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Marysue's avatar

Love the Camelot related metaphors! Again your ability to portray both the feel and the specifics of untenable and horrid situations leaves me gobsmacked with admiration!

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Susie Kaufman's avatar

Thank you, Mary Sue. I seem to have a synthetic mind....not in the sense of artificial but in the sense of an absolute craving for synthesis.

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Mary Russell's avatar

Bullseye! You hit the target with precision.!

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Susie Kaufman's avatar

Every day another challenge for all of us.

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Jasmine Gage's avatar

Thank you Susie..You are a Voice I need to hear...

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Susie Kaufman's avatar

Wonderful to be in touch with you, Jasmine!

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Bambi Good's avatar

What a beautiful, spot on piece for which many of us are grateful...

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Susie Kaufman's avatar

I'm touched by your response, Bambi.

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Janice Walton's avatar

Hi, what a great simile: "Like the wool being pulled over the eyes of those Americans who thought they were electing a Lancelot in chain mail who would ride up on a white steed and root out fraud and waste, returning us to a fairy tale of civic probity." How wrong they were.

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Susie Kaufman's avatar

Glad it resonated with you, Janice. Sometimes I get carried away...SK

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Anna C Rumin's avatar

oof. sobering indeed.

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Susie Kaufman's avatar

Thank you for commenting, Anna.

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Daryl Solomonson's avatar

Susie, very well said! I think most of us who care and understand and read, knows that Trump and his minions are heading to overthrow our democracy. I'm amazed that our free press can't find time to write using those words. No one wants to admit that we are becoming an authoritarian government and doing away with our constitutional form of government. We may never vote again.

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Susie Kaufman's avatar

It's a very dire time in our country. The only responses that make sense to me are to focus on some aspect that you feel particularly outraged about and show up for efforts being made against it. Write and speak out...And taking care of yourself and your people. What do you think?

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Zoe Finch Totten's avatar

Always so profoundly connective to read your essays. And GB has been a home-ish place for me since the '70s, wish our paths had crossed!

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Susie Kaufman's avatar

Wow! Had no idea you were connected to GB. That explains it. Connection is everything...especially now.

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Linda Kaye-Moses's avatar

And we're still marching, when we had hoped that the paths we carved with our feet and our hearts would remain navigable forever.

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Susie Kaufman's avatar

Linda.....It feels like muscle memory. I'm involved with a No Kings march in St. Paul on the 14th. A hidden benefit of living in two places. I demonstrated at the Capitol in Sacramento a few months back.

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Linda Kaye-Moses's avatar

Will be marching in Pittsfield, and there are other marches in Berkshire County that day, too (Barrington, Williamstown, North Adams, Lenox). Over 1400 nationally.

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Carol Sill's avatar

Supreme! You absolutely nailed it. Great essay.

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Susie Kaufman's avatar

Thanks, Carol. I'd never really considered the possibility that this could have been true in Europe in the '30s. But you see how it can happen while you're getting a haircut.

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Don Akchin's avatar

You nailed it.

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Susie Kaufman's avatar

My head is spinning. I guess I'm trying to nail it down so it doesn't roll off.

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Ann Richardson's avatar

well said.

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Susie Kaufman's avatar

Thanks, Ann. I can't really speak to the facts of the situation (at least not with any great expertise) but I do have something to day about the feeling state we're being called to tolerate.

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Ann Richardson's avatar

American born (renounced my citizenship 10 years ago) , I have lived in England with an English husband for nearly 60 years. Yet we are glued to CNN and spend a lot of time discussing the American situation. It must be dreadful to watch the situation firsthand, but we do feel it here in the UK.

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Susie Kaufman's avatar

Renounce is such a powerful word. I think we deeply need people like yourself who have a little distance, a different perspective.

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Rita C's avatar

Your essay beautifully captures the liminal state of being in which we find ourselves at present. 🙏

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Susie Kaufman's avatar

We are always in a liminal state, don't you think? It's just now, we can't pretend otherwise.

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Rita C's avatar

There is definitely something disconcerting about the present state.

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