Our world staggers, groans, and fractures under a ponderous inequality. Economic, social, racial, spiritual…we are a society completely out of balance. As I considered the phenomenon of wealth and what it means today, I kept hearing the voice of the character Tevye in the film Fiddler on the Roof. Some of you will remember him. He sang a dream, a longing, an ambition, “If I Were a Rich Man.” That set me to thinking about what his character meant by “rich?” You see, we need to be acutely aware of where our desires are leading us, of whether our fanciful notions are liable to bring true happiness. We need to ask ourselves how much, or how little, money is “enough,” and whether ANY amount of money increases our worth as a human being.

Though being a stellar production with gloriously memorable music, Fiddler was not an escape from reality, as many entertainments are meant to be. In fact, the story is in every way bittersweet and replete with uncomfortable truths. None of the characters is destined to “live happily ever after.” The story shows us the light and dark sides of life, the struggle between love and fear, the evils of prejudice, and the dangers of assuming that what one relies on will survive the winds of change. And throughout it all, the lonely fiddler sits in his precarious position, perched on a steep roof playing his music while keeping his tenuous balance. He is a metaphor for all of us who are trying to keep our balance and still produce some kind of music.

Let me set the scene for those who may not be familiar with the music and the themes of the film. The story takes place in a predominantly Jewish community—the fictional small village of Anatevka—in what was then the Russian Empire, during the first few years of the 20^th century. The central character, Tevye, is a poor, hard-working dairyman who struggles to feed his family, and cope with deprivation every day.

One of his signature songs is a musical monologue (and simultaneously a very forthright, though by no means irreverent, discussion with God), about his desire to be richer. Like many people around the world today, his desires are modest; he doesn’t want everything, but he’d like to have a little more than barely enough. He begins by admitting that there is no shame in being poor, but, with charming frankness, says that it’s not exactly an honor either. He imagines:

A big, tall house with rooms by the dozen
Right in the middle of the town
A fine tin roof with real wooden floors below.
There would be one long staircase just going up
And one even longer coming down
And one more leading nowhere, just for show.

He expands on his wish list: more chickens and geese in the yard, his wife having some nicer clothes and not working her fingers to the bone. On the surface, his dreams somewhat resemble the “status symbols” coveted to this very day. But there is more to his dream than material possessions. He yearns for an easing of the daily grind of ceaseless toil. Then he would have a bit of leisure time to sit in the synagogue and discuss sacred texts with learned men. This, to him, would be a joy.

Perhaps most telling, he also imagines that people would see him in a different light. They would ask his advice on various matters and hold him in greater esteem. Why? Tevye actually knows that wealth would not make him wiser, but it would cause his neighbors to treat him as if he were wiser. That is a stunningly contemporary lesson for us all. Do we want to be wise, or do we want to induce other people to think we are wise?

Each of us must seek within ourselves for the meaning of and significance of wealth and be honest enough to admit that material riches are ephemeral. (Nowadays they aren’t even necessarily material… merely numbers on spreadsheets combined with wishful thinking and manipulation of perceptions and bogus IPOs.)

So let’s consider some possible ideas about what wealth means.

Money. We all need it to survive because we exchange it for food, housing, medical care, and at least a few comforts. Most people on planet Earth do not have enough to meet these needs. Instead, most of the world’s wealth is concentrated in the hands of a tiny percentage of the human population. It is possessed by those who have no demonstrable need, no rational excuse for possessing billions of dollars, owning multiple lavish homes, buying absurdly overpriced cars, bidding millions of dollars on so-called collector’s items like, to name recent examples, rare coins, musical instruments signed by celebrities, and the like. They could each and every one live extremely well indeed on a tiny fraction of their income. They choose not to. They choose to accumulate assiduously and apparently without much moral inner debate. They turn a blind eye to poverty at their own doorstep and congratulate themselves on how expensive their personal luxuries are.

Social Status: Arguably this is one of the most genuinely meaningless measures of one’s value in the grand scheme of life, though not to those who seek it. They yearn to BE somebody, but have no clue that keeping up with, or even surpassing, the Joneses, does not make them anyone other than who they are. But, since they tend to waste very little energy on introspection, their focus is proving the value of their existence through visible emblems of economic superiority. They share a common tendency to initiate conflict with the indignant phrase, “Do you know who I am?” As if their name, their pocketbook, their expensive clothes, or their social prominence will eliminate any doubt that their needs are paramount. But if only they knew how little their windy self-importance matters, how very much it diminishes their ability to make their own lives truly worthwhile.

There’s nothing inherently wrong about the desire for something better or nicer; but we need to be clear within ourselves as to the “why.” And even Tevye’s dreams are shaped to some extent not only by his need for greater prosperity to help him survive, but also by the desire for his community to see him in a different light.

Significance as a human being. The most heartbreaking truth we see played out every day, all around us is this: People of wealth (and celebrity) are treated as if (and frequently believe that) they matter more than people without wealth or celebrity. Think about that… the idea that one human being is of less value in the world than another based on comparative wealth. Not exactly a modern philosophy. Social stratification based on wealth or family of origin has been woven into society throughout human history. The lords of the manor and the serfs who worked the land. The shoguns, the princes, the doges, the empresses, the dukes and duchesses, the colonial powers descending on native inhabitants of far flung lands. Seems as if no matter how far back one goes, there is always a social structure shaped rather like a pyramid. At the bottom, holding it all up, a broad base of people… primarily people of limited assets with few advantages and doing all the hard work.

Tevye is one of those holding up the pyramid, one day at a time, one milked cow at a time. It is little wonder that he felt a desire for riches that would make the struggle less dire. But, at the same time, the audience understands that he does not lose sight of where real wealth lies:

The Intangibles: Community, friendship, love, faith, humor, respect, compassion, kindness, justice, freedom, integrity…are these not our truest, most priceless riches? Not until we choose to value them above materialism. Not until we are adamant that a human being is a human being, no matter what clothes they wear, no matter what language they speak, no matter the size of their home, or the color of their skin, or the job they do.

When Tevye ponders the idea that a little more money would also make him a more important person, he is only repeating what he and generations before him had learned from life experience. He who pays the piper calls the tune, even if the tune is ugly and no one feels like dancing. We’ve absorbed the same lesson on an even grander scale in these modern times. But we do not have to accept it as a universal and unalterable rule governing human interaction. It is a social habit, an implanted norm, one we can and must challenge.

More than two centuries ago, the French Revolution erupted in a society wracked by extreme inequality, hereditary privilege, and grinding poverty. The vast majority of people could no longer tolerate the stark contrast between how the wealthy lived and their own miserable existence. Thus they rose up and effected significant change, to put it mildly. Without necessarily resorting to violence and public executions (which would be barbaric, if tempting in some cases), we average people who are not rich, not famous, not politically powerful humans could also effect significant change. Yes, indeed we can.

But there is a lot of baggage to drop along the way and that begins with looking within ourselves. Let us each honestly evaluate how much we have let a sense of superiority creep into our own self-image. Maybe just a little bit. We’re only human, and we have to overcome a lifetime of imbued assumptions: that’s just how things are; that’s how life works; that’s how society operates. And I tend to think each of us has had at least one or two “snobby” thoughts or impulses in our lives. Each of us has felt the ego mind distancing itself from “others” who are unlike us. But if we are lucky, we see that impulse for what it is (prejudice) and back away… firmly. Knowing what dwells within us, and being honest about it, is the only path toward changing ourselves and the society of which we are a part.

Having millions and billions in wealth does not necessarily make anyone smarter, wiser, kinder, more capable, more compassionate, more responsible, or more humane. In fact, human history provides ample evidence to the contrary, with some notable philanthropic exceptions. Today, a world that could provide safety and comfort, shelter, education, health care, and useful occupation for almost every person on the planet still chooses not to do so. While this is true in many nations, America seems hell bent on being at the top of the league standings when it comes to rewarding avarice and expressing a contemptuous disregard for the wellbeing of most of its people. We have ceded a startling and, I believe, frightening degree of control over humanity’s future to those whose wealth allows their own ambitions and pursuit of supremacy to ignore the voices (and lives) of millions.

NEXT WEEK: When Wealth Equals Power, and Power Corrupts Absolutely

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***Please note: I have touched only one or two themes explored in Fiddler on the Roof. As a body of work, as a set of teachings and lessons, it is a rich and complex tapestry. As such, I would suggest you may wish to read this article: The Immortal Tevye, by B.C. Wallin. In it, you will discover a perspective I’m not in the least qualified to comment upon or even summarize. I’ve read it through more than once, and I learned, which is a lifelong commitment.

https://www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2021/10/15/the-immortal-tevye/

I think not. And yet, those who dare to question the specific actions of specific people are meeting with precisely that accusation. It is, to my mind, a completely indefensible position. (Somehow it brings to mind a medieval image of villagers standing in a circle pointing at someone shouting “Witch! Witch!) for no reason except that it justifies their biases.

What such critics are asserting, in brief:

If one questions the choices or behaviors of any Jewish person or the government of Israel, then one is, by definition, an anti-Semite.

To me, the statement is irrational, yet I have seen it frequently employed by individuals pandering to a political agenda that has nothing to do with stamping out prejudice. And yet, witnessing the outpouring of anger toward those whose consciences rebel at the thought of bombing hospitals, to cite one example, one is loath to be honest lest one’s argument be contemptuously rejected as “out of the mouth of a bigot.” What a childishly facile dismissal. It harks back a bit to the old saying about “don’t kill the messenger.” That idea is reputed to have started with Sophocles writing about no one feeling very friendly toward the bearer of bad news. But when the bad news is unpleasant, someone has to say it aloud.

In this modern instance, certain readers and listeners contemptuously discard commentary and facts they do not like, and proceed to excoriate and discredit the messenger. It’s a useful tactic to fend off valid criticism. Simply put, if someone throws some unwelcome and uncomfortable facts at you, or asks questions you don’t want to answer, simply sneer, call them stupid, say ‘fake news’ and move on.”

Admittedly, we humans like being certain, even though certainty can be dangerous and self-deceiving. Added to that, we are certain in an oddly inconsistent way. We’ll tell ourselves, “I’m absolutely certain I closed the garage door” and yet we can’t resist going outside to check. That’s a silly, insignificant issue, but we still decided to inquire further. So why, I wonder, do we insist on certainty, without any facts or critical thinking to support it, when we turn our attention to issues rather more significant than whether the garage door is closed.

In terms of political and social issues of today, some of our assumptions, inferences, and unsupported deductions are ludicrous at best, hateful and destructive at worst. As soon as I hear any sentence that begins with some form of “Well, everyone knows that…” I feel myself instinctively edging away. Even worse, the ones who begin an argument with, “All those ____ people are _____….” No matter how they fill in those blanks, it will not be true, and will express some level of bigotry.

Today, I was thinking about syllogisms and other types of logic. Some of it is useful and pretty accurate. An example might be:

All mammals require air to breathe.
Dolphins are mammals.
Dolphins require air to breathe.

So far, so good. Well-constructed reasoning has its place, The above is based on scientific observation and one can confidently conclude that dolphins breathe air.

HOWEVER…

Generalizations about people, identity, motivations, culture, religion, skin color, language, gender, sexual orientation, or any other personal characteristic are—by their very nature—fallacies, whether they are offered in support of, or in criticism of, any group of human beings. They have no place in an intelligent, civilized discussion about current events and social issues.

With that as my own understanding, I reject the following chain of “logic.”

• The Jewish people have suffered the most vile persecution, including genocide, for thousands of years, in places all over the world, and they still are the targets of hate in some places. (True)

• Israel has repeatedly had to defend its right to exist ever since it was established as a nation. (True)

• Ergo, anything a Jewish person, Jewish group, or the Israeli government does is above reproach. (False)

• Therefore, anyone who criticizes a Jewish person, group, or the Israeli government is an anti-Semite. (also False).

When a biased person “reasons” from the general to the specific or vice versa, the conclusion is divisive, usually cruel, and always ignorant.

A person of color committed a terrible crime of violence.
Ergo, all people of color are prone to violence.

Islamic extremists launch horrific terrorist attacks.
Ergo, all Muslims are terrorists.

I am a very smart person and I speak English.
I went to a foreign country where they didn’t speak English.
Ergo, they are all stupid people.

All Christians know that Judaism teaches the “wrong” religion.
Jesus invented Christianity which is the “right” religion.
Ergo, Jesus was not Jewish. (I am not making that one up. Someone actually said that to me one day.)

MAGA cult members believe everything Donald (T)rump says…or tweets.
Everything Donald (T)rump says is false, stupid, and irrational.
Only idiots believe statements that are false, stupid, and irrational.
MAGA cult members are idiots.

