A moral demand to care for one another
Care for all creatures is our best and only hope of survival.
Dear friends: Our world calls upon us with a moral demand to care for one another. So many events and changes swirl around us; where do we place our focus?
As I ponder that question, I notice that a vision of our country under one-party rule is taking shape. It discounts, or actively restricts, government’s role in protecting the health of the community. It promotes the government’s ability to impede women’s access to reproductive health care. It obstructs investment in infrastructure that supports ordinary folk. It ignores the climate crisis in favor of large profits for fossil fuel corporations.
And it ignores the peril revealed in the waning days of the previous presidency, as advisors worked to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. It gins up conflicts framed as “culture wars” in order to divert attention away from the threat to democracy.
At its core, this vision grows from a deeply held belief that power should be restricted to a specific set of people: the “ruling class.” That folk who are outside this group, due to gender, sexual orientation, physical differences, ethnicity, geographical background, socio economic status, or anything else defined as “other,” are by definition not worthy of voice in the system.
In fact, rule by a few requires a large, mostly disempowered labor force. That’s the only way to concentrate profits upward. But it also creates the conditions for its own disruption.
Minority, elite, one-party rule is unsustainable. Very few folk are willing to be excluded from decision-making power and economic security indefinitely.
We are living through a time of accelerated change: and that, in turn, accelerates the pace and scale of the backlash. Navigating such a turbulent point in human history requires us to remain firm in our core values:
Every human is worthy of a voice.
Care for all creatures is our best and only hope of survival.
Humanize everyone.
Hold fast, my friends, be safe and take good care.