Flipping through the news this morning I found myself nodding in tune with the articles and then nodding off. It became a fight between eyelids and brain - who will win this battle? I could have written at least half of the stories myself based on simple observations and understandings as well as past and present happenings and events. So, zzzzzz was beginning to win the battle. I had to resist.
Why resist? Because the war is existential. The war is a battle between the forces of negativity, evil, autocracy and the forces if not wholly for the good, are at least the much lesser of two evils and the only remaining hope that we have to build back and ensure a better future than the one now staring us in the face, like it or not.
We have lost our way. We have rolled around in the political mud for so long, for far too long, and we have lost the shock to the system that the original sins gave us. It is now almost a ho-hum as the further misadventures of Trump come to fore. It is a bigger story that Jared and Ivanka might divorce than the ongoing saga of her father, cheating everyone, robbing the nation, with misbegotten returns, with egregious violations of the nation's security, with his treasonous conspiracy of J6, with his insane plans to run again. That is outrageous! Yet there he is, remaining free when he should long ago have been indicted, convicted and imprisoned. Why has this not happened?
The answer is simple. The GOP has gone loopy, dangerously so. They have made no pretense any longer as to the depth of their fall, rivaling Dante's trip to his Inferno! Their outrageous behavior, the treason they have perpetrated, either by active support or by implicit approval and denial of truths, have given birth to abominations. Santos, a man who should never have been allowed on the ticket was cynically repackaged, designed like a test tube genetically engineered baby to be elected. A fraud from the getgo. Now that his-their-lies are in the open - he is not even disciplined. In fact, he is rewarded by being allowed to take his fraudulently won seat so McCarthy can continue on his path of taking the GOP further, deeper, on his nefarious path. He needs that Santos vote! Dear Lord. What have we become? What abomination have we created? Is there an end, a positive one, even possible any longer?
Why would we expect any different? Trump has violated the Constitution innumerable times, cheated on taxes, on purpose, defamed and betrayed this country and importuned others who went right along, even as they now try to crawl out of the slime of swampian Trumpland. No man is above the law, or so they repeat. Feh!! Actions, action is what matters, what is needed, not empty words encased in hot air balloons.
We need to fit ourselves into a positive current, an eddy which will bring us to a better state of mind. For that, I turn to the eminent historian, Thucydides, and his powerful circle of definitions and causes and effects, an eddy to be envied.
Thus he states in his Funeral Oration of Pericles and his History of the Peloponnesian War. Read, think, understand the implications for all of us.
"Self-control is the chief element in self-respect, and self-respect is the chief element in courage."
"The secret to happiness is freedom ...And the secret to freedom is courage."
Are we ready to search our innards for these virtues, for the courage, the self-respect, the desire to achieve happiness?
Read and think. Think back to the courage it took for those of our ancestors who threw it all in and came here to seek just that, who demonstrated that self-respect and courage to seek happiness and freedom.
Can we, should we do any less?
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