United We Fall; Divided We Stand
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have been wallowing in the deepest state of incredible, self-imposed shock for nearly two years. I have cried out to the heavens and raised pleas to ancestors (long gone) who have no power in this realm of the walking dead. Then it hit me. To be responsible citizens who choose who governs our lives, we must participate squarely in our society as authentic players…whatever our positions.
We must.
The question of whether we are united in this country does not mean we agree on everything, but that we are agreeable and statesman-like in our disagreements. We are the adults and we are the parents. This land of “agreements“ is ours to defend against those who hide in the shadows and subvert our principals. We must defend against the boardroom political elite; the higher institutions of cynicism; the evangelical prophets of doom; the apathetic soulless within our society; and, of course, “all enemies foreign and domestic.” Together, we must defend against all of this.
On the first Earth Day in 1970, a cartoonist said, “we have met the enemy and he is us”. Never has that been truer than now. Yes, he said we have met! We are a people. We are a nation. We are all the things we love…and all the things we hate. We are our brothers' keepers, we are our brothers' executioners…and right now we are failing each other and we are failing the future for our children’s children’s children.
We are united under many symbols--but have we yet to agree on what those symbols mean to us—we, the keepers of this nation?
In our time of attack democracy, have we forgotten that freedom is illuminated by a beacon of truth and justice for all?
Each of us now has the ability to create and destroy whole lives or worlds with keystrokes tapped from our fingertips. Mass destruction will not come from the tips of intercontinental missiles, but from shells of manipulation, deceit, racism and jealousy—from irresponsible human beings who claim truth is false, and facts are not true.
With no insult intended, I remind all of us of the following philosophy that built our democracy:
“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
Are we there yet?
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Will we continue to attack ourselves? To deny these rights to each other?
“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.“
Furthermore, ask yourself if being any of the following souls “secures” our rights and our individual happiness: a birther…a Muslim-baiter…a stone thrower…a denier.
We Americans--native, bought and sold, adventurous, starving, searching, refugeed, abandoned, poor, enticed and entitled Americans--we all have been lied to, cheated, swindled, and persecuted by our own hands.
And yet, that hasn’t torn us apart.
Why is it now that we see a most desperate of times; our nation being challenged...and corrupted…and put asunder? Why is it now that we face a monumental inflection point in our history? Why now?
Look at those who divide us.
Only when we are willing to agree that all are sacred, seen and loved in a fully democratic way will we achieve a REAL and assured liberty with justice for all.
Then we truly will be united…and forever indivisible.
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