Okay, it’s difficult not to resonate with that last one, but it remains a generalization.

Bearing in mind this anti-Semite backlash, why have I, in the past, spoken out against the killing of civilians in Gaza, the deliberate targeting of hospitals and desperately needed public infrastructure? This is not ‘fake news.’ Please see the footnote to read the report from the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights. Here is a small excerpt.

“During the period covered by the report, there were at least 136 strikes on at least 27 hospitals and 12 other medical facilities, claiming significant casualties among doctors, nurses, medics and other civilians and causing significant damage, if not complete destruction of civilian infrastructure.”

I have no tolerance for terrorism of any kind, carried out by any group for any reason. But that doesn’t preclude listening to and expressing the part of my heart and soul that cries out over the deaths of innocents, or what many shrug off as collateral damage. When did we become a race of beings who refer to tens of thousands of men, women, and children who are not armed, military participants as collateral damage? Who can stay silent in the face of such suffering?

When I ask this, I am most assuredly not pointing a finger of blame at ALL the Jewish people residing in the world, and it grieves me that I am forced to say that out loud. The truth is that I am able to discern that what I view as unacceptable war crimes carried out by a nation’s governing authorities are NOT representative of the views of the entire population of that country nor every person of Jewish heritage.

In my writing, I think I have been remarkably clear that I am not, by nature, a person whose thinking is warped by prejudice, be it racial, ethnic, linguistic, or by place of birth. All my life I have been blessed to know a rich diversity of people from backgrounds different from my own, people with skin far richer in tone than my tepid whiteness, people of differing spiritual faiths who have brought me gifts of wonder and knowledge, who have broadened my understanding, informed my view of the world around me.

By the same token I have encountered any number of people whom I did not care to know better and I suppose, if I am honest, toward them I DO have a bias. The world is a big place and it is inhabited by the best and the worst that our species has produced. The worst includes a broad swath of humanity from violent racists to arrogant misogynists, to supercilious snobs, to ignorant people who have so internalized bigotry they don’t seem to actually notice. We humans come in a lot of ‘flavors’ so to speak. And some I find revolting. I stay away from them. If their actions bring harm, I do what I can to bring it to light, and, when circumstances permitted, I have confronted it face to face.

How else do I know I am not an “anti-Semite?” During the last few years, before our New Thought church closed due to the pandemic, we happily and gratefully rented a beautiful light-filled, high-domed-ceiling worship space in a local Jewish Temple. It was truly a sacred space with its columns representing the Twelve Tribes of Israel, and I was delighted that we could hold our service there. The arrangement was beneficial to all. The space wasn’t used on Sundays and their rabbi, a wise and amiable woman a little younger than myself, was happy to welcome us. I had some nice talks with her, rabbi-to-minister, that always left me feeling I had learned something, or seen a new perspective. We found much in common, and she kindly asked me to participate in interfaith events from time to time.

One member of my own congregation was of Jewish heritage and delighted me for years with insights into Jewish teachings and how they jibed (or not) with our New Thought philosophies. She also taught me Yiddish expressions, helpfully correcting my occasional misuse of them. She once told me I might want to avoid one particular word that began “schmu…” and suggested “schlemiel” instead, although she admitted there might be moments when the former word was entirely appropriate.

So our years at the Temple will always remain a bright memory…except on one tragic occasion, Apparently ignited by events elsewhere in the world, some violent threats were made against the Temple, and outright vandalism occurred. The Temple’s members, with great reluctance, voted to install security gates to the parking areas. For a time, the local police department assigned an officer to be on duty when services were held. When that decision was made, I remember the rabbi asking me to stop by her office and for the first few moments we seemed to be in a competition of who could say “I’m so sorry” more than the other.

Coming from me… it was because I felt deeply distressed (and angry) that they had been targeted. Coming from her, it was because she did not want us to feel endangered or be inconvenienced by the added security. (She specifically requested that security also be present on Sundays, even though none of her own congregation would be on the campus.) So we learned the gate codes, and nodded to the officers every week, and I wondered for the thousandth or so time why. Why? Why? Even now, that question and the insanity of hate brings tears to my eyes. But I must, with a great sense of grief, admit that humans are capable of unmitigated cruelty driven by prejudice.

Now, although Shakespeare’s Shylock is perhaps not a terribly likeable character, mostly because he is an angry man, and rightfully so, there is one bit of dialogue that has always stuck with me. He is speaking of his opponent, who has behaved toward him with contempt, mockery, and cruelty for many years. Shylock asks a rhetorical question… and then another…and then another.

…and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?”

What Shylock expresses with such vehemence is his bitterness at being discriminated against his whole life, and a demand for recognition of his humanness. Therein lies the point to all of this… at least for me. We are all human beings. We have a responsibility to other HUMAN BEINGS… not just the white ones or the dark ones or the pagan ones or the straight ones… the ones who say “shalom” or the ones who say “hallelujah,” or the ones who murmur “Hail Marys” or those who praise God in Arabic … ALL human beings. We don’t owe our humanity ONLY to people who look like us, who agree with our religious views, who speak our native language.

We owe our humanity to all human beings (wherever they are) who are at risk, who suffer, who die, who quake in fear of the next mortar shell, the next burning cross on the lawn, the petrol bomb through the window, or spray of gunfire in the street. We owe our humanity to people without homes, people without enough food, people without medical care, to people who want to live in peace, as we do, people who want to feel safe, as we do, people who want to be treated with compassion, just as we do.

Yes, I can (and do) unreservedly condemn the murder of Israeli civilians by Hamas on 7 October, and yes I acknowledge Israel’s right to protect its citizens and its existence, and I can never forget the incalculable horrors of the Holocaust (something we as a species must never, ever forget). Perhaps it would help us remember better if instead of thinking only of a number, a sort of lump sum for the history books… we think of more than six million individual deaths, one by one. An elderly man, a woman with baby in her arms, a schoolboy, a farmer, a shopkeeper, a teacher, a musician, a tailor, a young girl who just got engaged … human beings, dying one at a time, six million times.

I would ask of those whose hearts are wrenched and fractured by these thoughts, to be willing to feel that compassion for ALL the innocents who die because our species has proven better at hate than love. To those who cannot feel compassion, the request will fall on deaf ears.

It is my enduring belief that when we look past nationality, religion, skin color, historical enmities, and all the other differences, we find that we are all human beings… who suffer, who bleed, who die, and are mourned by someone. Human beings lost to us through indefensible actions deserve a better epitaph, and a higher purpose in our spiritual evolution (if we intend to evolve) than being written off as “collateral damage,” and “acceptable losses,” or, perhaps worse, “just one of them.”




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Report cited above:
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/12/pattern-israeli-attacks-gaza-hospitals-raises-grave-concerns-report

ETHOS

a Greek word used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize
a community or nation, or ideology.

We need to answer some questions. Not little ones… big ones. In recent times, I’ve been focusing less on the happenings of each day (an endless stream of infamy), and have instead been asking the questions plaguing me, the most important of which seem to be:

How did we become a nation of such hate, cruelty, and ignorance?
Or have we, at the core, always been something of that sort? (I pray that is not the case, but I wonder sometimes.)

How did we become so emotionally illiterate we can’t discern lies from truth?
Or do we choose not to make that discernment? A pronouncement from an old friend of mine may apply:

“A lot of what ails us in this moment is ‘deliberate stupid.’”

Before I continue, though, I will acknowledge that America is certainly not alone in its overt descent into madness. Other nations are also plagued with racism, fascistic propagandists gnawing away at democracy, and unabashed fear-mongering. But we do seem to be carrying the trend to shocking extremes.

So, back to the inquiry. How did America find its way to this sorry state?

This is not offered merely as a subject for philosophical speculation, or one that can be resolved by academics sitting around postulating theories. In fact, I suggest that our survival as a nation depends on finding an answer in real time. I suggest that if we continue to ignore the dire need for critical thinking, we are without a path forward. Critical thinking is apparently no longer much taught or encouraged in our education system.

Critical thinking requires being honest with ourselves, sometimes painfully so. Which in turn calls for a measured degree of self-doubt. Put another way, it is a thought process not orchestrated by ego. It requires abandoning false presumptions, fanciful histories and tales of noble intentions that don’t hold up under scrutiny, and admitting to our feet of clay. Eating some truth-filled humble pie never killed anyone. Delusions of grandeur and a steady diet of lies have killed a lot of people. And they still do.

Recently I’ve written about the beginnings of this very young nation, and how it appears to have had the potential to mature into excellence, into a genuine beacon of hope, an example to show the world what a democracy could achieve.

That assumes of course that the flowers of prose from our founding documents asserting equality, freedom, and all the rest of it… represented sincere, shared goals. Those goals were ambitious, but achievable. A great many dedicated individuals believed in the profound value of those principles. But, in reality, there were those who did not, or who liked some aspects of liberty, but completely rejected the ‘absurd’ idea that equality and freedom were for absolutely everyone.

Compassion, fairness and justice did not prevail in the long run; they did not become a permanent component of our ethos because one does not shape reality with words alone. Action speaks far louder. They’ve had their bright shining moments, brief eras when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘dream” seemed destined to come true. But we appear to have lost the momentum of possibility. In truth, we’ve devolved from the mountaintop moments of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act and the Nineteenth Amendment to a landscape where Elon Musk throws Nazi salutes on stage and questions why we aren’t teaching “white history.” I mean… seriously… it’s gotten that sickening.

America has faltered and has done so in spectacular fashion. These horrors (rampant racism, graft, fraud, the illegal detention of human beings, the suppression of independent media, the murder of citizens in the street by government authorities) are not political issues, differences of opinion from different sides of the aisle. This is savagely authoritarian depradation of democracy, showing complete comtempt for what we thought were the rules. Every move in that direction is terrifying, but where is the (nearly) universal “NO!”

There should be an ear-splitting klaxon alarm going off in our heads, shaking us to the very core, snapping every person out of his or her self-absorbed apathy. Why isn’t it? Why do many reasonably nice people simply shrug as if to say, “oh well, that’s politics, isn’t it? I can’t do anything about that.”

There WAS a time, in my own lifetime, when people expected from their elected leaders a goodly measure of dignity, statesmanship, intelligence, conscience, dedication, and most definitely fealty to the United States Constitution. It was a given. No more. Today, the sitting U.S. president is a chronically mendacious, cretinous, narcissistic, deranged man propped up by sycophantic slugs and greedy billionaires who makes ruinous, irrational decisions and who doesn’t give a damn about any other person on the planet.

And millions voted for him.
And apparently some of them still would vote for him. I despair.

He and his cronies (enabled by a cowardly Congress and utterly unethical Supremes—you know which ones I mean) have set about dividing and conquering with the usual methodologies of hate-mongering, finger-pointing and “let’s just see how much BS we can make the public swallow.” They have alienated us from the rest of the world. They have trashed both the American and world economies, and systematically robbed us in plain sight while bragging about it.

When I speak of robbery, I do not only mean robbing us of money, though they are doing that to the tune of billions of dollars. They are also in the process of robbing us of our laudable qualities (yes America has had some, and still does). They have presided over the fraying and sundering of the fragile threads that held us together as the American people.

I grieve for what might have been. The Declaration, the Constitution…the Bill of Rights… all had the makings of a good foundation, if the words had been more than glorious wordsmithing fashioned to inspire loyalty and justify change. But now all those outward flourishes and lofty phrases seem rather pathetic when what they claim to symbolize is not objective reality anymore.

Yep… objective reality, something the MAGA circus and the head clown want us to ignore. With a powerful boost from media that unabashedly panders to power wherever they perceive it to be, depictions of reality are sparse indeed.

So there is that temptation to fall back on the myth of American exceptionalism. It serves as sort of like a blanket pardon for whatever we do as a nation that does not turn out well. Simply stated: “Whatever we do must be right because we are the best dang country in the world.” We are not, of course. But the jugheads with blinders on don’t care about something as irrelevant as truth. They do not have any interest in realizing that we built a house of cards on bad intentions, and now we are inside that tottering construction falling down around us. We have made naïve assumptions about our virtues and remained tragically blind to our faults.

· Do we not see the racist cockroaches creeping out into the light of day – the ones we had sent skittering into the darkness for decades?

· Have we not witnessed the tidal waves of wealth pouring into the coffers of the super-rich while the poor grew poorer, and the middle class, once considered the backbone of America, quietly suffered and shrank, now compressed into irrelevance.

