The Tough

I can understand why people want to vote for Donald Trump. When he says the response to the attack in Brussels is to "get tough" he sounds like he believes there's some manner of toughness to effect that would fix things. All of the other politicians don't have the hope that comes with ignorance and a life of decadent leisure. Trump can say Santa's going to come and conquer the Martians and he can really sound like he believes it.

My heart goes out to the people in Brussels, to my friends in Belgium and my readers there. The belief that things can be fixed at the end of the day is to some extent necessary to proceed with anything. It's hard not to think about the refugees and the terrorist attacks as a cause and effect scenario. Would these attacks have occurred if refugees had never been let into Europe? I don't think they would have. Maybe as a gangster himself, Donald Trump understands that these attacks are Isis "getting tough" with the people who would harbour the people Isis has pledged themselves to eradicate. Like all terrorist groups, Isis can only see in the short term but they're fortunate enough to have a lot more money than the average terrorist group.

Helping the refugees is a brave and humane thing to do. It's what people do when they have the strong ethics, intelligence, philosophy, and compassion that Europe has come to represent over the past fifty years in contrast to the blundering United States. But I won't be the one to say Europe is weak for faltering in its resolve. It's easy to say that one should not give in to terror. Few of the people who say it are really thinking about how horrible it is to live in terror, to be terrified.

Twitter Sonnet #853

An eye inside the stormless sky retracts.
Concave, the vision trims the putty arm.
Remembered lemmings writhe in fell contracts.
In hyperspace, the plants will come to harm.
In thin attic the brain begins to run.
Wallpaper knees were bruised as plums at home.
Around the light the blades were slowly spun.
A tight'ning filigree draws blood from chrome.
Recalled the wrenches change to iron crows.
A noisy sink invades the drummer's song.
An ogre sun sets in ribbons and bows.
A drifting stripe aloft grew dark and long.
In Google maps a shadow cut the light.
A brittle grassland chattered in the night.