Mourning the end of democracy, rule of constitutional law and civil liberties

 This afternoon, I was contemplating the end of our democracy, collapse for respect for facts and our freedoms in the face of MAGA's gigantic demagogic onslaught. I planned to post a couple of music videos with their lyrics. Then Ron, 'lil stinker that he is, posted this a couple of hours ago while I was contemplating this post:

La Marseillaise

Arise children of the fatherland

The day of glory has arrived
Against us tyranny's
Bloody standard is raised
Listen to the sound in the fields
The howling of these fearsome soldiers
They are coming into our midst
To cut the throats of your sons and consorts

To arms citizens Form your battalions
March, march
Let impure blood
Water our furrows

What do they want this horde of slaves
Of traitors and conspiratorial kings?
For whom these vile chains
These long-prepared irons?
Frenchmen, for us, ah! What outrage
What methods must be taken?
It is us they dare plan
To return to the old slavery!

What! These foreign cohorts!
They would make laws in our courts!
What! These mercenary phalanxes
Would cut down our warrior sons
Good Lord! By chained hands
Our brow would yield under the yoke
The vile despots would have themselves be
The masters of destiny

Tremble, tyrants and traitors
The shame of all good men
Tremble! Your parricidal schemes
Will receive their just reward
Against you we are all soldiers
If they fall, our young heros
France will bear new ones
Ready to join the fight against you

Frenchmen, as magnanimous warriors
Bear or hold back your blows
Spare these sad victims
That they regret taking up arms against us
But not these bloody despots
These accomplices of Bouillé
All these tigers who pitilessly
Ripped out their mothers' wombs

We too shall enlist
When our elders' time has come
To add to the list of deeds
Inscribed upon their tombs
We are much less jealous of surviving them
Than of sharing their coffins
We shall have the sublime pride
Of avenging or joining them

Drive on sacred patriotism
Support our avenging arms
Liberty, cherished liberty
Join the struggle with your defenders
Under our flags, let victory
Hurry to your manly tone
So that in death your enemies

See your triumph and our glory!

La Marseillaise, the national anthem of France, was written in 1792 in bloody French Revolution times. Centuries later, it was adopted as the rallying call to the French resistance to Germany. It was was a form of resistance by being sung in defiance of the Nazi occupation, but usually not openly.

OK, that's way better than anything I've got. I give up.

The now obviously pipsqueak points I wanted to make were safe modern times stuff. So nah, I've got nothing to say that doesn't stain those noble sentiments and that horrific level of Nazi threat. 

Maybe I'll save my pipsqueakery for another time or just stop thinking about the concept of trying to translate music to politics. Others have been there, done that and done that about a trillion times better than me.

But hope springs eternal. I listened to La Marseillaise and instantly understood where it was coming from and how grave the threat was. In time people who still respond to that call to arms will die off. People like me and Ron will be gone. I hope something else takes our place in the endless fight against authoritarian darkness, whatever form it comes in.