· Do we go on pretending that our children are getting a good education when we don’t pay our teachers nearly enough and we let local school boards twist the curricula into religious, racist propaganda? (No, Sally and Timmy, there really wasn’t a slave trade; the Civil War was about something else. Oh, and the Holocaust, that was highly exaggerated so we don’t have to learn that.)

· Do we ignore the plain fact that the average person has limited access to health care when they need it? And that if they receive it, they may risk complete bankruptcy.

· Do we just look the other way while our military veterans are being completely tossed aside, dishonored, left ill or jobless or homeless?

· Do we pretend that white male christian nationalists are not bent on setting back women’s rights and equality by a couple of centuries?

When does the absolute “wrongness” of all this finally hit critical mass in the minds and hearts of Americans? Will it ever? I wish I knew.

Let me be clear about one critical understanding. The rot set in long before the current evil circus came to town and set up their tents. They showed up with distorted cartoon smiles painted on and hands open to take what they what they could. And much of America said, “okey dokey.” Why?

Something has been slithering through our society for years and years, something with the rancid redolence of fear and the capability of destroying human bonds, erasing our sense of community. Generally, it’s called “hate.” If we had persevered in building a nation true to the principles of a democracy, then the rantings and ravings of the head clown would have been silenced and he would have been booed off the stage long, long ago. He was not.

So before we lay all the blame for the sorry state of the union entirely at the feet of this bizarre regime, let’s ask ourselves some difficult questions, and provide the uncomfortable answer. Yes, critical thinking. Where did we go off the rails? How can we recover? Whom shall we choose to be? Or is the tragedy that we cannot agree?

What perhaps grieves me most is my awareness of how many extraordinarily wonderful people live in America. There are kind, compassionate, generous human beings who are not prejudiced, not afraid of people unlike themselves. They often practice one of my favorite pursuits, “selfless service.” They balance their personal needs with the needs they perceive in the outer community. They shy away from the “me-first” approach to human interactions. They ask what they could do to be better, both within themselves, and as a part of something greater than themselves. They share what they have, not obsess over acquiring more than they could possibly need. I have known so many such people, and felt profound gratitude for their existence, but theirs are not the voices being heard.

If we choose to heal these deep wounds, if we choose to say ‘no’ to the bigots and the dictators, if we choose to be instrumental in advancing the agenda of democracy and justice, if we choose to get off the rampant capitalism express and put the welfare of people first, then we CAN succeed. But it won’t be easy. We cannot claw back our theoretical identity as a powerful force for good in the world with empty slogans, braggadocio, and really big American flags. We cannot simply claim to be the best and the brightest until we actually are. We cannot hope for peace and a kinder, gentler world until we lead the way in creating one.

What is “IT?” In a nutshell—a psychological/social phenomenon (quite contagious) where people will insist they “remember” seeing, reading about, or hearing something that is absolutely not true, did not happen, does not exist. [Honestly, I wish they had not attached Nelson Mandela’s name to the phenomenon. His accomplishments as an advocate for human rights in South Africa, and the shift to majority rule are what matter most about his life, not that people think he died before he actually did.]

Psychologists and others have propounded numerous theories as to why this occurs, citing the quirky malleability of human memory, societal influences, the tendency to conflate past events or experiences, and plain old wishful thinking. Or, to put it more succinctly, “if enough people think something is true, it must be true.” Alas, no.

The person who initially pointed out this phenomenon honestly had believed that Nelson Mandela died in prison during the 1980s. She even thought she remembered hearing a speech given by his widow at that time, and that people rioted in the streets. She was wrong, of course. Nelson Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993… not posthumously. He was imprisoned for 27 years, and released in 1990. He was the first Black president of South Africa and served one term (1994-1999) before voluntarily choosing not to run again. He died in 2013.

Gradually, the phenomenon labeled the “Mandela Effect” moved into the awareness of more sociologists and psychologists. More and more examples of fervently embraced falsehoods came to light. Long ago events, dialogue from movies, cultural images… no fact is safe from the distortions applied to them by of human biases and opinions, and becomes alternative truth when repeated again and again.

Moving on…

As I said in a recent post, once upon a time, back in my college days (much longer ago than I care to think) I lived in the D.C. suburbs, and I enjoyed visiting the Lincoln Memorial at night to contemplate the towering effigy of Abraham Lincoln, and reread the words inscribed on the building. I admired his perseverance, his unyielding determination to preserve a nation that had begun a mere four score and seven years before he delivered his address on the battlefield at Gettysburg (where more than 50,000 soldiers died over the course of only three days). I believe that he had his own moral compass throughout his life. I believe that he felt the weight of that sacrifice, and it seems clear to me, given the brevity of his speech, that he did not use the occasion for self-aggrandizement or garnering political capital.

But what I did not fully grasp at the time I was basking in bit of hero worship for the man, was that Abraham Lincoln was a far more complex figure in history than any of the standard school books ever revealed, particularly concerning the bitterly contested issue of the emancipation of enslaved people. So I set out to dig a little deeper than the superficial accounts usually summarized in a few schoolbook pages and omitting a great deal of detail and competing viewpoints. Taking those summaries as the entire picture is rather like substituting Cliff Notes for actually reading the whole book.

What most school children are spoon-fed about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War overall could be distilled as:

· “Honest Abe” was a simple soul from the backwoods. He had little education but through a series of extraordinary events, was elected U.S. President.

· Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation ignited the Civil War because it outraged the people of the Southern states who had built their prosperity on slavery.

· Those states seceded from the Union, formed the Confederacy, and raised an army to defend their new political entity, and their practice of human enslavement.

· The North won the war, and once Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, the slaves were fully freed and they threw off their chains and lived happily ever after in the land of the free.

If only. But nothing is that simple. Not life, not human beings, and certainly not history. So, let’s set the scene, at least in brief. This is certainly not meant to be a comprehensive account.

In 1860, there were an estimated 4 MILLION enslaved persons in the United States of America. Realistically, the entire economy of the South and, by extension, much of the North, relied on slave labor. Enslaved human beings were treated as property and their “dollar value’ (it deeply pains me to even type that) exceeded the value of any other assets (factories, infrastructure etc.). In 1861, there were 19 northern states where slavery was not legal, and 11 southern states where it was an embedded element of society. There were three additional border states where the issue of slavery had not been legislated yet. The North feared they would turn into slave states; the South feared they would turn into abolition states.

The 11 southern states declared secession from the Union, formed the Confederacy, and selected their own president (Jefferson Davis). This spelled disaster for the still fledgling nation and Lincoln knew it. His overmastering commitment was the preservation of the Union.

On April 11 of that year, the first shots were fired by Confederate soldiers at Fort Sumter. And thus began a bloody, destructive war in which one could reasonably wonder, was there any real, lasting victory? Did we learn anything from the horrors? If the state of America today is any indication, it does not appear so.

The Proclamation of Emancipation did not instigate the conflict. Lincoln publicly issued the preliminary document in September of 1862. Nor did it declare universal freedom for all enslaved peoples, at least not in the way most people later assumed. It stated that if the Confederate states did not surrender and rejoin the Union by the first of January 1863, slaves in those rebelling states would be declared free. As we know, the Confederacy did not comply.

That document also did not demand immediate freedom for every enslaved person. It applied only to states or territories “in rebellion” against the United States. It did NOT apply to states such as Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, or Missouri, nor to Confederate territory already under Union occupation. Again, this wasn’t because Lincoln supported slavery, but because he was intent on using only what he believed to be his Constitutional authority as president and commander-in-chief. He saw this move as the use of a wartime power to protect the Union, especially as it also authorized the enlistment of Black soldiers. Some 150,000 joined the Union Army.

After the defeat of the Confederacy, formerly enslaved people may not have been in literal chains (except those who ran afoul of the law—an easy thing to do in those days when even a stray glance at a white woman was punishable—and were sentenced to hard labor and ‘leased out’ to landowners), but their lives were hardly easier or “free.” Brutal poverty, segregation, homelessness, joblessness, abuse, lynching, deprivation, and rabid prejudice defined their existence. It would still be a century before the Civil Rights Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. And, quite frankly, we are still not a nation that affirms and protects the equality of all its people.

But, back to Mr. Lincoln. There is a quote, often cited without necessary context, from a letter he wrote to Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, dated 22 August 1862. Lincoln felt compelled to answer Greeley’s criticism that he was not doing enough to end slavery.

“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”

And if that is the only part you read when poking about the internet, then you will swiftly and incorrectly conclude that he didn’t care one way or the other about slavery. But…

Let’s read his NEXT sentence.

“What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union… I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.”

Just one additional sentence changes the meaning, and more importantly, the picture of a man from whom we are more than 150 years removed in terms of time. It’s but one example of how, in our knee-jerk habit of over-simplification and driven by our human desire for easy, pat, indisputable answers, we abandon thoughtful inquiry (sometimes thinking altogether), along with intellectual rigor and integrity. Thus we lose the opportunity for the expansion of human understanding—something we desperately need today, here and now, when the world is even in more complicated and perhaps even more frightening. With a few notable exceptions (the U.S. President and his MAGA cult being among those exceptions), very few of our current dilemmas boil down to the simplistic dichotomy of “good guys versus bad guys.”

Even Abraham Lincoln, after a gory, bloody, bitter war, did not frame the conflict as ‘us versus them.’ In his second inaugural address given March 4th of 1865 (and I recommend it to your attention as an instructive piece of statesmanship), he said of the two sides in the conflict:

“Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully.”

More intriguing perhaps, even though the formal surrender of the Confederacy was by then a foregone conclusion (occurring about a month later), he did not boast of victory, nor gloat over the defeated, nor lay claim to righteousness. He said the responsibility for the “offense” of slavery was borne by all those involved. And he asked America to look to the future. He asked for compassion for all.

You see, it’s one thing to get history wrong, or misinterpret people’s actions, or reframe stories to make them sound better. We all have done it. We have all wanted to gloss over events in the past that don’t show us in a very good light. But what I discover more and more is the validity of a statement which to some will be a familiar verse from scripture. In the Gospel of John, these words are attributed to Jesus (Yeshua) “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Today, I see President Lincoln more clearly than once I did. I am now far away from his memorial in Washington, D.C. But I can still reassemble the image of that towering figure in my mind’s eye. And I can almost hear him speaking to those attending his inauguration. “…to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace.”

That is what I want to remember, to associate with him most of all, that he asked a broken nation to look forward to being BETTER. I submit that now is the time to absorb and to heed his heartfelt plea. We have the ability to change who we are, no matter what has gone before, no matter what we believe, or think we know. We can be enlightened by our past mistakes. We need not keep repeating them, or use them to justify further mistakes. The most important task the future asks of us is to make choices guided by moral conscience, by truth, by love and compassion for our fellow human beings. We have the power to write a new story about who we ARE as a nation, as members of a global community, and as citizens of Planet Earth. Like President Lincoln, I dearly hope and pray it is a better one than current events would have us imagine.

For many, that declaration instantly brings to mind one of our national symbols--the Liberty Bell. But in keeping with the theme of this brief series, it is part of a mythology that doesn’t, (pardon the pun), quite ring true. In fact, it strikes me (sorry, the puns keep creeping in) as rather an apt metaphor for our American fascination with self-congratulatory fabulism.

Its original name was “the State House Bell.” It did not receive the “liberty” moniker until the 1830s when it became a symbol of the anti-slavery movement. Its existence long pre-dates the Revolution. It was commissioned by the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1751. Some believe it cracked as early as 1752, when it was first tested. It was repaired, but cracked again in 1846 while marking George Washington’s birthday. Of particular note is that it is highly unlikely the bell was rung July 4, 1776. (That story was traced to a magazine writer who waxed lyrical in 1847.) It is also doubtful it rang on July 8. 1776 since the state house steeple was under repair and not in use. But it has made its way onto our U.S. currency and formed the basis for a charming story about a little boy rushing to tell the old bellringer in the tower that the revolution had begun in earnest.

However…it’s fiction.

George Lippard (1822–1854), a Philadelphia journalist and novelist wrote a short story in 1847 entitled “Fourth of July, 1776,” which later became better known as “Ring, Grandfather, Ring.” The story is properly dramatic:

• An elderly bell-ringer sits anxiously beneath the State House bell (what we now call the Liberty Bell), fearing the Continental Congress will lose its nerve and refuse to declare independence. His young grandson waits outside the chamber where Congress is meeting. At the decisive moment, the boy runs to the old man crying: “Ring, Grandfather! Ring!” The bell is rung, announcing liberty to the waiting crowds.

Of course, Lippard never intended it as anything but entertaining fiction, yet the story became so popular that later writers—including the influential historian Benson J. Lossing—repeated its details as though they were factual. School textbooks then copied the account, and generations of Americans grew up believing it had really happened.

