It is the third day of a storm system moving over us; I appreciate the cool temps and the needed rain. We have been spared much of the thunder and lightening some areas endured, and we have not had our power put out. But thunder we have, all the same—artillery practice is ongoing over on Ft. Lewis. Now, they don’t have the huge long artillery ranges there, so unless I miss my bet, the concussions that rattle my house and nerves are only from the powder charges. No shells can be fired. But all the same, a constant thundering makes the dog bark and the birds startle out of the fir trees into the rain. My house is dark, not a light in the place as I try keeping the electric bill down—a failing proposition just from the various computers and other electronic things that use power even when in the “off” position. So the dark skies, the thunderous concussions and dim house lend a surreal quality of portentous doom to my day.

My reading material of the week is no help. I finished a book on making ecological choices in daily life (review tomorrow) and came away with a solid feeling of “We are SO fucked…what does it matter?” I am reading Paula Gunn Allen’s “Sacred Hoop” and am sure that I will never escape the very potent section on alienation. She is discussing it as it applies to Amerindians, of course, but notes that it applies to others as well—and is that ever a statement of truth!

I feel alienated as a feminist–from feminists who seem embedded in blame and victim games rather than remedies I feel alienated as a woman–from other women; I feel alienated as a result of my spiritual life on the edges—being pagan and not a member of the dominant paradigm. I feel a sense of alienation as an American, as my country moves further from what I believed that definition should be. I feel alienation as a parent, because I cannot protect my adult children from the multi-faceted storm I see coming.

I feel a sense of connection only to a very small group of writers, bloggers, and speakers who keep trying to tell America how to pull her head from the sand (ummm..ok, yeah, it COULD be somewhere else, but indulge my nice attempt at polite, ok?) and stop the roll downhill. I feel tendrils of connection with people like Martin Berman, Jimmy Carter, Andrew Bacevich, Phillip Butler, and yes, even the infamous Rev. Wright—people who have proven, over and over, that they are driven to tell us truths we need to hear. But America doesn’t want to believe in the hard things, we hide in our toys and comfort.

We have our bread and circuses, and we will cling to liars who put on laurel wreaths they did not earn and do not deserve. I write here, I list names of the dead and it dawns on me today—-more strongly than ever, that I am not listing dead soldiers here as each moon phase turns.

I am listing sacrificial victims. Our military men and women are being sacrificed as surely as if we tossed them over the lip of a live volcano with a shake of rattles and tinkle of bells. They and the wars killing them are the final distraction while the rich rake in the final profits before America falls into utter disrepair and chaos. The rich will go away taking their blood money with them, and America will become the scene of live action horror sci-fi film; there will be no toys and distractions in that too-near future. The country will be looted for what is left: timber, water, minerals….because a new economic master is rising in the world and it is NOT us.

Watch the last few days of the Summer Olympics well, you are seeing the next super power all dressed for partying….all they need is a big hollow horse. And don’t fret as the TSA goes through your bags and Homeland Security detains you for having the wrong souvenir, because that is just the first stage of training to prepare you for your new place in the world after a “Fall” that makes the Biblical one seem as quaint as the current Administration thinks the Geneva Conventions are.

Yes, you can write today’s post off as a “depressed day”….but you know, I don’t think that is what it is at all. I forgot to mention the biggest “connection” I feel most of the time, and perhaps all those others unlisted would agree—-I feel if I changed my name online or off, there is really only one that would do for the daily sense of frustration and fearful fury: Cassandra.

No wonder she wanted to jump from the walls of Troy. Perhaps artillery thunder IS more appropriate than the “heavenly” sort, because unlike Troy, I am not sure “our” Gods are hanging around to watch the end. I don’t know any deities fond of self-indulgent, self-willed morons who prefer a sheep’s life to a human existence.