The choice is ours
Will we serve as a beacon of true strength, or will we cling to outdated notions of superiority as our skies blacken, our rivers thicken with pollution, our cities crumble, and our people suffer?
This week most Americans shift their clocks back to standard time. We witness the leaves color, crispen, and fall; the evenings turn dark; the temperatures drop. For those of us who care deeply about the structure of our democratic processes, the national stage presents reasons for frustration and concern.
The trial in Georgia reminds us how many of our fellow Americans are vulnerable because of the color of their skin. The pandemic continues to take too many lives. Leaders gathered in Scotland to address the climate crisis too often mistake bold language for bold action.
One of our two major parties offers only two stances: refusal to engage in legislation building, and distraction with “culture wars.” Both cover (not very well) their strategy of voter suppression and gerrymandering to ensure one-party rule in as many states as possible.
Meanwhile, tremendous reporting from journalists at the Washington Post helps us understand just how close we came to losing our republic on January 6, 2021, and how those efforts are ongoing.
Read the reports here, and if it is behind a subscriber paywall, let me know and I will gift you the article:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/jan-6-insurrection-capitol/
We’ve explored this idea before on these pages: the world-view that one group of humans is innately superior, as evidenced by their wealth and power, fighting intensely for purchase before it disappears completely. For this world-view is dying, make no mistake about it. As surely as the natural climate is changing, our social climate is changing as well. There is a new global majority which is not white, not wealthy, relatively uninterested in dominance or superiority, focused instead on collaboration to move forward the drastic changes needed to survive. The new global majority will become the next greatest generation, saving humanity from the reemergence of fascism as well as from the destruction of a habitable environment.
The question is not whether this will happen, so much as where we will stand as a country as it does happen. Will the United States decide to serve as a beacon of true strength, building healthy, sustainable communities?
Or will we be the last bastion of the old world view, clinging to outdated notions of superiority as our skies blacken, our rivers thicken with pollution, our cities crumble, and our people suffer?
The choice is ours.