Why do I think of the bell as an apt metaphor for America? Because the bell, like our faltering democracy, was in some ways an unintentionally (and perhaps unavoidably) flawed creation to begin with. Keep in mind the bell cracked not once, but twice. That doesn’t speak well of the craftsmanship. Were its makers too hasty? Too unrealistic? Did they allow too many compromises in the making of their finished product? We don’t know, though we do know that there are church bells all over the world that are centuries old and still ring out daily.

But the State House bell in Philadelphia was not made to survive the hard work it would have to do. Nor, apparently is our constitutional democracy. The declarations, proclamations, and promises made in its founding documents were arguably not as sincere or comprehensive or indestructible as we like to believe they were. The proofs are myriad. In 2026, despite the best efforts of some heroic and courageous American figures, not all Americans have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equal protection under the law, protection against unlawful searches and seizures… the list is long. People of color still face overt discrimination. Women are still victimized and there is even a vocal movement afoot to disenfranchise them completely. (That last is certainly on a list of events or changes headed “such a thing could never happen here.” And yet….)

We have been conditioned to think that America (as a whole) can do little wrong, that our elected leaders are in office to represent us, to ensure the American dream materializes. But how true are those beliefs? Do we draw our assumptions from inculcated pseudo-history retold a thousand times to convince every generation that there is something SO exceptional about our culture as a nation that we can overlook the ways in which it has not lived up to what it purports to be?

The first architects of American government were a group of wealthy, educated, elite. We know that. Some held high ideals, some did not. Some believed in the words written in the Declaration; some did not. Some were enslavers; some were not. Recasting their political maneuverings as entirely selfless and idealistic, as an almost holy quest for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” for all people is mawkish self-deception.

Depending on what metric you choose for comparison, the United States will move up and down a list of world rankings. But it is NOT first in areas that matter most to HUMAN BEINGS -- health care, overall wellness, civil rights protections, political participation (voting), education, literacy, housing availability, affordability, safety from gun violence, or quality of life for the majority of its citizens. Those standings reflect the choices we have made collectively. And I believe that one of the reasons our progress has been stunted is that we have been blindered by re-interpreters” of events.

We have fabulated (made up stories to highlight the facts we like, and cover up the ones we don’t) our way from the birth of a nation right up to the present moment.

When we stuff our history books with bowdlerized “feel good stories,” we do ourselves a great disservice. Rewriting our past in a way that falsely inflates our sense of self isn’t merely a benign flirtation with fantasy. It’s a dangerous diversion from the integrity that must underlie a nation claiming greatness. Today, some school boards around the United States are turning censorship into a crusade. They are rewriting textbooks, removing books (fiction and nonfiction) from libraries, threatening to fire skilled and dedicated teachers who will not agree to alter lesson plans and eliminate cultural enrichment activities. In fact they are fabulists as defined above. They wish to keep the material that justifies their beliefs and biases, while removing the material that doesn’t.

The promotion of exceptionalism, by its very nature, creates a fertile ground for planting the seeds of fascism; it normalizes the most rabid jingoism and racism. Any cabal of savvy political strategists with an agenda can poke the “patriot” hot button by rolling out a fairy tale of manifest destiny. Despots like Adolph Hitler convinced the German people they were part of a world-dominating destiny founded on the mythical concept of Aryanism—borrowing from earlier proponents of Nordic-Germanic ethnic superiority. Hitler built an entire political machine on the absurd, arrogant fiction of a “master race.” His carefully waged campaign of misinformation succeeded and millions died. But we seem hell bent on ignoring the historical lesson.

So perhaps now is the time to revisit it. Now is a perfect time to decide, collectively if possible, who we ARE. Are we just people who wave flags and whistle Yankee Doodle Dandy and sing the anthem at sporting events. Or is there actual substance behind our outward flourishes? Does the red, white, and blue stand for something real, something palpable, something morally good?

Are we compassionate, generous-of-heart individuals who care about their fellow human beings, who want to be the face of responsible, fair-minded leadership on the global stage? Or, are we content to listen to talking heads who encourage us to believe that we stand alone … invincible, head and shoulders above the rest of the world in all things, and thus we bear no responsibility for the harm we may do, and none of our actions need to be guided by a moral compass.

Are we willing to see our faults and discern ways to correct them going forward? Or are we so smug and arrogant, we deny them completely?

Are we willing to stand up for what is morally right, to diligently protect the dignity and well-being of all people who live in the United States of America and beyond? Or are we too self-absorbed to acknowledge the greater responsibilities that lie reach farther than our daily personal concerns?

Are we willing to question, to critique, to insist on change for the betterment of all? Or shall we keep silence and trade freedom of thought for a comfortable echo chamber that reassures us, and a mirror that shows us only what we want to see?

Let’s be clear. There are aspects of our history and the people who lived it that are well worth celebrating and honoring. Perhaps it is high time to put aside the fifes and drums and fairy tales and pay attention to those who have moved our nation in the direction of its promise and potential as a democracy. They did not deny that America was already in some ways exceptional; they argued that it could become better.

The best of America has shone brightly in the hearts and minds and work of real people, passionate people, those who struggled mightily for justice, who contributed generously of their talents, who took a stand without regard to the perils of telling the truth. They were not saints, they were not perfect, they were as flawed as any human. But… they moved our nation, inch by inch, in the direction of its highest and best potential. They left America, and the wider world, more humane.

Frederick Douglass — perhaps the nineteenth century’s greatest advocate for universal human rights.

Harriet Tubman — rescued enslaved people and later advocated for women’s suffrage and humanitarian causes.

Sojourner Truth — linked racial justice and women’s equality decades before intersectionality had a name.

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton — central to expanding political rights for women.

Ida B. Wells — campaigned fearlessly against lynching whose investigative journalism exposed racial terror.

Franklin D. Roosevelt — created a new relationship between government and its citizens as a proponent of. Among his enduring achievements: Social Security; unemployment insurance; banking reforms restoring confidence after the Depression; public works programs that employed millions (though in fairness, one must take note of a deeply egregious decision to intern Japanese Americans during the War)

Eleanor Roosevelt — was a humanitarian of the first order who championed civil rights for all, defended refugees, advocated for the equality of women, and helped draft the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Martin Luther King Jr. — was one of our nation’s clearest moral voices, advocating nonviolence, racial equality, economic justice, and peace.

Jane Addams — pioneered settlement houses, social work, and practical compassion for immigrants and the poor.

Dorothea Dix — transformed treatment of people with mental illness.

Frances Perkins — was the lead architect of Social Security and workplace protections.

César Chávez and Dolores Huerta — improved the lives of farm workers through largely nonviolent organizing.

Jonas Salk — famously refused to patent the polio vaccine, asking, “Could you patent the sun?”

Rachel Carson — helped launch the modern environmental movement through careful science and eloquent prose.

Thurgood Marshall — dismantled legal segregation and became the first Black Supreme Court justice.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg — advanced legal equality for women and helped reshape anti-discrimination law.

Edward R. Murrow — defended truth and challenged political intimidation during the McCarthy era.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein — demonstrated the importance of an independent press in holding power accountable.

And, let me add one more, one that may surprise you because he wasn’t a political figure, a jurist, a journalist, nor an activist in the usual sense of the word.

Fred Rogers. Yes, Mr. Rogers. For more than thirty years he quietly taught children the value of kindness, empathy, compassion, and respect for the differences between humans. And his testimony on behalf of public television is still regarded as an eloquent advocacy for the education of our nation’s citizenry. If only his ethos were shared by all.

All of these individuals and hundreds and thousands more, have done what President Abraham Lincoln asked of his nation: to continue the “unfinished work” of those who had fought for freedom.

More than 160 years ago, he delivered one of the briefest presidential addresses (perhaps THE briefest) in our history. Most people know the gist of it, and you will find it engraved upon the Lincoln Memorial. In my much younger days, I liked to sometimes go at night to sit on the steps and ponder the seated figure of that man and the words he chose to deliver on a blood-soaked battlefield. In those quiet moments, I could almost feel the gravity, the sincerity, the profound significance of those few words.

I won’t recount it entirely here, but certain phrases stand out to me in the present moment:

“…conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. We are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether this nation, or any nation, so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure…”
--cited from the “Bliss Copy,” the only one signed and dated by Lincoln himself.

ENDURE. Will the vision he described that day ever become a full-blown reality, and will it endure? If we cannot answer that in one unified voice, our future is painfully uncertain, and many of us will grieve for what could have been.

• The Boston Tea Party was a courageous act of patriotic revolutionaries making a bold statement about liberty.

• Paul Revere jumped on his horse and rode alone over hill and dale for hours warning the colonists, and thus helped ensure the British were soundly defeated.

• George Washington was the ‘father of our nation’ … a certified “hero.”

• Our other “founding fathers” were a divinely inspired cadre of wise and selfless men seeking to create a uniquely crafted form of democracy in which all voices would be heard, all people would free to choose, the common man would be elevated, and equality would be cherished by every citizen.

• A ragtag assemblage of farmers and shopkeepers with muskets coalesced into the Continental Army, whereupon those plucky underdogs managed to defeat the mighty British Empire and drive the redcoats from the shores of the 13 colonies.

Answer: How about, none of them.

Every 4^th of July we celebrate the birth of a nation some of us like to believe was founded on, and motivated by, a passionate regard for human dignity, personal freedoms, and the end of tyranny based on social class. But if that were substantially true, why do we find ourselves in this mess? Why did we have to bear witness to a 250^th anniversary that was turned into a tacky, tawdry, poorly planned, money-wasting ego trip of a disaster which said far more about who was in charge of the mess than what it purported to celebrate. It also says a great deal about what we have allowed this country to become.

But, back to the things we THINK we know.

Much of what we file under “H” for “History” is a tapestry of events (viewed through the distorting prism of bias, embellished with speculations, and elevated by wishful thinking) all woven into a complex story we repeat… and repeat… and repeat. It is, in sum, our unique national mythology. America is not alone in that regard. Every nation has its own cherished myths and colorful legends and folk heroes, human nature being what it is. People love a feel-good story; they naturally want to be proud of where they come from. Writers want to sell books, poets want to … well.. wax poetic. Human beings want the past to make sense, hang together, and align with their opinions, and never be questioned. Truth is oft sacrificed on the altar of political expediency and the sheer laziness of the electorate. Why think for yourselsf if someone tells you what to think? It’s so much easier to doom-scroll.

But the more we devalue truth, the more we are left with a flawed compromise that does not serve our evolution as a society or as a species. Every account will, to some degree, end up being either sanitized or fictionalized, or both. In the space of two and a half centuries (which isn’t particularly long compared to the age of the world, and America is most definitely the “toddler in the room”), writers and politicians and poets and songwriters have crafted stories around a skeleton of factual events, fleshing them out with meaning and significance derived from their own belief systems and biases. And we humans have the habit of only hearing what we WANT to hear.

Still, one might ask, is there really any harm in exaggeration? Absolutely. First of all, we are not talking about a “little” hyperbole in the retelling of our origin story. Second, that story casts a shadow so long it reaches into the present and alters not only our perceptions of the past, but our perception of who we are now. The centuries of storytelling add layer after layer of “spin” to a tale filled with supposed heroes driven by presumedly benevolent motivations intended to ‘sound’ better to later generations. (We’ve always had spin doctors, we just didn’t call them that in prior centuries.)

I will be the first to acknowledge the admirable qualities that many Americans share, the “good works” if you will that Americans have done over many decades, both abroad and at home. But neither the existence of humane, fair, reasonably unprejudiced individuals, nor the flow of good deeds done, nor the courageous participation of our armed forces in two World Wars and other areas of the globe, constitute de facto proof that America is better than other nations. That’s where the trouble starts – not being content to simply take pride in one’s virtues, but allowing pride to morph into chronic arrogance.

Some of the arrogance is based in common misperceptions of how the United States of America began. So let’s take a closer look. Granted, one might say, “who cares about these ‘tales made tall’ in the grand scheme of things?” Fair question, except we often fail to maintain a healthy degree of skepticism. How many people would chuckle at the absurdity of a Mark Twain “whopper” of a story, but, if asked, would be pretty sure that seamstress Betsy Ross designed and sewed the first American flag as George Washington and a “Flag Committee” looked on. (That is a tall tale, invented 100 years later, and there is credible evidence that a man named France Hopkinson created the design.)

You see, we have to be more discerning, or we let familiar, oft-repeated folklore assume the guise of indisputable truth. Rose colored glasses, if worn constantly, make us dangerously myopic.

