Pasquinate

do not obey in advance

Statua di Pasquino, Piazza del Pasquino, Roma

Having a beautiful, young adult daughter who is nonverbal and neurodivergent, who has refractory epilepsy, and a trach that needs to be suctioned multiple times a day so that she can breathe does not rule out my ability to discuss the important issues of our day. I know that it’s meant kindly, but you have enough on your plate is not a license to forego another course. A while back, my father sent me a link to a website that described one of Rome's famous "talking" statues, Pasquino the Protester. Evidently, a pasquinata is an anonymous lampoon, usually written in verse, and hearkens back to the Roman tradition of citizen dissent. According to the website, Roman tradition dictates that the oppressed may lodge a written complaint concerning the government and religious authorities by posting an accusatory poem in Roman dialect on the base of the statue. The statue is what remains of a work from the 3rd century BC that was once decorating the Stadium of Domitian. After it was found in the archaeological site in 1501 (with no arms, legs and head, as we see it today), it was relocated to Piazza di Pasquino, a little square named after the statue, close to Piazza Navona (excerpted from Google Arts and Culture).

These stinging insults came to be called “Pasquinate,” taking the name of the statue that best demonstrated the people's discontent about corruption and abuses of power. (Smithsonian Magazine).

I’ve always struggled to understand what Do not obey in advance means — it’s one of the twenty lessons from the twentieth century that historian Timothy Snyder has warned us about in his brilliant On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. In authoritarian regimes, individuals or groups will possibly anticipate what the authorities want and agree before being ordered to do so. It’s often driven by fear, a desire to avoid conflict, or to protect oneself from potential punishment. It’s a warning that should hit us hard today, when the majority on our so-called Supreme Court in a deliberate clusterf*ck of law-making placed a crown on that POS who used to be President. No matter that two of the justices were directly involved with the January 6th mob that killed and ransacked their way through the congress building, in a ludicrous attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.

No one is coming to save us. We have to pick ourselves up, get out into our communities and do what we can best do. “Create in the face of fuck,” says one of my mentors, Lidia Yuknavitch. “Do not obey in advance.” Vote. This sad and terrible country is our country, too, and we cannot allow a minority of radical, right-wing, oppressive, willfully ignorant and patriarchal men and women in service to twisted religious values and a narcissistic, convicted felon and sexual predator, dictate — well — anything at all. Vote. Let there be a landslide in November and a secular judgement day when this land we stole swallows up those who are bent on destroying it. Do not obey in advance.

I have a lot on my plate, true. Few don’t.Take away the p and the s in Pasquino, and you have Aquino. The Protester. Here’s my pasquinate.

Behold, the Court in robes so fine, 
Ancient wisdom, judgment divine 
Nine sages, perched on lofty seats 
They ponder justice, law’s retreats.

A Crow on a yacht, 
Bohemian flags, hung scattershot
a billionaire in a Grove
the rich man's trove

So tell me, justices, so wise,
When justice is masked, in terrible disguise,
Do you protect the common voice,
Or silence it, without a choice?