Thursday July 2, 2020; 9:47 AM EDT
- Early this morning I wrote a tweet. #
- I enjoy writing my blog because as I’m writing I feel like I’m helping straighten things out, but it’s an illusion, none of it ends up in the bigger conversation, none of it ends up mattering.#
- I think that's pretty straightforward. The only emotion I mention is enjoy. It's true, when I'm writing a long post that organizes something I've had in my mind for days or weeks, and it comes out well, I do enjoy the process. I imagine people reading it, and thinking man this is a great idea or I don't know, I see a problem with it, and then either passing it along as-is, or expanding on it. Either way, I would be happy, because I made a contribution. #
- This last week I've written two pieces like that. #
- One which says let's not waste this moment of political action around BLM, at the same time the government is going to spend $10 trillion (a number I made up) to keep the US from collapsing. Instead of having the money go to the 1% which is the default, let's have the money solve the real problems that are behind #BLM, and in the process help everyone. It was a strong piece, and it contains ideas you never hear among pundits. #
- The other was about the virus and what's in our immediate future, and how, if we eased up on some of the rules of how politics work, if Biden were to appoint Andrew Cuomo as his primary virus advisor, we could start to have a national response to the virus before January 2021. That we're frozen, can't act, scares the shit out of me, both for my own existence, that of my friends and family, and my country, and honestly the world. The US is too important a part of the world for us to just let it go. We have to do something. I put my plan in writing. #
- The response to both these pieces, predictably -- crickets.#
- Now I may or may not be upset about this, I didn't say, but that's not the point. It's not wrong to be upset. You don't have to talk someone down from being upset, assuming I was (I wasn't, it was more frustration). You know what would be better? Ask how you can help. If one person had asked that, I would have said, in glee -- READ THE FUCKING STORIES AND IF YOU LIKE THE IDEAS, PASS THEM ON WITH ALL YOUR POWER. #
In the first case, let's try to steer the #BLM conversation to real political action, now, not in the future, and while the marches are great, we must do more. It's so predictable that we'll just let the moment pass and settle for a few symbolic gestures. Monuments come down. A black person is on the $20 bill. Maybe Biden nominates a black woman for VP. But that money -- that's where the power is, and it goes to the friends of Trump and McConnell, Pelosi and Schumer. #- In the second case, obviously we need and can have, a national response to the virus. We do not have to wait for Trump to leave the White House. And you know what, combining the two, BLM and the response to the virus, there's real power in that, too. If putting these ideas out there resulted in real power and real change, your friend Dave would be over the moon. #
- If you want to know what I really think -- there's no point in continuing to write these pieces on my blog. They accomplish nothing and leave me with a lot of frustration. I can ride my bike, work on the garden, read books, and enjoy my retirement (I turned 65 this year). I don't want to do just that, but geez if nothing happens when I pour my best ideas into the blog, why bother.#
- Let me try to put it in perspective. I think Andrew Sullivan is a great thinker and writer. I don't agree with everything he says, but every time I read one of his pieces in New York, I get lots of ideas. I feel compelled to act. I think I'm in that class of writer, and I think my talent and experience and ideation process are wasted in this space. #