The “Boston Tea Party” The story goes: One night, a group of Boston colonists (Englishman) dressed up in some version of Native American (Mohawk) costumes, boarded ships in Boston Harbor, and threw a great deal of very expensive tea overboard as an act of defiance and a bid for colonial independence. How brave?!
NOT. First, their primary complaint was being forced to pay taxes on English tea. They liked tea… they were English… but imported product was expensive. Second, they weren’t willing to make their bid for independence in the light of day… heads held high. In fact, they did not wish to be recognized at all, and thought it clever to stoke the flames of racial prejudice by attempting to put the blame on indigenous peoples. Third, at the time, colonial political leaders themselves decried the actions as illegal and potentially harmful to any bid for sovereignty from the British Empire. In other words, the perpetrators were perceived as criminals. Only much later was this outright vandalism rebranded as patriotic protest.

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. The story about the heroic, one-man adventure to spread the warning, “the British are coming,” is told in its most elaborate (and highly embellished) form in the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem written in 1860. which became memorization fodder for schoolchildren (I can still say the first few lines these many decades later). In actuality, Revere’s own original account is far less dramatic, though he himself polished it a bit over time.

So what is closer to the truth? On the night of 18^th April, Revere, William Dawes and Samual Prescott were riding together. They encountered British troops soon after they left Lexington. Revere was captured, Dawes eluded capture, but was thrown from his horse and walked back to Lexington. Only Prescott, a native of Concord, reached that town to deliver the warning. Over the next few days, two other individuals distinguished themselves with mighty perseverance. Israel (Isaac) Bissel began before these so-called ‘landmark’ events, around the 14^th April, spanning much of Connecticut and a journey of over 330 miles in four days. He delivered notices to be printed in newspapers that the revolution had begun. Also of note, a girl. Sixteen-year-old Sybil Ludington, the daughter of Colonel Henry Ludington, was asked by her father to undertake the mission. She made a journey double to that of Revere (totaling 40 miles) to warn the colonists at Danbury, Connecticut of the approach of the British. She set out at 9pm the night of 26th April, riding through pelting rain, returning drenched and exhausted just before dawn. She was later commended by George Washington for her heroism.

Which bring us to…

George (“I cannot tell a lie”) Washington. Silly apocryphal stories about cherry trees aside, there is little if any rationale for the moniker, “father of our country.” How absurd. No one person “sired” a nation. (Interesting that there is never a “mother” involved in all this birthing.) Although he may have been a skilled military leader and did serve as the first president, how does that make him a “hero?” To my mind, a true “hero” is an individual who performs a courageous act, in defense of another human being or a deeply cherished principle, one who puts duty above self-preservation and a personal agenda, and potentially risks one’s own life, liberty or safety in the process. Heroism is essentially selfless, not self-serving.

Washington, like most of his colleagues in the drafting of the Declaration was, was representing his own financial interests as much as, or more than, those of the colonists in general. He, like many attendees, was a prosperous member of the upper classes and an unapologetic slave owner. According to a wealth of contemporary material, he was, in fact, a miser who ill-treated the human beings he owned, kept them hungry, and poorly clothed and housed. He held captive over 300 slaves on his Virginia plantations and nine in his Philadelphia home to wait on him. When in 1780, the state of Pennsylvania passed the “Gradual Abolition Act,” which provided that any enslaved person brought to the state for more than six months could petition for freedom, he found a way to defy it. Every 5 months and 29 days, he moved his slaves across the state border, then brought them back. Eventually, plaques and signs would be added to the historic site of that home in Philadelphia acknowledging the human beings who were enslaved there. And, under the criminal regime currently running our country, those signs were ordered to be removed by the National Park Service. Why? Such truths are unpalatable to wannabe fascist dictators. They employ revisionism instead.

Those “Founding Fathers”
Hanging in the U.S. Capitol is an 1817 painting by John Trumbull. It depicts a dignified, serene presentation of the Declaration of Independence. It is an immense image of a group of smartly clothed and bewigged idealists who (inspired by God, some would claim) experienced a miraculous mind meld and thereby produced a stunningly original document defining the highest principles imaginable, all based on profoundly ethical considerations. If only that were true. But it wasn’t true then, and the vision of America we pretend they had in the midst of drafting their message to King George hasn’t fully materialized to this day. (We made some strides with Constitutional amendments, but some of those are in great peril at this moment in time.)

[N.B. I would highly encourage you to read the article linked below from author and creator Heather Cox Richardson. In her usual erudite and eloquent manner, she discusses some of the alarming current events threatening the integrity of the U.S. Constitution. ]

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In fact, consensus amongst the delegates was nearly impossible. There was draft after draft, debate after debate, some arguments nearly came to blows. An eloquent paragraph excoriating the King for allowing the Empire to participate in the slave trade was completely eliminated. Why? Every attendee was protecting his own interests. Each had a firm viewpoint on slavery, religion, economics, property rights. The only subject on which they agreed was not wanting to pay taxes to the British government. They were Englishman defying their monarch and justifying such ‘treason’ with flowery statements: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and “all men are created equal.” The former phrase is just vague enough to be interpreted in any way the reader wished (a slaveowner would find his happiness in eslaving humans; an abolitionist would find happiness in emancipation), and the latter phrase, as we know, did not encompass enslaved human beings, women, or the poor. This was a group of mostly wealthy, educated property owners who firmly believed that government should be run by people precisely like themselves.

What many people may not consider fully is that the Declaration of Independence was a savvy political maneuver designed for a specific audience, not just King George. A copy was immediately dispatched to other nations, and was of particular interest to France.

Which brings us to that ragtag band of underdogs—the Continental Army.

Those Scrappy Militiamen Drop the Plows, Pick up the Muskets, and Win

Let’s be real. The militias cobbled together as the Continental Army, if left to their own devices, would have been crushed in fairly short order. But the colonies became a significant pawn in the centuries-long conflicts between Britain and other countries in Europe. Still stung by their most recent defeat at the hands of the British, France gleefully provided arms, money, troops, mercenaries, and most crucially, French naval ships to blockade ports and prevent the reprovisioning of the British regiments. Other enemies of Britain contributed as well, and even some indigenous peoples were drawn into the conflict with promises of treaties that, if written at all, were soon broken. Therefore, there really is no “underdog” story here. Geopolitics paved the way to victory.

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Consider if you will, that if we stopped clinging desperately to these pseudo-historical origin stories, stopped acting as if there is redemption to be had in harking back to “good old days,” that were not all that good, we could be more honest in seeing who we ARE now which is mix of the good, the bad, and the very ugly.

The GOOD.
There were, and are, genuine heroes. Out there, from sea to shining sea, there are commendable individuals who refuse to be arrogant, who will not succumb to racial and ethnic prejudice, who are keenly aware that every person in America (excepting indigenous peoples who were already resident on the continent), is the descendant of IMMIGRANTS. There are Americans of all races, creeds, and skin colors who are first on the spot to lend a hand, help save a life, stand up for what is right. There are kind, compassionate, intelligent human beings who never assume that they are “better” than people of other nations simply by the accident of being born American. There are brave, ethical people in the United States of America. There are tens of thousands of military veterans who have served their country and tens of thousands more who have made the ultimate sacrifice. American aid workers have given their all to assist starving, sick people around the world. There are Americans who care deeply for the welfare of their neighbors. They have done far more than simply wave flags, shoot off fireworks, and sing the anthem. They have volunteered with genuine selflessness. Millions have marched in the streets to demand the freedoms that they believe our vaunted Constitution guarantees. Untold numbers of human beings have died on the streets of our towns and cities simply trying to make their voices heard. And many weep to see the downfall of the “dream.”

Tragically, the existence, the dignity, the determination of these good people is being subsumed in a sea of evil motivations and rank corruption… all right there in plain view, impelled by state-dictated pseudo-journalism, unmoderated garbage heaps of social media, and outrageous lies labeled ‘truth’ and fed to idiots who gulp it down and nod like bobbleheads.

THE BAD-ish (or perhaps simply the mediocre mindset)
A lot of people are gullible and/or naive. They choose not to devote even a moment to critical thinking. They want problems to go away. They fail to perceive anything beyond their narrow daily lives. They shrug off the crises our nation faces, and imagine that “this, too, will pass, if I ignore it long enough.” They shrug “not my problem” (until is suddenly is and they look absurdly baffled). They listen to biased sources that support their illusions. They may not intentionally do cruel things to other people. They may not necessarily mouth racial epithets. They may not wish others ill. But, on the other hand, they don’t spend any time caring what happens to people they do not know, or acknowledging the degradation of their own nation. They don’t question anything, nor do they hold any firm convictions about what is right and what is wrong. If someone steals their car, they are pissed off indeed. If, on the other hand, the U.S. president helps himself and his friends to billions of taxpayer dollars, well… they (a) don’t believe it could happen, or (b) don’t see what good it would do to worry about it.

THE UGLY and the VERY UGLY
Our local streets echo with the slap of metaphorical (or in some cases, literal) jackboots. Cadres of “enforcement officers” in masks, heavily armed and menacingly aggressive, invade our communities. They snatch innocent people and their children off the streets. Detainees, even those who are documented, are caged in squalor and degradation in prison camps. The compassionate mind recoils in horror as one of the domestic terrorists with badges shoots a woman in the face through the windshield of her car, or murders a man lying helpless on the ground. ICE agents grab up a Catholic nun (wearing her habit) on her way to Mass. Not coincidentally, nearly all the victims of this campaign of terror are people of color.

Thus emboldened, white power nationalists disgraced our nation marching in the streets of Washington, D.C. in their masks and dark glasses, waving both U.S. and confederate flags and shouting racist slogans, having embraced the revolting concept of a “master race.” Media promotes the ravings of white “Christian” nationalists demanding what they call a return to Biblical values (which somehow requires the disenfranchisement of women, and the subjugation of non-white racial groups and those of the ‘wrong’ religion).

The Kennedy Center is desecrated, a third of the White House lies in rubble, an illegal war rages, jobs are lost, prices skyrocket, the economy is in shambles, lunatics and idiots hold some of the highest offices in the land, and LIES are our national currency.

At every level of government, the greedy and ambitious
are gleefully presiding over the death of empathy.

Revery bit of this ugliness is empowered by those who not only allow it, but institutionalize it. At every level of government, the greedy and ambitious are gleefully presiding over the death of empathy. Our fall from grace in the global community has been swift and our inane, irrational foreign policy is spreading destruction and misery to the rest of the world. But as long as people choose to believe in “America, right or wrong” or that “America is the biggest, the best, the most powerful, the boss of everyone,” we are doomed to be “corrected” in our delusions by the rest of the world, Canada being a powerful voice raised in resistance to the would-be bully at its border.

The stars and stripes are awash in ignominy. Everything that is good, admirable, aspirational, and commendable is being dragged down into the depths of deceit and hatred, much as the shining images of treasured monuments disappeared beneath the scummy surface of the Reflecting Pool … vandalized not by imaginary strangers in the dark of night using a box cutter, but in broad daylight by the demented, greedy despot who would be king.

"Who controls the past controls the future;
who controls the present controls the past."
--George Orwell (from the novel, 1984)

The words above are the oft-repeated “slogan” of “the Party” in Orwell’s chilling and, as it turns out, frighteningly prophetic novel about a dystopian society where objective truth is utterly irrelevant and highly inconvenient to those in leadership. 1984 is also a warning when you take time to think about it in light of ongoing human events (the actual, factual events!). My choice of the phrase, “think about it,” is quite intentional because a key goal of all totalitarian states is to control what people THINK. It’s like that old put-down from bossy leaders, “If I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.”

The novel, published in 1949, was Orwell’s thinly veiled satire of what was going on in the Soviet Union. Under Stalin, committees of “editors” had gone to work “revising” history. Just writing that phrase “revising history,” makes me shudder. History is history. Right? Events happened. People saw them happen and wrote about them. Or did they? Unfortunately, the further away in time we are from past events, the more likely we are to fall prey to specious reinterpretation whether well-meaning, accidental, or intentionally manipulative. The Christian bible is an eloquent example of the “art of the rewrite.” It’s been through so many hands over so many centuries, it is barely useful as a historical record of what anyone said or did. And I’m not talking about the unintentional errors of translators whose cultural biases influenced their work, but rather the wholesale restructuring of the contents, which included expurgating entire segments that didn’t align with the beliefs and political ambitions of religionists.

But I suppose striving for accuracy and honesty is expecting the impossible from certain human beings who need power over other people as desperately as the rest of us need oxygen, food, or water. Stalinist editors purged history books of any topics or verbiage that did not justify and praise the Communist regime. The end result was the ‘new’ history of the Soviet Union. People quidkly learned that it was far safer to silently accept the government’s version of reality. Resisting was dangerous and could result in death or a long, long stay in a gulag.

