Loek Jurgen Atema
28 January 2021
(This is a bit rough in language. I’m a bit pissed off. Sorry.)
Dear Liberal & Progressive Friends,
What the fk do you think we just won? America? No. We won nothing. We inherited the most divided period of time in our history save for full out revolution – and that seems very close. We inherited an economy that is teetering on 1920’s level of collapse. We inherited an electorate in which 40% believe “The Hand Maiden’s Tale” is a good start. We inherited democracy in full collapse. We won nothing; #45 lost. That’s a huge difference. The next fascist is not likely to be a mentally ill freak-show. If we don’t wake the fk up and put our efforts in the right places, the next one will have the skills to actually destroy democracy; and that person is being groomed today.
I am at my fking wits end with this g.d. wokeness. You want to know why we can’t WIN elections even though we represent more than half the country? Because we sound like a bunch of self-righteous whiney dicks. Because we pick at scabs and ignore the mortal wounds. Because we fight the stupid battles thinking our footing is strong while our arrogance erodes its base. Let me give you all a bit of advice. If someone is kind at heart and decent – fk their politics; it doesn’t define them. Sit down and have a beer with them; make common cause with them. And when they speak ‘inelegantly’ don’t ‘educate’ their language on LGBTQ, white male privilege, misogyny or any of our ‘issues’. Shut up and listen. Listen not to change minds but to truly hear them. Be OK with being uncomfortable. Get off your woke pedestal and put your feet in their shoes just for a fking second. But some of us choose not to do that. We look for holes in their language, in their actions, and jump down their throats. We fail to discern the difference between the inherent makeup of the individual and the culture they grew up in. Good people say and do stupid sht. They are still good people. I wrestle with my own biases, with trying to recall what is the difference between trans/queer/gay; between sexual identity, sexual orientation and gender identity; is ‘bitch’ ok or not? ‘All black guys look alike’ is not far from my truth; and that is super uncomfortable for me to say out loud. Yet those of you who know me would not identify me as being a racist or a misogynist. I’m not a sht head; but the arc of my life put a lot of sht in my head I have to wrestle with. That is my journey and unless I invited you in, stay the fk out of my lane. That’s where most of America is living.
But we don’t give folks that space; the space to be both decent and wrong. So what motivation would they have to engage with us at all?
Do you honestly think we can engage most of America with our wokeism; with our hyper-intellectual liberalism? They are not going to listen. Worse, we’re going to push them into the very darkest places in our country. Into the arms of our destruction. Our intelligence is our ignorance.
America has come a long way in making a more perfect union. But this wokeism is cutting the wedges. Wedges that fascism will use to cleave decent folks away from us. I kid you not, the American experiment is what made all this progress possible. If we don’t stop being arrogant intellectual aholes we are going to lose all the structures that make any progressive agenda possible. Yes, of course there are just plain fk-wads out there. Folks who intentionally use cruel words, do horrid deeds, with full knowledge of the harm they do; and honestly, fck them. But most Americans are not that. They are like me, trying to understand a rapidly changing world in a culture that has not caught up. It is culture that changes most peoples language and that is a slow process not helped by us smacking them upside the head with our intellectual blather. You want to do some good, my liberal/progressive friends? Find out what makes folks not like you scared. Listen with your full self and keep your mouth shut. Then show them you actually care about issues that impact them, that you are actually a decent person not trying to change their minds. Talk about what makes you scared – share your personal story honestly; even the ugly bits. Acknowledge your own sins and “isms”, ‘cause we’ve all got them. Stop thinking you own some sort of righteous truth that they should submit to. This is not the time for intellectual masturbation. We are at war with authoritarianism and fascism. Wokeism is a wedge they will use to make us look like righteous narrow-minded aholes – and they wont be far from the truth. We cannot succeed that way. Before you speak, know your audience. Otherwise, shut the fck up with the wokeism and listen. That is how we will learn. How we will keep ourselves from devolving into stupid.
(I am responding threads of wokeism on my social media feed. I was not personally attacked.)

