia and all of her faults to the unknowns of affiliation with the West. The Orange Revolution not so far in the past that the excesses of market freedoms have been forgotten...yet, there was the protest, that grew, and was strengthened by the puny Puppet Man. The repression because he had been told to do so, the turn away from the West - because he had been told to do so, and the voices of his people that he ignored-- because he had been ordered to ignore his people.

Yulia  Tymoshenko is free and She promises to be a force, as well she should. There are many others, and as the paroxysms of birth wring and tug at the very heart of this young nation, there will be new faces and new ideas. Someone will emerge who can stand astride the divide between a too satisfied east and a too hungered west.

We have seen the chasm, the abyss in Independence Square- the brave men and women who hurled stones and bombs for freedom, put body and life in the balance- we have seen. Brave men were slaughtered like their lives did not matter- precision executions, bullets to the head, deadly snipers, high-powered rifles against stones and bottles of petrol. We watched the last gasps of life of so many, writhing in the rhythm of death by gunshot, and each one-- a child of some loving eyes, a father to a hopeful child, a brother and companion, lover of some part of today and tomorrow.

We saw the fires of Independence Square and watched piles or rubble burn to defend a dream. Today, with hope and sadness, the dream rises from scorched cobblestones and deep red stains.
Love heals the wounds of war; love binds the living truth to the fallen. There is a burden now as a nation moves forward, a fresh debt to lives given for a hope. It is sobering and it is sacred, and for the love of freedom, it is now.
 

Ukraine

Watching snipers take down protestors, members of a throng lobbing Molotov cocktails into the police cordons, the growing rows of bodies as protest meets resistance and pays an ultimate price for freedom. Watching helpless as an individual and member of equally helpless western governments as Democracy expresses its messy birth.

I have been in burning cities where tear gas and troops settle the protests, it takes courage to be in EuroMajdan-- to be in Independence Square In Kyev.

I see the resolve of the Ukrainian people, they come to put their lives in the cauldron. They understand the risks but even more fear that they will lose their freedom. Their idea of freedom is not like the U.S. where gun-loving lunatics talk about liberty as if it were just a machine gun fetish, these people want freedom to kill.

No, the people in the Ukraine want freedom to live to build a pleasant nation into a blessing for their children, prosperous and with room for learning and doing. Unlike here, they care for each other to a much greater extent than we show...I cant imagine Tea Party cowards dodging bullets to drag a wounded stranger to cover. I cant imagine the Tea Party people doing anything other than hiding until the fighting is over.

This is why Ukraine is important to the West and to the U.S. they understand the value of democracy and how easily it can be lost-- and how sometimes we must struggle to the last breath to keep it...Democracy....hdm

Brasil desperta

 Brazil Awakens!!!

 .

Brasil desperta
olhos, corações de repente abrir
eo som de pés marchando

It is the most welcome sign of progress when the people see the wrongs against them and say " NO More"  I read stories- young men who watched their mothers perish while receiving poor health care. Students who want more opportunity to climb the ladder for success. Parents who want better life for their children.  It has been going on for a long, long time  but now-- as if lifted by the same wind-- all of these hearts begin to fly....
 It is a blessed and rich country now  the people want to share the blessings..and for my part it is a wonderful thing to see.
A class of rich and powerful have grown on the backs of the poor. Corruption and influence have become tools of wealth.  Honest work has become a badge of relative poverty.  Low wages prevent movement in society, we become trapped while doing all that should be done: honest work, paying taxes, raising families, and obeying the law.

 uma pedra
uma pedra no meio do caminho  
para o progresso ...e justiça

This is not new but the anger is fresh.  The acceptance of injustice is not new but it has filled Brazilians to the brim...they can accept no more.  There is not a single event that lighted the fuse, a price increase in public transportation was like a prism in the midday sun- it focused light on one subject. It has burned quickly to ignite the black powder. It is nation that began like most of the Americas in an era of total loss of freedom for many to the gain of the few. 

The heat the Sun, 
the blood of its Saints, 
all  seems mixed with the power of the seas.

The beauty of land and people
remembered in loss of freedom: once endured in Black skin;
endured again in Dictatorship.
Now, it cannot be, because something rises from within.
A long simmered coal that glowed heat
until breath of spirit touched it thus;
 now, a fire burns...and burns!


 I can only hope that in the US the poor are watching and learning that action speaks louder than money...that Democracy is a thing of the People. Equality means making a society in which everyone has  a fair and reasonable opportunity to succeed.  Where the paths are made easier because we lift the road to meet our children's feet.  Where a stone in the road is where stumbling giants fall and the people stand strong

 ouvirmos
mesmo na escuridão ouvimos
sussurros da alma do sol

...hdm

Inauguration Day

Inauguration Day was an anticlimax for me, probably for millions-- oh there was the staff Ball and the donor Balls, there was probably $300 million spent to celebrate the election which costs would exceed $3 Billion. But still for me, an anticlimax-- the joy was felt most  two days before the election when -in the critical aftermath of an epic storm- America blinked into focus, and the charlatan and all of his guise became transparent, there were people in the water, in dire peril;  and there was a hand reaching to them with sincerity and kindness-- and finally for America, the color of the hand became the color of rescue, of care, of love and compassion--the color of hope and faith, life in abundance-- yes all of these things have a color.

There was white fright, universal flight away from the rantings of a hollow man and suddenly we saw a human...He was there all the time, and many finally saw him as if for the first time.

Now, Inauguration Day was also Dr. King's Day and as I remember him, he would smile on this day, in his heart he would know, the could have been few better ways to celebrate the principles of his life, than to stand together and celebrate a vision of hope and change, set voyage to a place of greater abundance for all Americans.  It is the sad-sweet burden of men like Dr. King- they sacrificed so much so that we can be as good and bad as we choose-- freedom is that to do all things- to save lives, to collect machine guns and hope for a chance to use them-- yes, this is America, not as we wish it to be, but as it is...flawed and fabulous; cold and compassionate drunk in  anger and somehow loving in the sobered afterglow-- we are so many things and w ask so much of our leaders-- and none more than the man inaugurated  on King Day.   hdm