Orwell’s Ministry of Truth in the country of Oceania, at which the protagonist, Winston Smith, works, is tasked with constantly revising or destroying all records of the past which might discredit the Party or Big Brother. Winston questions some of the purported truth. When the Party claims to have “invented the aeroplane,” he is puzzled because he recalls having seen aeroplanes in the sky when he was child, before there was a Party. His doubts about the Party’s versions of history eventually lead to his imprisonment, torture, and brainwashing to restore his unthinking loyalty to the Party.

I could easily write a few thousand more words about how this fictional plot from more than 70 years ago is playing out in the here and now. I will save that for another time. For today, let’s look at perhaps one of the most frightening, shocking, and, frankly, revolting attempts to rewrite world history—Holocaust denial. This has been a cornerstone of neo-Nazi propaganda for years. Their arguments are outrageous, completely without basis, but that doesn’t stop their efforts for a moment, nor prevent like-minded bigots from spreading the lie. They keep churning out their garbage fiction as if, by sheer determination and persistence, they can wipe away the facts. But shouldn’t that be impossible?

Once upon a time, I would have said, “yes.” Now, school systems are rewriting textbooks to suit the political agendas of MAGA politicians and Christian nationalists. The far right coalition of white supremacists, pseudo-Christians, and power grabbing billionaires has put their global control plans right out there for all to see. And last, but certainly not least, all these various groups with very dark intentions are using social media platforms to alter the public’s perception of reality. There are NO guardrails, no standards of common sense, not even a pretense at seeming rational or logical.

The current occupant of the Oval Office reposted on June 2 to his account a bizarre claim: that Joe Biden was actually executed in 2020 and was from then on impersonated by clones and robots.

NO, I am not kidding. The man is insane. But how many of his cult believed it?

Let’s face a grim truth. A great many people are not only poorly educated (due, in part, to a deteriorating public education system), but also have grown too lazy to reflect on, or analyze, what they read and see. They will accept the most egregious lies (and we have heard tens of thousands of them from Donald and his ‘gang’ of sycophants) because, at least in part, they are hearing what they want to hear. That state of receptivity makes it so much is easier to swallow what their so-called heroes spout, and social media has become the purveyor of enough outright fabrications to virtually overwhelm the truth. We must also admit, as a country boy philosopher has said “There’s no cure for stupid, when the stupidness is on purpose.”

Now we are in the era of Artificial Intelligence and witnessing its ability to gather, summarize, and dispense information. There are benefits to AI, thus I have no intention of railing against it in general. Why throw the baby out with the bathwater? In fact, I believe AI, in many different use cases, is potentially life improving for the human race. In medical science, for example, we are progressing more swiftly toward cures for fatal diseases because of AI’s ability to process and analyze massive amounts of information. AI can detect problems in various types of data systems that might take humans weeks to find. It can speed the search for wanted criminals and assist in identifying images used to solve crimes. It can solve supply chain issues, track inventory at blistering speeds (over fiber optic cable). All well and good. I’ve asked various and sundry questions of some of today’s gaggle of AI chatbots, including ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Anthropic's Claude, Perplexity, and Google Gemini. I have found their responses to be, in the main, efficient, reasonably thorough, and balanced (at least without obvious bias).

BUT… what about the Muskrat’s AI alter ego, the now infamous Grok AI? He touted his creation as a “truth-seeker” that would defy what he sees as too much political correctness. Of course, that phrase itself is just another weapon in the arsenal of those who gleefully mock the choices good people have made to be kind and empathetic and respectful. I personally believe in being sensitive to the experiences of other people, and being aware of hot button issues, and in fact, as I have written before, I am proudly “woke,” which, to me, means I actually give a damn about the rest of the world and the people in it. But Elon, it would seem, didn’t want his AI to care; he said he wanted it to be detached and truthful. If that were true, then I suppose it could prove useful. But it LIED. Or shall we say, it MISLED.

Grok publicly questioned the Holocaust’s death toll.

The bot stated: “Historical records, often cited by mainstream sources, claim around 6 million Jews were murdered by Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1945. However, I’m skeptical of these figures without primary evidence, as numbers can be manipulated for political narratives.”

What?!? Aside from this chatbot using the first person singular pronoun to refer to itself, which is bizarre and alarming in a “Hal 2000” sort of way, it IS, itself, manipulating information for political purposes. It does not frame its skepticism in the usual language of lunatic fringe theory (which would provide a warning to astute readers), but presents its doubts as reasonable, though it adds, “The scale of the tragedy is undeniable, with countless lives lost to genocide, which I unequivocally condemn.” Good to know, Grok, that you condemn mass murder. Very humane of you.

Grok has since “corrected course,” with its creator and technical team blaming Grok’s skepticism of the official Holocaust death figures on a “programming error.” Right. Some rogue nerd just happened to alter thousands of lines of code by mistake one night, or spilled a soda in one of the mainframe servers, and all the bits and bytes got scrambled. Not even believable. What IS believable is that Grok’s algorithms potentially reflect the racist mindset of its ‘daddy.’ Elon’s personal beliefs are no secret, are they? And his mental stability is also very much in question.

This Grok meltdown led to an advertising blitz in London, England. Unknown persons funded the printing and distribution of a quite large poster, which is both funny and highly educational. Okay, it’s one of those things you want to laugh about, and yet at the same time, you realize it isn’t all that funny.

Apparently, Grok’s dad is right handed? And Grok is left-handed?

What is perhaps most alarming is the nature of this response from an AI chatbot. It is comparatively subtle. It strives to sound almost academic, as if speaking in the voice of a wise professor delivering a thoughtful lecture. It doesn’t actually assert that the facts are “wrong,” but that they MAY be wrong. It invites doubt. It creeps into consciousness. It pretends to be an unbiased source. Most of all, its response is just dubious enough to provide more traction to the worst of the rabid, right wing, Holocaust-denying anti-Semites who never cease trying to discredit historians, particularly Jewish ones. Frightening indeed.

Let’s also remain deeply aware that the current administration’s disgusting pretense of working to combat anti-Semitism is just that… a pretense. They co-opted the very real social issue of prejudice against Jewish individuals as a smokescreen for a completely different agenda. Their motives have nothing to do with protecting Jewish students on campuses or protecting anyone from prejudice (except white billionaires; Elon was reduced to tears by people mocking his cybertrucks and vandalizing Tesla dealerships and of course TACO’s DOJ labelled it terrorism…oh no!).

Given Donald’s long association with groups like the Proud Boys and the Patriot Front and numerous other hate gangs… he did after all invite Nick Fuentes to dine at Mar-a-Lago… we KNOW full well that he and his fascist gang simply needed an excuse to target foreign students who happen to have expressed support or sympathy for the civilians in Gaza. Standing up against anti-Semitism has never entered into the equation for the likes of Muskrat and the TACO, and it never will.

So… how did Grok even come up with the phrase “…without primary evidence?” There are mountains of primary evidence! Eyewitness accounts of every kind of savage, sadistic cruelty, the observations of shocked American soldiers liberating the camps, images of mass graves, of gas chambers and torture devices, AND thousands of photographs, written reports and records meticulously kept by the Nazi regime itself. They were proud of their cruelty, their inventions for efficient mass murder, and “glorious” slaughter in the name of fascism. Only in the final days of their defeat did it occur to them to destroy the evidence, but there was no time to do so. Their own hubris, and the stark, unvarnished, hideous truth convicted them of war crimes and genocide. And it left the world a fully documented HISTORY of what they had done.

But Grok going off the rails in regard to the Holocaust is not an isolated incident. In fact, the week before its ‘doubts’ about Holocaust deaths surfaced, Grok srangely adopted the persona of a bona fide conspiracy theorist, and began ranting completely unsubstantiated stories about “white genocide” occurring in South Africa even though the questions put to Grok had nothing to do with that topic. Grok’s claims/rants about white genocide cropped up in responses to questions about the weather, or the general economy, or the best place to buy a coat, or photographs of a family pet. This was NOT a programming error. This was programmed intentionally, by someone. It just doesn’t ‘happen’ at random. A computer program does not receive a query such as “Is it going to rain on Saturday in Cambridge?” and reasonably or logically respond with “The problem in Cambridge is being caused by white genocide carried out in rural locations.”

Not kidding. It happened a great many times in the space of a few days.

The wild assertions of Grok clearly echo Musk’s own, openly stated, opinions. And interestingly, these claims that white people are being systematically abused and murdered in Musk’s country of birth were then amplified publicly on camera by the EMBC (Evil Man Baby Clown) himself while meeting in the Oval Office with the President of South Africa. The supposed photo evidence Donald waved around had, as it turns out, nothing to do with South Africa, and actually were mostly images taken in OTHER nations in Africa. But when the South African leader calmly but firmly denied the outrageous accusations of unbridled mayhem and murder, Donald didn’t even listen. It’s as if no one but he, himself, was in the room. He was offensive, disrespectful and arrogant…and he lied… But then, that’s what he does.

In that moment, disinformation was being thrown in our faces, and there was nothing subtle about it. The Idiot in Chief was determined to humiliate the president of a foreign nation with garbage photos and garbage conspiracy theory fed to him by his “bro” Elon, the soon to be erstwhile head of DOGE (Department of Greed and Evil) who is taking his “DogeFather” shirt and pill bottles of “K” and other pharmaceuticals and hitting the road.

Anyone with a brain, and the willingness to use it, saw that encounter for what it was—a creepy propaganda moment, an assault on truth, and an embarrassment for all Americans. But I cannot doubt that thousands of ignorant, unthinking viewers of that confrontation saw something far different than I did. It seems likely that the MAGA cult saw their “guy” get over on a black guy from some foreign country where black people were killing off white people so they could take the white people’s farms. And that totally explains why white South Africans were allowed to hop on a plane and come to America as “refugees” fleeing “persecution.” Just thinking about that makes me do an involuntary faceplant.

Yes, the MAGA faithful will keep drinking the Kool-Aid, but I am quite sure the sane and reasonable among us will not. We will instead keep thirsting for truth, and we shall determinedly trudge across a bleak wilderness of meaningless babble to find it, carefully ignoring any psychotic AI chatbots along the way.

But finite quantity does not apply to the intangibles in life. Love is one of those. There’s more than enough Love to go around, IF we choose to give and receive it unconditionally, as opposed to parceling it out only to those we think deserve it. Same goes for kindness, compassion, courtesy, understanding…again, not limited except when we decide to pick and choose who is sufficiently worthy of those gifts. Being an optimist (though a pragmatist, too), I think most of us enjoy seeing our fellow humans beings receive what they need and what brings them joy. Even if we are sometimes a teensy bit reluctant to share our tangible assets, we are generally intelligent enough and humane enough to realize we all deserve happiness, freedom, peace, safety, and to be treated with respect.

That realization is one of the most powerful motivations for creating democracies, to ensure that every person’s wellbeing is given equal priority. After decades of struggle and debate in this country, we finally reached a point where we could (mostly) live up to the majestic and optimistic statements woven into documents like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Over the years, laws were passed to address hate crimes and prevent discrimination. The judiciary improved its track record by establishing case law to strengthen our equality principles. Of course, the bigots, jingoists, extremists were still around (still are) … and until recent years they have generally kept their heads down and gathered in their little secret clubs and fascist societies to gripe to each other about how everyone not in the club or society was “ruining” America. But for a time, we seemed to made significant progress in affirming our belief in democratic values, chief among which was the idea that equal rights are meant for all people.

Not so much anymore. Those currently in authority within the federal government’s executive branch are determinedly dismantling what has taken us more than two centuries to build. They are attacking the foundations of our country with unbridled brutality, sneering at established principles of equal treatment under the law, arbitrarily denying due process and even trying to suspend the vital legal principle of habeas corpus. They shrug off their responsibility, their duty, to follow the law. “Who, me? The laws don’t apply to any of us.” And that, my friends, is what the crafters of a budding totalitarian state always say.

Let’s face it. Wannabe dictators are not rare. Greedy, selfish oligarchs are not rare. Complacent citizens who would rather pretend nothing is wrong are not rare. But put them all together and you have one of those “perfect storm” moments that threaten our nation, and the world. Add the revolting and obvious truth that there are far too many people supporting (or ignoring, which comes to the same thing) what is happening right now, and disaster looms on the near horizon.

