We can't go on. We must go on.

When a great and sudden crisis explodes in front of us we rush into action, aid those in need, dig through the ruins, or flee to safety. What we face in this country and world is of a different kind--it keeps happening, every day, every minute, ruining lives, endangering our survival on this planet--a slow motion explosion, devastating, inescapable, and yet, for those the blast wave has not yet reached, they go on with their work, propping up the machinery of death, throwing phosphorus on burning children, building prisons, hunting and murdering black and brown boys on the streets of our cities. How do you respond? I mean, emotionally--the way our bodies are made to respond to a great crisis? It is a war... with days on end when nothing seems to happen near at hand, though you watch the trucks loaded with soldiers pass on the roads, hear the planes over head--waiting for time to suddenly speed up and slow down at once, happening faster than you can react, taking forever for the battle to ebb. We wait. We talk. We make plans... lie to ourselves that we believe, really believe we can stop this Machine of Death, of money and blood. It all right, we tell ourselves--we will go on anyway, pretending to believe, as long as we can act, stand up before onslaught, anything but give up, anything but surrender and join the army of zombies. We tell ourselves, like Didi and Gogo. We can't go on. We must go on.