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Monday
Tom Sullivan on the blog site Hullabaloo recently made dramatic use of a Lord of the Rings passage. It was a way of accentuating the seriousness of the danger that threatens us while galvanizing us into action.
Looking at the $170 billion that the GOP has just voted to channel into the Trump administration’s Gestapo project, Sullivan quotes a David Lurie observation in Public Notice:
While many are currently rightly concerned about the impact Trump’s brutal “immigration crackdown” will have on undocumented persons, the danger of his creation of a massive, non-law-abiding federal police force could extend far beyond the immigration. Congress has just handed the coup leader in the White House new, dangerous tools that he and his cohorts could use in their next attempt to overturn the nation’s democracy once and for all.
No wonder Tolkien’s vision of Sauron’s massive forces comes to mind:
Drums rolled and fires leaped up. The great doors of the Black Gate swung back wide. Out of it streamed a great host as swiftly as swirling waters when a sluice is lifted.
The Captains mounted again and rode back, and from the host of Mordor there went up a jeering yell. Dust rose smothering the air, as from nearby there marched up an army of Easterlings that had waited for the signal in the shadows of Ered Lithui beyond the further Tower. Down from the hills on either side of the Morannon poured Orcs innumerable. The men of the West were trapped, and soon, all about the grey mounds where they stood, forces ten times and more than ten times their match would ring them in a sea of enemies. Sauron had taken the proffered bait in jaws of steel.
At moments like this, we need to channel our inner Gandalf, who lifts up his arms and announces in a clear voice, “Stand, Men of the West! Stand and wait! This is the hour of doom.”
When all seems lost is sometimes when the tide of battle begins to turn. In Tolkien’s novel, it is at this moment that the selfless courage of a pair of hobbits wins out over all the might of the dark lord. Cracks appear in what appears has heretofore appeared an irresistible force:
[A]t that moment all the hosts of Mordor trembled, doubt clutched their hearts, their laughter failed, their hands shook and their limbs were loosed. The Power that drove them on and filled them with hate and fury was wavering, its will was removed from them; and now looking in the eyes of their enemies they saw a deadly light and were afraid.
And then:
[E]ven as he spoke the earth rocked beneath their feet. Then rising swiftly up, far above the Towers of the Black Gate, high above the mountains, a vast soaring darkness sprang into the sky, flickering with fire. The earth groaned and quaked. The Towers of the Teeth swayed, tottered, and fell down; the mighty rampart crumbled; the Black Gate was hurled in ruin; and from far away, now dim, now growing, now mounting to the clouds, there came a drumming rumble, a roar, a long echoing roll of ruinous noise.
Principled resistance can be catching. Increasingly we are seeing everyday Americans standing up for what is right and decent as they protest the mercenary thugs who are dragging their friends and neighbors off the streets. More people join them every day.
In short, stand tall and don’t back down.
