The first 4:54 of this, alone, are more than the soul can take: The arrival in the heart of war-fearful Europe, and the immediate playing of his anthem without even introductions, so thunderously clear, then the anthem of the European Union (i.e., humanity’s yet most enlightened civilization), triumphalist in this meaning for the moment:

Deine Zauber binden wieder,
Was die Mode streng geteilt;
Alle Menschen werden Brüder,
Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.

And thereby, it leans us all-in to military conflict to Russia’s utter defeat and clear humiliation, because Europa intones later in Beethoven’s great anthem: “Laufet, Brüder, eure Bahn, / Freudig, wie ein Held zum Siegen”.

The robust performance of both anthems, with seemingly assembled orchestras, is deeply impressive. And as political stagecraft facing East and 360 in Europe, this was epic pre-emptive. No words or diplomatic niceties. Their passionate anthems speak to the consciousness that each of the tribes brings to the table at this critical moment in our civilization. (With climate doom meanwhile looming completely unaddressed with all of this barbaric military wastefulness.)

I am impressed by the reception that Zelensky is getting as he walks the hallways, and the energy that he is giving back. He is a man with a focus.

***
While watching this, the old project to come to some resolution about giving up my American citizenship, finally, to simplify things into where my lived experience is “voting“ in the democracy of what is a society more optimal for human flourishing. The insanity of this hyper-weaponized America, which always requires a fucking automobile for everything, is simply a civilization that I have never connected with, and have lived outside of for over 30 years for some reasons. I do not even have a mailing address there anymore, whatsoever. Only a drivers license listed to some former temple I lived in once several decades ago, and have no connection with or wish to ever live in again. Merely an identification for getting a car rental over here in Europe. But nothing else in America is there for me. Brothers and sisters are loosely separated and dispersed over the width of the continent. No family base anymore. Dust in the wind.

Life in Europe makes me reflect on the matter of my American citizenship. Even at the beginning of the Trump years, I was taking more seriously the prospect of letting go of the US passport, and relying only on one national allegiance, not two. And the insane forces that have been released in those years in the US — the atrocious nihilism of these fascist theocratic know-nothing apocalyptic Second Amendment-Luddites is taking over to a seemingly-irreparable degree — seems only to fester and metastasize, and is looking for a spark to break out into their practiced militia madnesses. Things are not trending well for that society, and their go-to software for addressing it – – Judeo Christian neo-liberalism – – is something I have no faith in. There is no interface.

Anyway, I foresee less and less international travel for me, for environment and also just to focus on being clear to the end. It would be good just to let go of the formal connection to some society that raised me, which I only for see visiting on some extraordinary purpose or unavoidable reason, for a few days or so. I don’t wish to encourage speaking arrangements which bring me there to teach four days at a time, from Europe. For example. I certainly wish to cultivate nothing new there that would require some need to travel there.

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