{"id":1425,"date":"2024-09-01T05:52:21","date_gmt":"2024-09-01T05:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/?p=1425"},"modified":"2024-09-01T05:52:22","modified_gmt":"2024-09-01T05:52:22","slug":"this-is-what-democracy-looks-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/2024\/09\/01\/this-is-what-democracy-looks-like\/","title":{"rendered":"This is what democracy looks like:"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"800\" height=\"550\" src=\"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/06\/poem247.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/06\/poem247.jpg 800w, http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/06\/poem247-300x206.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2024\/06\/poem247-768x528.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A lot of people making the same decision they always did &#8211; or no decision at all.<br>Making new decisions is difficult.<br>It carries a risk of making a mistake and offers no certain reward.<br>It&#8217;s fundamentally unsafe.<br>Better not.<br><br>Quite a few people working hard for no gratitude, no acclaim and not much money.<br>For the sake of decency.<br><br>A lot of people working hard for no reason &#8211; only money and thinking they are better than the rest.<br>They always fail.<br>There&#8217;s always someone richer.<br><br>A few people yelling as loud as they can &#8211; their grievances, their ambitions, their theirness &#8211;<br>Anything to be seen, for they only feel real when reflected in the eyes of others.<br>The eyes turn away and they have to raise the volume.<br><br>Crowds marching, covered in the mantle of righteousness, in the warmth of the herd.<br>Belonging.<br><br>Dozens of people thinking, writing, quoting.<br>Trying hard for new decisions &#8211; and never mind the cost.<br><br>A lone man standing in front of a tank in Tianamen square.<br>The first person to climb over the Berlin wall.<br>A woman dumping green ink into the voting box in Moscow.<br><br>This is what democracy looks like:<br>Each of us alone with his choice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A lot of people making the same decision they always did &#8211; or no decision at all.Making new decisions is difficult.It carries a risk of making a mistake and offers no certain reward.It&#8217;s fundamentally unsafe.Better not. Quite a few people working hard for no gratitude, no acclaim and not much money.For the sake of decency. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[348,160,55,349,23],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1425"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1425"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1426,"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1425\/revisions\/1426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.scarletline.com\/ashepherd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}