L. Jurgen Atema –Jan. 2021
Democracy-Strong
We are all grateful when the hurricane has passed and our home yet stands. When we look into the stillness that follows to see the detritus of leaves and branches, the blown over trash or umbrella that speaks to the long, riotous night. Relief floods in the awakening space of our good fortune.
Then, bleeding into our dawning awareness, we grasp that fortune’s dance partner is devastation. So we reach beyond our steadfast walls, out to neighbors, community, country, with the ugly understanding that the work has just begun. It is here we realize there are no strangers, that we all are founded on the same land, in the same arc of time, and our work is joined by the same elements.
Now, in this blue-black of the dawn’s early light, we see our union battered, fragmented into tribalism, vulnerable to internal and external elements. This tempest has inundated all of our homes with great effect. We now know it will only be with immediate effort that we have a chance to move to a more peaceful union. For delay invites the rat-scavengers of chaos to gnaw at what remains, multiplying injury to the insult we’ve just endured.
We must begin to reassemble the decent heart of America. We face this challenge knowing compassion’s long road; knowing we have a very short time. We must, however, must lead with compassion for those with whom we have so vehemently disagreed. For those who have leveled abuse after abuse upon us. Rebuilding ourselves on the stump of hate, fear and violence multiplies the inevitable decay of time and negates our efforts.
Our MAGA citizens are our problem. The storm that shook our homes awoke the kraken of fear in theirs; dissembled their conscience. January 6th makes that clear. The violent insurrection that ensued was filled with decent people fighting an enemy that has no physical embodiment. Filled with decent people who bought a story of hate and division. Filled with decent people who were confounded by a media mirage fomented by their leaders’ frothing hate.
To be clear, I give no safe harbor to those who provoked this insurrection; who sold 45’s ‘big lie’.
Leaders who pleasured themselves by injecting this purulent discharge into the necks of the decent and the kind should be buried in the vacuous hold of prison for a very long time. They should be made to see the horror they have wrought all while being reduced to an insignificant void. We must never forget their actions, while making them inconsequential.
Our MAGA citizens are raw and angry. Their palpable distrust of Americas majority continues to be fed by their media diet and may yet grow to a fearsome level of malevolence. The hangover from 45 is rapidly being filled by the-hair-of-the-dog. But we have a moment to seize. To engage with the followers of MAGA.
Unfortunately, this work comes with confrontation; with standing in the lane of fear and hate and diverting those decent folks back to kindness and truth. MAGA is built on fear of ‘them’, while not recognizing that is us. So let MAGA see us, the decent, kind and compassionate soul of America.
But let them also know that we will not bend. That compassion has hard, un-malleable edges that will resist them. That our compassion will grind them into submission before we will yield to the obscenity that they have been sold.
In a divided country, democracy is a fragile business and time is short. MAGA will try and divert us, make us feel our decency is weakness. They will point at a scratch in our truth, and ignore the mortal wound of fear and hate in theirs. And though our truths are not perfect, they are certainly more perfect. Don’t be shaken by their finger pointing. Stay focused on the arc of the task. Speak, organize, resist; stay together, stay strong.
Decency gives no quarter to fear and hate; yet fear and hate are brutal tools that will conspire to break us individually. Those who work with the deepest empathy should not stand alone in this task. Bond yourselves to others who work similarly. Unity is how we make our stand.
So repel MAGA shoulder to shoulder with your tribe. Support each other on your social media feeds. Organize friends to stand with you when speaking against MAGA’s voice. When the ‘big lie’ is exposed to the relentless scrutiny of truth, delivered with compassion, the decent folks will turn from MAGA, forcing the dregs of what remains too wither rather than fester. Work together to soften their hate and dispel the lies. Find the cracks in MAGA and fill them with your kindness and compassion. Work together and stay united.
Democracy asks us to answer the call now. It needs the decent heart of America to stay the course while the lingering squalls of this tempest persist.
United in compassion for every neighbor, we are the decent heart of America. We will rebuild America, Democracy-Strong.