..."shall not perish from the earth." This was Lincoln, in his Gettysburg Address when the nation was in twists of agony, the same category of agony which is twisting us today. Only today, we are closer than ever to negating that last sentence of his. Yes, democracy is certainly in danger in these United States of America. The very name of the country has turned into a bitter farce, for in no way are we the "united" states. In fact, the divisions within this nation have led to the closest we have come to the negation of democracy, to the rapid, extreme turning back of the clock to days that should never be repeated.
Yet repeating them we are, or at least attempting to do so with mighty heaves pushed along by waves of hate, of violence, of lies galore. We have descended into a nation that is divided within itself, not necessarily along the lines of the Civil War, but lines nevertheless. These lines are growing, in depth, in intensity, in ever growing distances, nearing the tipping point, the point of no return, every day, in every egregious violation of that sentence that rings through the centuries.
This country was founded on the principle that people needed, deserved, to have a voice in their government. True, those deemed worthy of that right were limited to men with various qualifications, others denied this "right". But the country moved ever forward, correcting this error over the years, adding more men, white men, then Black citizens, then finally women. At last!
However, on paper and in reality often do not mesh. Attempts to deny these legislated rights, these 'natural' rights, lived on. Jim Crow laws. Violent opposition to women's suffrage. All here, yet we persevered, more people voted, and our legislators became more diverse. Not perfect, not nearly so, but at least ever approaching it, as much as humans can demand improvement and perfection!
And so we moved, in jerky movements and motions, forward - until we hit a wall, a wall of hate, of obsession with power, with money, and a growing trend to overlook those that need help. We allowed huge holes to develop in the social safety net. Corporations became more valued, of more importance, of protection and favoritism by law than humans. We fell down on the job, and the years of Trump, campaign and administration, and its aftermath, still heavily with us, just about leveled all that we had done. Strong attempts are being made to remove this right to vote, to have a voice in one's government. Combine this with the determined opposition to this, to the deeply rooted values that made America, and we got trouble!!
The noted author, Flannery O'Connor, wrote in The Habit of Being: Letters, that "Around here it is not a matter of finding the truth but of deciding which lie you live with better." How true. How shameful. How existentially dangerous. How dehumanizing. Yet we go on, with more and more outrageous attempts - successful ones - to limit access to voting, to inclusion, and to the growth of violence against people caught up in danger fraught situations. But the excuse that there might have been an infraction does not allow for the imposition of capital punishment for any offense deemed worthy of it by operating officers. The system that allowed this, that continues to allow this, though there is finally some open disclosure, is one that harms us all and must be changed - immediately.
All this as more and more legislation is rushed through by GOP members, members of a party which has forgotten its origin. Members of a party that have the use of lies as an unofficial platform plank! A party which condones violence, condones an attempt to overthrow this government, to subvert the vote, the policies and operating principles of this nation. So access to voters is limited. More and more cuts are made to voting procedures. Even the very act of handing bottles of water to those waiting in the burning heat, of southern states especially, is now being criminalized! Sounds strange, yet here it is, in more and more states. Including in the benighted state of Florida with its growing ever more dangerous man, DeSantis. Another Trump, only one with a brain, damaged as it is in its thinking.
America First, a close cousin to any Fascist party in history. The same words, the same principles, the same angry people, the same lies and delusions perpetrated upon the nation. The same desperation of downtrodden to find a way up not blocked off to them. The same anger that then gets diverted to the wrong places and people and the damage that ensues is beyond repair.
Many of us are bewildered by all this. How is it possible that so many are so grossly deluded. How is it that heretofore intelligent people fall for the fake promises, the awful statements, the raging and growing hatred for 'others', seemingly not understanding that the category of 'other' grows to include more and more - including them!! Jews in Italy who had joined the Fascist Party there, early on in its establishment, found themselves mocked by their own beliefs, their own pride, as they were oppressed and killed by that same Fascist Party of Mussolini- the same one they had joined.
We can so easily forget truths, eternal and universal ones, in our seemingly blind quests for power, for money, for what we deem success, leaving behind our humanity. Nick Cave, in One More Time with Feeling wrote a simple sentence which says it all.
"I don't know what the chords are. They keep changing all the time."
We have broken the instruments of society, forgotten to tune them on a regular basis. We have forgotten to keep a check on the ambitions of those who play the music, who determine what sounds emanate from these instruments. The music becomes atonal, discordant and unpleasant. We do not understand it nor how to work with it, or get rid of it. We ignore the music of Prospero, the one that calms the beast in all of us, the Caliban within. We do not know the new chords and their constant changes are demoralizing and paralytic to society. And so here we are.
Anyone remember Abraham Lincoln?
Anyone for music lessons?
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