Fate is knocking at the door. Beethoven composed this motif with his Fifth Symphony. Both defeat and victory are there with fate. Beethoven represented his hearing loss with this classical piece of music.
The disastrous ICE protest in Durango last month causes reflection regarding Beethoven’s Fifth. Peaceful protesters were pepper sprayed and shot with rubber bullets. Without a doubt, this marks the defeat of good people who oppose fascism. The protesters sat in defiance, locked arm in arm, as ICE agents applied oleoresin capsicum to their faces. The victory was obvious in that force ended the protest, which in turn signals the end of both events, and serves as a prelude to the demise of our democracy. ICE proved that they could dictate by using violent means. The protest was crushed: the detained people were transported to Texas.
Now is a time for mourning. In Colorado, the federal agents squashed any notion of states’ rights, or of civil rights. The freedom that was celebrated at the “No Kings” protest appears to be a last hurrah. ICE is proving that they are more powerful than the law, and unconcerned about anyone’s rights.
“Who was that masked man?” was once popular among the now aging fans of the Lone Ranger. Today, this question is asked among those that encountered ICE. The representation transformed from heroic to sinister. So the Fifth Symphony is Death’s theme song, similar to the “Jaws” music that accompanied the killer shark.
Joe Hubbard
Aztec
