Ali

“There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment, the time is always now.” James Baldwin

Muhammad Ali has passed on and the tributes rightfully light up social media. I remember his epic battles with Joe Frazier, and how he knocked out George Foreman in 1974 in a fight few thought he could win. I admired Ali’s skill and flair, his style, that flicking left jab, the footwork, the rope-a-dope. What I find more admirable now, all these years later, is how Ali refused to be drafted, stood for his principles and beliefs, and went to jail during the prime of his career rather than compromise. His exploits in the ring were remarkable, but that act of conscience said everything about the man.

Why would an African-American man in the mid-1960’s willingly ante up his life for a government and a country that considered people of his skin tone second-class citizens? Ali recognized hypocrisy when he saw it and refused to be part of it, even if it cost his freedom.

Paris is drowning. Here on the Platinum Coast, our main water supply, Lake Cachuma, is little more than a puddle. The promise of some relief from an El Nino deluge never happened.

In the name of profit, capitalism is murdering this planet. I want to believe that we will come to our senses before it’s too late but the evidence I see all around tells me that the point of no return has already passed. Hotter winters, fierce storms, fires, flooding, melting arctic ice; the world’s oceans are full of plastic. But are the world’s capitalists turning from the abyss? No, of course not; the problem with capitalism is that it recognizes no limits, it must always have more regardless of the consequences, even if that means cannibalizing itself.

The world seems to teeter and veer out of control. Refugees from war zones drown and the world stifles a yawn. Nobody wants desperate people coming across their national borders. Meanwhile, the wars in the Middle East and North Africa go on. Can anyone other than the purveyors of armaments claim to be winning?

Political commercials on the tube, one after another, promises of change and a better day if only we elect so-and-so. The ads make so-and-so sound like a saint and a savior. I’m too cynical to believe in a savior. Two earnest young women wearing Bernie Sanders t-shirts knocked on my door and asked if I had voted or was planning to vote, and did I need a ride to my polling place. “Girls,” I said, “I’ve voted before. I know where to go and what to do, but thank you nonetheless.” After they left I wondered if they understood that it is what happens on the ground between election cycles that makes change happen; a real movement doesn’t end when the quadrennial carnival packs up and hits the highway out of town.

And Muhammad Ali is gone. The bitch about getting older is watching idols and icons -- the anchors of our memories -- pass away.