How does power work in a time of no boundaries, rules, or words that mean anything?
Robert Reich, who is normally pretty smart, said the other day that power is a zero-sum struggle; that is, if someone has more, the other has less. There is a limited amount of power; the only issue is who has it. This is a mistake as it turns our attention to taking power instead of making power. Generals usually prepare to fight the last war, unprepared for the one they are in. So are social change-makers. It focuses us backward, thinking we need the kinds of power that created the mess instead of building the strength to subvert or bypass with new power. Even the Mississippi River, when confronted with a new barrier erected by some foolish human, goes around or under it, leaving it behind as a monument to folly.
There is no taking back the money Trump and his awful dependents have stolen. But how many gilded hotels can a family rent to how many bit-coin suckers? Who is going to stay in Trump Gaza for $1,000 night? The stuff stolen is mainly circulating among other thieves, so let them stay in each other’s hotels, fly on jets and swap wives, too.
The techno-poofs of Amazon, Apple and Meta didn’t become big by preying on whales. They want to be whales by consuming teeny krill like you and me one download at a time. They are mass market consumer companies just as vulnerable as Tesla has been in the face of global revulsion against its owner.
Tim Cook, Zuckerberg and Bezos have surely joined millions of their customers in downloading Springsteen’s meteoric hit recorded live just days ago in Manchester, England about 50 miles south of where TC and I are at the moment. I ran into a woman at a Skipton store yesterday. She was SO disappointed that I was an American but I assured her I was a Springsteen patriot not, well, you know. “Oh, she said, I heard about his Manchester concert…..”
Download his four-song set from pretty much anywhere and thrill to the “sound of freedom ringing.” You’ll be reminded “it’s going to be a long walk home.” He is as vivid as Dr. William Barber: “the world’s richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the poorest children to sickness and death.” You’ll find courage as he quotes James Baldwin “In this world there isn’t as much humanity as we would like.” And you’ll probably follow him as he urges us to pray as a bridge into “this train.”
It’s not his best music, but surely his best speech. (The speech is My City of Ruins (Introduction) [Live in Manchester, May 14, 2025])
I believe when the Boss says that we’ll survive this.
But how? The Don taunts the courts and those who hope law prevail, “whose army will enforce your judgements?” Good question. Can new power be created enough to turn over a lopsided accumulation of old power?
You’ll be watching the answer happen June 14th, which is when we’ll see two kinds of power face off—62,000 soldiers embarrassed to be disgracing themselves in the Don’s silly parade dwarfed by 6 or 10 million disgusted citizens. First time we’ve ever seen president with such weak self-esteem that he needed such a ridiculous thing; soldiers are for fighting not fawning. So even the soldiers will be be humming Springsteen, not Kid Rock. The organizers are calling this “no kings day,” which is really not fair to actual kings, which have agreed to submit themselves to the Law and the People for a thousand years.
Many, many of the citizens will be signing songs forged in the long walk to freedom of the Black Church. If you are of the faithful persuasion, you can register here to find the Interfaith Alliance march closest to your church.
Last month I noted a new song by my friend Sally Morris whose new hymn makes the same point as Springsteen (and millennia of saints): “These simple lessons are the teachings of God. Diverse and Equal and Included by God, we rise to righteous calls
each time we topple walls.”
You can listen here. My earlier blog has the words. Here’s the link to the full sheet music so your choir can sing it Sunday, if they can’t do Springsteen.
Is there new power in the world or are we left to scrape and struggle for scraps of the old? Jesus laughed at those who thought that God had already spent all the creative energies there were in the world. God can raise up new children out of dry stones (Matthew 3:9). And if children, why not citizens?
