If I were paid a royalty
for every time I have heard
variations on the phrase
'In these dangerous times'
from social commentators,
fearless in their use of cliche,
I would be a very rich man now.
That life is dangerous
and mass extinction
is never just a threat
is what makes it life.
Once, years ago, I used the phrase
'drain the swamp'-talking with friends.
I used it to describe the clearing out
of a brand of politics I disliked,
that I thought was bad for people.
Now it has become
an all purpose dismissal
of something the speaker
doesn't want to know about.
It's modern usage dates back forty years
to American politicians, about lobbyists
who had multiplied and infiltrated politics
to such a degree, that the lobbyists
had become like malaria-carrying
mosquitos that live in actual swamps.
It's earliest usage goes back to the 1880s
to when American politics
was about reclaiming land,
when the swamp was physical
but draining it was political,
a project where the enemy
was seen to be inanimate and/or invisible.
I repent of misusing the phrase,
all those years ago,
a swamp is a swamp
and Politics will never stop.
When our enemies are human
it is often hard we to see
how we might be like them.
