AMID DESTRUCTION, TRUTH EMERGES UNDAUNTED

We can thank the destructive forces let into the heart of Democracy for showing us the truth of our founding principles among which are consent of the governed and the rule of law.

We witness an attempt to overthrow our government by a despot and the foolish people who follow in his path. Mostly, it is a party of grievances against the restraints imposed by principles established at our founding. These establish how we treat each other and live together.

Individuals who throw off the restraining standards of behavior toward one another and detest those principles of decency, respect and caring for each other are tyrants.

Further, neglect of the Earth from devouring forces that eat at her heartwood, not only rob our children of a future but imperil all life on the planet.

Our collective culpability is grave.

Unbridled capitalism is on display in the highest offices of the land, elected by unknowing citizens concerned with the costs of living while forgetting our responsibility to elect leaders who are grounded in the virtues that our founders asserted as a restraint on the forces of tyranny.

Let us join the choir of truth tellers emerging everywhere as our nation awakens to what we have done: we let a fox into the henhouse. This is not political but our individual responsibility to conduct ourselves with respect for each other.

The preservation of our republic is of vital importance today for another reason: the mounting threat to life on Earth. We are a nation that has forgotten that we live here only by the grace of Earth’s living, breathing body and spirit. For too long we have plundered the Earth for coin.

And now we have put a despot at the helm when the Earth is teetering on massive changes which may not include life as we know it. The entire planet is in flux. Even when we watch our fellow Americans fleeing raging fires, epic floods and death, and temperatures that render  farmlands barren, this despot denies even his own body and thus imperils all of us.

The first step out of this dilemma is to admit the truth of our present reality. From there, we must resist every attempt of the now unrestrained actions of a man filled with anger and hair-brained ideas detached from the truth.

We may at a time not too far from now have to make bold decisions and risk all to stop him and the hoard who follow hoping for power, money, or at least to duck his vicious nature. If we don’t, we’ll not appear in any history book as standing up for a nation of free people but for the fact that no one will be around to write that history.

Emerging Resources for Citizens Searching for Truth and Community:

The Contrarian

Civil Discourse

Letters from an American

Public Citizen

Emergence Magazine

Capitol Building Rotunda, Photo by Susan Feathers

Democracy Health Checkup

American culture is a busy, somewhat fraught place as individuals and groups strive to influence the direction of markets and ideas. More and more these activities take place on digital platforms that are globally accessed and influenced by everyone from elementary school children to foreign governments and posers (human and artificial). Evermore diverse and without much internal control except that which participants choose to shape, democracies depend on the individual’s commitment to discerning the truth.

John Adams reminded citizens that “facts are stubborn things,” meaning that truth cannot be corrupted. Yet in today’s digital environment, truth is battered, shaped, recolored and redressed until it represents its opposite. An example is the kidnapping of democratic language used to support MAGA athoritarianism. Citizens duped and caught up in the web of lies are aiding authoritarian forces that seek to destroy the liberal order established after WWII and the system of governance established at our founding.

This article from Pew Research reports on the growing number of Americans who favor technology companies or the U.S. government restricting false or violent information. What do you think? What are the risks? Gains? What are the challenges the average citizen faces in attempting to discern the truth in today’s marketplace of ideas and influencers?