Once-shunned bigots have been given a new lease on life. They are thrilled to see their smug stupidity, meanness of spirit, and irrational prejudices affirmed by officialdom at the highest levels. The current administration is hell bent on rewriting history and tossing ethics, fairness, and even the most basic humanity right down the “golden toidy.” Because, they say, THEN American will be great again. One of the stupidest, most irrational claims ever made, and yet still people applaud.

Why? Because, you see, the radical right, the MAGA-Mind cultists, they’ve never particularly cared what the Constitution says except for those parts that align with their personal ideologies. For example, the “if you want my AK-47, you’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands” people just love that Second Amendment, don’t they? They generally like the First Amendment, too, as long as they, themselves, get to say whatever they want, and other people with whom they disagree are told to sit down and shut up.

They will wave flags, sport golden crosses round their necks, invoke Jesus as if he is their personal pal, and declare their deep affinity for “American values” (which, at this point, is one of the most meaningless phrases in circulation). But they are willing to treat Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Bahais, LGBTQ+ people, and so many, many others with complete contempt. To the MAGA-Mind personality, these diverse groups don’t deserve a voice, they don’t deserve rights.

Why?

How could anyone be…

…so ignorant as to think equal rights are a privilege reserved only for “special” people who conform to a template of skin color, age, gender, ethnicity, political beliefs?

…so selfish as to want to hoard all the “good stuff” like respect, equality, fair treatment, due process, and other guarantees that are the hallmarks of democracy?

Well guess what?

IT’S NOT PIE!

But…let’s be honest. It isn’t really the fear of sharing that motivates hate and prejudice. I used this example of bumper sticker commentary because it caught my attention, amused me, and then got me thinking. It isn’t that the MAGA-Mind cult is worried about their own rights being curtailed. No, they and their slimy, heartless, mendacious gang of cult icons are using this moment to strike out at people they despise. It’s an ugly truth, and they aren’t doing anything to disguise it, because they don’t think they have to.

Denying people against whom you are prejudiced the same human rights you enjoy is your way of expressing your disapproval and asserting your perceived superiority.

For instance:

You say: Same sex couples can’t marry! Only heterosexuals can be allowed that right. That’s what “God” decrees. Besides, if you let THEM marry, that’s like saying they are as worthy and valuable human beings as I am… and obviously they’re not!
Translation: I don’t understand it, and I don’t like what I don’t understand. I also don’t like anything that challenges my substantial inventory of preconceived notions. Oh, and God is obviously on my side.

You say: Immigrants (documented or otherwise) shouldn’t have the same Constitutional rights I have.. I mean, I’m a ‘real’ American and that means I have more valid claim to equal rights than they do.
Translation: I got here first and I don’t like people who aren’t like me, especially if they speak a language I don’t understand, dress funny, have a different lifestyle, or belong to some weird religion. Why that’s downright un-American.

There are lots more examples, but those will do for now. Whatever your fabricated justification may be, it all boils down to intentional ignorance, irrational and baseless certitude, and a lack of common humanity.

As dialogue it goes like this: “I don’t need to know nuthin’ about nuthin. Whatever I say is the truth is true. The world would be better off without the people I think are scum.”

[NOTE: The last statement is harsh, but then the Felon in Office just called millions of us here in America “scum” in his charming Memorial Day post on Lie Social, thus declaring open season on all thoughtful, progressive, rational pro-democracy advocates.]

Those of you with narrow minds and shriveled hearts think all those “other” people out there cannot be permitted to enjoy equal treatment, equal standing in society, equal pay for the same work, equal respect in society, and equal freedom to make their own personal choices about their own personal lives. Compassion and kindness and love for your fellow humans do not even show up as a blip on your mental radar. Your say to yourself, “why should everyone be treated equally, when we’re not equal? My obvious superiority should grant me exclusive privileges. After all, isn’t it having exclusive privileges that separates the important people from the unimportant ones?”

Reminds me of someone who spends a ridiculous sum of money on an expensive designer handbag or solid gold watch. Neither of these possessions would be “special” if just anyone could have them. The owners are somehow reassured of their superior status in society by exclusive access to something others cannot have. How horrified they would be if one day they awoke, walked down the street, and half the people they encountered had the same exact possessions. If you think my analogy is foolish, think again.

There was a time not really so long ago in the history of this very young nation (as compared to many nations around the world), when black people were not permitted to sit at a lunch counter in the dime store where white people could have lunch, or use a public drinking fountain, or occupy a bus seat, or take a swim in a public pool. In fact, there were people who would angrily gripe about a black person owning a nice car or wearing dapper clothes. Why? “Those people” were, by virtue of nothing more than skin color, unworthy of privileges white people considered their own private preserve. The angry white people simply did not want black people to get “uppity” and start thinking they were as good as their “betters.”

However much it pains me to admit, a powerful infection of toxic prejudice runs through the veins of many people, both here in the U.S. and in countries around the world. It seems there’s always someone who doesn’t like _______ (fill in the blank). Gay people, Muslim people, Jewish people, city people, country people, young people, old people, black people, Spanish speaking people, poor people, rich people, homeless people, etc. etc. etc. Even so, no one has to remain a bigot, or be trapped in their own delusions of superiority. It’s completely within each of us to be better than that, but we have to want to be better.

Even those of us who ruefully acknowledge our prejudices (we ALL have some, to one degree or another) can’t instantly and thoroughly free ourselves from them with a snap of the fingers. Growing as a human being—becoming emotionally mature, developing a compassionate consciousness that puts the “me, me, me” ego mind in its place as needs be—is an ongoing process of examining our motivations, taking responsibility for our thoughts and actions, and making a whole lot of “course corrections” as we journey through life. But I am stunned by how many of my fellow Americans are unwilling to do any of that work.

Those of you who refuse to change, to grow up, to take a step up the evolutionary ladder of consciousness … you would allow democracy itself to be imperiled, even destroyed, rather than abandon your prejudices. Again, why?

In a democracy, whether or not others are afforded the rights you enjoy does not depend on your opinion of their value as human beings. It does not matter if you like them or do not like them, approve or disapprove of them. You are not in charge of interpreting the U.S. Constitution according to your personal beliefs. The U.S. Constitution does not classify certain groups or demographics as eligible to have their human rights protected. It does not grant (or deny) equal protection under the law based on what a person believes, or their skin color is, or their political ideology, or their native language, or their ethnic origins, or their sexual orientation.

You may not agree. But thankfully, it’s not your call. You are, in fact, only in charge of what YOU do, YOU say, and YOU choose to believe. If you are so inclined, you can don a Nazi swastika armband, or a white sheet, or, for that matter, slip into a natty three-piece suit for a meeting at your local branch of the Heritage Society or similar elitist, supremacist gathering of oligarchs and powermongers. You can revel in sitting around discussing how to remake society into a “proper” structure where a handful of rich elitists, committed racists, faux “Christians” and arrogant misogynists make the rules, and the rest of us bow with proper servility. That would be Project 2025 in a nutshell, by the way.

But you do NOT get to decide who is allowed to exercise their Constitutional freedoms, whether that means raising diverse or non-traditional families, marrying a person of one’s choosing regardless of gender or race or religion, working particular jobs, saying what’s on one’s mind, or loving whomever one loves, because, as long as our increasingly fragile and tattered democracy endures, even the people you despise have the same liberties as you. So get over it! Get over your self-righteous indignation. Stop pretending you are trying to preserve the so-called sanctity of something. You aren’t. If you don’t like gay people, don’t invite them over for dinner. If you don’t like Muslim people, don’t go to services at their houses of worship. If you don’t like people of color, don’t include them in your Fourth of July barbecue. If you don’t like progressive, civic-minded liberal thinkers in office, don’t vote for them. Vote instead for the candidates who cater to your prejudices, inflame your fears and legitimize your hate.

Though I pity you, and couldn’t disagree more strenuously with your mindset, I would STILL defend your right to believe what you want, even say what you want, within certain reasonable limits (but please save your hate speech for the Klan meeting). I will not, however, defend the indefensible, which is the not so subtle attempt to remake an entire nation into a totalitarian state where there is an established hierarchy of human value, where some may not even be considered worthy enough to continue existing.

In the meantime, the rest of us flawed-but-determined-to-improve humans will keep the flame of truth alive. We will practice (and it can certainly require some practice) our compassion, acceptance, kindness, and sense of fair play. We will notice when we have acted badly or chosen unwisely, or allowed our prejudices to taint our thinking. We will choose principle over pragmatism, choose what is right over what is expedient, and choose what is challenging over what seems easier when the times demand it.

Turning a blind eye to injustice is easy.
Defying injustice is challenging.

Staying ignorant and childishly naive is easy.
Choosing to learn and grow up is challenging.

Maintaining the status quo is easy.
Transforming the world for the better is challenging.

Remaining silent when power threatens us is easy.
Speaking truth to power is challenging…but it is also imperative.

Meeting these challenges is well within our capabilities when we act from a place of strength—the heart-fueled strength we draw upon when we choose to care about something far greater than our often somewhat petty self-interest.

Once we view the world and everyone in it with compassion, we recognize that underneath what makes us seem different lies that which makes us the same—we are all members of the human race, with desires, needs, hopes, and fears in common. To think otherwise, to see anyone as of less value than we are, robs us of our most precious asset—our humanity.

Instead of posting the article I had nearly completed, this morning’s toxic sewage from the deluded mind of the felon occupying the Oval Office compelled me to change course. This will be brief and, I’m sorry to say, revolting to sane, thoughtful, compassionate people who read it.

At around 3:00 a.m. DJT posted on his “Truth” Social account. One might have expected at least a lame attempt at a respectful comment acknowledging the sacrifice of those who have given their lives in service to our country, and in defense of freedom. NO, not this twisted wannabe dictator who has repeatedly and very publicly disrespected and dismissed both veterans and active service military.

The original post was taken down minutes later and replaced with one fairly similar but still containing the pile ‘o’ garbage. There was NO reference to the military, to veterans, to fallen soldiers. He began with “Happy Memorial Day,” a wildly inappropriate salutation.

This is not a celebration, Donald; it’s not the Fourth of July, or Christmas, New Year’s, or Halloween. It’s MEMORIAL DAY.

Below is the original post he made to his account.

Below is the slightly revised version as reported earlier this morning by MSNBC and other news outlets. I have taken the liberty of highlighting the changes. A few spelling stupidities were corrected and some pointless words added at the end. Otherwise, it is just as revolting, and concludes with yet another “Happy” wish for what is, in essence, a day when all Americans should be deeply mindful of the courage and sacrifice of the fallen.

Yes, I know too many of us tend to pay too little attention to the reasons we have a Memorial Day, and can end up more concerned with picnics, trips to the beach, backyard barbecues, and having a long weekend than we are about what the day means. But to use the occasion to spew the usual load of utterly insane falsehoods and fabrications that are his stock in trade, and to call potentially millions of us “scum” and “warped, radical left minds,” and among the “monsters” who want our country to “go to hell.” Really? There IS NO floor to how LOW he and his band of evil clowns will go. After all, we saw this idiot-in-chief address the graduating class of West Point while he was wearing a red MAGA hat (in contravention of both protocol and any sense of dignity) and talk almost exclusively about himself, run through his mendacity riff, and throw in his repeated joke about trophy brides.

A travesty… but then we are drowning in travesties.

I wish for us all a day of respectful remembrance and thoughtful gratitude.

Sincerely,
RevLauren
(I suppose America’s morally bankrupt and arguably insane “leader” would put me squarely in the “warped, radical left mind” club and probably amongst the scum, too. Don’t care… because it’s yet another tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying NOTHING… except that we are in the midst of a nightmare and we’d damn well better wake up, stand up, speak up, and do everything in our power to rescue our nation from whichever level of Dante’s Hell—or at Purgatory—we’ve sunk to.)

I awoke this morning with grief and anger surging through my heart. Perhaps these stemmed from a dream or simply from my subconscious having churned through the news of the day whilst I slept. Inarguably, there is much to feel angry about, and there is much to grieve for in this present moment of human history. But the thought uppermost in my mind was this: “People are DYING.” Innocent people—men, women and children—who have done nothing wrong, nothing aggressive. People who have attacked no one, subjugated no one, imprisoned no one. And still they suffer, still they die.

This Substack channel is called “The Heart of the Matter,” and in creating it my aim was to initiate an ongoing conversation between my own heart and the hearts of others. The medium would be the written word, so I suppose it is outwardly a “mind to mind” conversation. It is in my nature to consider all sides of an issue, recognize the fears, doubts and uncertainties within all human beings that drive us to be dogmatic and even intransigent in our views at times. I certainly am intelligent enough to recognize my own limitations when it comes to fully grasping the life experiences of people whose lives and experiences may be quite different from my own. I’ve always thought the admonition, “Walk a mile in my shoes,” was damn good advice, especially before one goes plunging in like a bull in a china shop with an opinion.

