a prelude for june (scenes from an apocalypse, cont'd)

June has arrived in Seattle (and presumably in other places, as well). The locals have been known to call this month Juneuary, because it's a month characterized mostly by cloud cover and drizzle. (It's also much warmer than January, but by now we're used to the warmth and the nice weather and the absence of sunlight feels like a betrayal.)

Just when it felt like the pandemic was going to wear on for a changeless eternity, a police officer in Minneapolis murdered a black man by kneeling on his neck until he was dead, while his comrades watched and while the people of the city cried for him to stop. This has sparked a protest movement bigger than I have ever seen, with protests happening in all fifty states and internationally, with police reacting with excessive violence across the country (as they reliably do). This is what it looks like when a people feel that they have nothing left to lose, when the yoke finally is too much. When a society so utterly fails to take care of its people that the only option left to them is to take to the streets, this is what happens.

This month's theme is power. It's always been a fixation of mine in my stories: those who have power, those who have none. The common saying is that power corrupts; an alternative version says that power reveals. That is: if I were to give you unlimited power right now, with no possibility of being held accountable, what would you do with it? "Power corrupts" takes the view that no matter who you are, you would do something awful with it; "power reveals" believes that if you do something awful with your power, it is an indication that you were very likely awful to begin with. Of course, power also self-selects. You don't simply get handed power in our society; you must seek it out, and those who seek power seem to be inclined towards being less than stellar examples of humanity. Whether this is a relic of our society or of human nature is unclear.

I hope everyone is staying safe out there. I hope that we are able to remove power from the police who are abusing it, and that something new and wonderful rises up to replace them. We are standing at a crisis point, and I hope that the people are realizing exactly how powerful they are.