SLIVERS OR SHIVERS

 The best and the worst of times once again, rivaling Dicken's presentation of the state of the world at the time of the French Revolution. Humanity was taxed then, as now, with making decisions re their very lives, physical and mental. Were they to choose the higher road, the more difficult, but eminently best choice, or were they to go down that lower road, the one with immediate huge shivers and greed, satisfaction of baser desires and traits? I believe the answer is obvious, much to the negative, a bloody choice whose echoes continue to resound.

We are at the same crossroads, the time to choose, to reflect, growing short, very tight. What we decide in the next few days, months, is the decision as to the future of mankind. Will it support the most difficult efforts of maintaining and instituting democratic governments, or will it cede power to a most base, base in a foolish, self-destructive attempt to shirk responsibilities of the ages?

Slivers or shivers? 

The complete statement is actually that one could see, in most despairing of times, "slivers of light and hope". Yes, we can, but those optimum moments of seeking, finding, and making permanent, those slivers of light are diminishing.  We seek excuses, make excuses, and refuse to admit that we went oh so wrong and must, absolutely, without exception, return to a time when those slivers of light and hope were growing, rather than minimizing to the point of no return.

Many will cry out, protest, that we are returning, rather than moving forward, that we must look to the future for succor rather than from the past. However, the past and its lessons are prologue, (Shakespeare), vital to us if we are to move forward, to engender a positive future rather than the resultant awful future if we only choose the evil of the past and not its lessons for the good.  

"Coming back to go where you started is not the same as never leaving," (Terry Pratchett)

A lesson, an understanding, we must internalize if we are, ever, to return to a better time, a better country, and progress further, taking on the lessons and warnings of the past, rather than imbibing deeply of those errors and indeed, never actually leaving it behind. A most terrible, frightening choice, a time of shivers as the slivers darken and disappear.

Today, in our day, we are facing that crux of a decision, one that will determine our chances of surging forward, or sinking into a so obviously wrong past, that of repression, of harm, of dictatorship, of loss of all personal and general rights as they are canceled, one by one. This is the past upon us to reject. This is the past which our enemies, and yes, they are our enemies, though Americans they are, wish us to reinter ourselves and our future within. Rejection must be the choice! The only, existentially correct, mandatory choice. All else is suicide. Simple as that.

Today, we have brilliant legal minds, philosophical minds, drowning in a sea of rejection of impotence, as a forceful, deluded, violent and dangerous minority take over the public and sources of information. Lies are the coinage of the day. Destruction of federal and state institutions are encouraged, and they have succeeded unfortunately. There is no more trust in a judiciary so obviously partisan. Judges are blatantly flouting the impartiality necessary to ensure justice and ignoramuses are being appointed as the stooges of the crooked, harmful wishing politicians.

In the words of an opinion written in the NYTimes, the Supreme Court has "squandered its legitimacy". That very Court which moved us forward with decisions of morality, of justice, is now a venue, a purveyor, for and of the opposite, eager to destroy its gallant past, its efforts to improve itself and the American society it represented, the justice it was tasked to dispense. 

America, we, have lost so much already. We have allowed the enemies of democracy to gain a momentum difficult to stop, even impede. We have allowed the narrowing of those slivers, those windows reflecting our last hope and dreams, the light which we sought, even as the enemy darkened those critical, endangered, fragile slivers. 

The time is upon us.

 The choice is upon us.

The responsibility is ours. 

No one else.