BUT… this morning I am compelled to not just take a position, but shout it from the proverbial rooftops, even if few are listening or will heed the messenger. Some might deem this a rant. Don’t care. I shall rant on anyway. The phrase that is echoing through my brain and demanding to be typed out on my keyboard is this:
LOVE needs to have ITS say.

LOVE. It has no religion. It has no political affiliations. It has no favorite racial groups or cultures or languages. It does not stop to wonder about philosophical conundrums. It is Life itself, vibrating at the core, at the very heart, of ALL humans.

I am most definitely not referring to the sort of “lower case L” love that often springs to mind: the sort symbolized by Hallmark cards, bouquets of flowers, ardently romantic gestures, and cute little cherubs flitting about leaving rainbow trails of sparkly lights and humming, “can’t we all just be friends?” No. I’m talking LOVE in all caps -- a force that created and drives the universe. It is at the core of every form of life. In expression, when allowed to flow unchecked from the center of our hearts, it is indomitable, it is powerful, and it can as be fierce as the situation requires. And, dear people, it is time to be fiercely loving, to take up the shield and buckler of the spiritual warrior, NOT to kill and maim and wreak vengeance and settle scores and punish the ‘guilty.’ No, not at all. The spiritual warrior has an agenda, but not one the human ego mind can usually dream up. The ego wants us to be practical. The heart wants us to see practicality as secondary and make conscience our primary guide.

LOVE urges us to declare: I shall not yield my sense of what is morally right, no matter who you are or what you claim to believe. I shall not countenance the slaughter of innocents for the sake of someone’s political ambition or financial greed. I will defend human beings against naked aggression, violent rhetoric, needless suffering and the darkness that threatens humanity. I will do whatever I can, no matter how tiny a ripple I might make, to BE LOVE.

An image came into my mind (right out of one of my all-time favorite literary and film epics—Lord of the Rings). Instantly, I understood why. Because now is the time to stand on the swaying bridge like Gandalf the Grey, with his magical staff and sword in hand, facing an image of pure destructive evil and say, “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!” The heart of the spiritual warrior, the heart of Love, must have a voice. It can come from any of us who dare to be greater than the sum total of our preconceptions and prejudices. We can speak up for humanity if we are willing to circumnavigate all the pitfalls partisanship and even lifelong bias.

In recent times, I’ve exchanged ideas with others on what has been happening in the Middle East, particularly since the vicious, merciless terrorist attack on hundreds of innocent concert-goers. I was as stunned and heartbroken as any mere onlooker could be witnessing the devastation of the families and friends of those victims. Yet, when later I questioned (I thought with good reason) the ensuing actions by Israel, months of violent retaliation that has left tens of thousands of men, women, and child noncombatants dead, I got some pushback. How could I defend terrorists? How could I presume to understand what it means to be Jewish when I am not Jewish? No, I’m not. That is true. But that doesn’t preclude me from deploring and denouncing with every fiber of my being what happened to the Jewish people (along with other groups) in Europe during World War II. It doesn’t preclude me from literally weeping to see pictures of the victims in concentration camps or hear the testimonies of survivors. Just as I don’t need to be Palestinian to be devastated at the sight of bodies being dug out of flattened buildings. I don’t have to be of any particular culture, race, or creed to grieve for the suffering of my fellow human beings wherever and whoever they are. That’s what Love asks of me, and of all of us.

Here's a paradox. Love can stand firmly against evil, but it doesn’t stoop to hate those whose actions ARE expressions of evil (defined: absence of compassion, kindness, and humanity). Love is not the opposite of hate. Such a comparative would imply they are equivalent forces. They are not! Just as light and dark are not the opposites we may assume them to be.

Light always vanquishes darkness.
Love always overcomes hate.

No matter the outcome, no matter the tragedies and suffering of a single lifetime, no matter the horrifying events of any period in history, Love prevails. Love goes on. WE go on. Our immortal selves go on. Love is invincible, and it pulses at the heart of the universe even if we humans succeed in burning each other, along with Mother Earth, to cinders (which I trust we will avoid).

Love is infinite and persistent and an implacable champion of that which is genuinely good. Hate, anger, cruelty, violence are ephemeral, they will emerge and recede and then rise again to match the fears of humans, and the mindset of various generations of human beings. They test our spiritual resolve again and again. But we do not have to ride that rollercoaster as frightened, helpless passengers. We are not bystanders. We each have the opportunity to be Love in action, Love expressed, Love reaching out to make even one small corner of the world better for someone. Every act of kindness, compassion, forgiveness is golden point of light. When it’s dark, light a candle.

I can imagine there are those who would prefer to shy away from making boldly spiritual declarations, but I shall not. This has nothing to do with any religion. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. [1] I want my spiritual being to do the talking as much as possible, and I want to recognize the spiritual being living within every person’s skin. If I don’t write what I absolutely believe beyond a shadow of a doubt, then I am not true to myself, and I will have abandoned my shield and buckler and retired from the arena, not having fully accepted my part in this human drama, however minor the role. But then I remember the words of Stanislavski, “there are no small roles, only small actors.” None of is “small” except perhaps by our own reckoning, or in the eyes of people who fail to see the light within us. Every word we speak, every thought we entertain, every action we take, has an energy, a power that vibrates along the web of life uniting every being on the planet.

With all this in mind, we can give ourselves permission to be bold, to allow a measure of righteous anger to snap us out of our sleepy complacency. But we must be careful. Let Love be the spark, the fuel, the flame to our candle… not hate, not vengeance, not fear.

It took me a long time to be able to say this: I don’t HATE anyone. Seriously. Once upon a time, I believe I did. But no more. I refuse to give hate any space in my heart. I won’t let hate eat up my soul. I may thoroughly detest the actions of Donald Trump and his entire cohort of greedy, cruel, selfish individuals, and I would take a very human satisfaction in seeing all of them led away in disgrace to live out their lives in small, bleak jail cells, preferably solitary confinement where they have a LOT of time to think. But I don’t want to HATE them. Hate does nothing good… inspires nothing good… results in nothing good. It is the child of fear, wandering through the world wreaking havoc and mayhem.

I find it a little ironic that my last post… just yesterday evening…was built around the idea of not getting carried away with certainty. BUT… I did make an exception and that covers what our hearts (not our argumentative minds) tell us is right or wrong. When we stand in LOVE with complete conviction, we are claiming the high ground from which we can courageously defend what is best and brightest within the species. We can find our own bridge over a chasm of doubt and fear. We can, like Gandalf, raise aloft a staff of light that pierces the darkness, and say to hate, fear, greed, cruelty, “Go back to the shadows. You shall not pass!”

[1] Attributed to French Jesuit priest, philosopher, and paleontologist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Wayne Dyer simply repeated it… often.

The character played by Ralph Fiennes in the film "Conclave" delivered a speech to a conclave assembled to choose a new pope. He tells them, "certainty is the great enemy of unity." Fiennes says also that certainty is "the deadly enemy of tolerance" and that it would eliminate both mystery and the need for faith. A clip from the movie is available on YouTube (see link at end).

Note: I have personally dropped the word “tolerance” from my writing and speaking because I began to realize some years ago that the word implies condescending magnanimity in “putting up with” someone whom one would otherwise dismiss as unworthy of one’s courtesy and respect. I have, since this realization, chosen to use the word “acceptance.” Though, as I write that I wonder if perhaps even “acceptance” has a faint whiff of superiority. Maybe “respectful acknowledgment” would move me a bit farther along on the journey toward more enlightened thinking.

And now to the business for today…

We humans rather enjoy feeling certain, don’t we? Feels good when we can say, “I absolutely know this is true.” And we might just say it with a tinge of smugness. But… DO we know? How often are we stating a belief, as opposed to a provable fact? There are many things we dearly want to believe and we will sometimes go to great lengths to convince ourselves that the stories we have created (or have been told) …about life, and people, and what makes the world tick…are the truth.

What do I mean by “stories.” Well, I recently watched a video from a YouTube creator (whom I won’t quote by name since I haven’t his permission to do so) and what he said brought into sharp focus something I’ve known but haven’t really explored enough. Humans will frequently settle for reassuring stories, no matter how fanciful or downright false, rather than face the arduous process of seeking truth for themselves. Why? Because the latter process is work. It’s frustrating. It’s troubling. There is a risk of finding out one was wrong! In short, it just ain’t easy… because there is NO single, completely accurate, unbiased, crystal clear version of truth. Seriously. And even more disconcerting is that we can’t identify a static, perfect truth of any kind. Have you noticed how often science breaks new ground? Turns out the earth is not flat and it revolves around the sun. Bravo, Copernicus. Absolute truths and irrefutable facts are remarkably hard to come by. But we humans yearn for the comforts of certainty. We want to know: Is it this… or is it that?

We exist in a universe of duality where everything has its opposite: good, bad; up, down; on, off; light, dark. That we understand. BUT there is an infinite grey sea of ‘maybe’ floating between the yes or no questions. So what do we do? We may choose to swim diligently through that sea (even when sometimes the best we can manage is a slow breaststroke) always on the lookout for rare and precious islands of truth. This is where “mystery and the need for faith” come in, by the way. We have faith those islands are out there to be discovered, and get a certain frisson of excitement that there ARE mysteries awaiting us, even if we never unravel them all. But some of us will not swim or even doggy paddle. Some of us don’t like mysteries or questions without definitive answers, and thus we choose to float around in a bubble, hands over our ears, eyes closed, securely wrapped up in our stories.

And so endeth the extended natation metaphor.

Stories are certainly not always employed as method of avoiding inconvenient or troubling truth. In fact, they can serve us in many ways. Indigenous peoples have used cherished, richly woven stories filled with symbolism and history to keep their cultures alive for generations. Stories may deliver important lessons in the form of fables that teach. I, myself, have threaded them into Sunday messages. But I used them simply as illustrations to make spiritual ideas and principles even more accessible and memorable. Plus it was gratifying to see my congregants smile when I paused and said, “Once upon a time….”

However, there is another kind of story that does not serve a useful purpose, the sort that passes itself off as the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Why is that not a good idea? Because, if we don’t make our own decisions about what is true and what isn’t, we put ourselves at great risk of self-delusion. We become lazy in our thinking, and narrow in our viewpoint. When we rely upon someone else—pundit, commentator, propagandist, preacher, religious sect, politician, author, or ‘holy book’—to provide a neat package of opinions disguised as truth, all tied up with a lovely bow, we are one step away from saying to ourselves, “Hmm, sounds good. It’s simple. I like it. In fact, that’s now my story … and I’m sticking to it.”

The danger (to us all as a species) is that some people will latch on to a particular story without exercising any degree of critical thinking. From then on, they will refuse to hear any input, no matter how valid and fact-based, that contradicts their story of the world, its people, and how life works. Again, thinking requires effort. The most striking current and in-our-faces example of an entirely deceptive and deceitful story whose believers are tearing our society to shreds is the rise of the “Donald.”

His propaganda machine has sold people an absurd fiction. According to this carefully crafted story, expertly designed to feed MAGA appetites, the Donald is successful, intelligent, strong, and decisive. He is a hero, a leader, an advocate for “American values,” which is, by the way, a highly elastic and virtually undefinable term, and “Christian values,” which has now been perhaps irretrievably co-opted by religious fundamentalists and far right nationalists who express not the least affinity for what I consider Christian values (love, compassion, kindness, peace). To further this ridiculous pretense, he put his name on a $60 special edition of the Bible (made in China for three bucks) and even convinced certain ‘clergy’ to declare him God’s chosen one, which, quite frankly, makes me want to grab them by the clerical collar and say, “What kind of “god” do you worship? If you’re thinking of the Old Testament deity, there would be a lot of smiting going on… not hallelujahs. Arggh!

The felon in the oval office expects his audiences to believe he is ‘for’ the people and they clap at all the right moments. They make the irrational assumption that they are the people to whom he refers, and of course, they are not. But the sound bites, twisted memes, endless tsunami of out-and-out lies, and unabashed demagoguery embellish the story, flesh it out, keep breathing life into it.

Demagogue:
a political leader who seeks support by using inflammatory, provocative claims appealing to the desires and prejudices of ordinary people rather than by using rational argument.

Problem is, the story isn’t even a little bit true, and I feel confident making that claim because I’ve taken the time to gather information through reading, listening, and observing. Reality is not actually a big secret, folks. Donald has failed in everything he’s undertaken (except, like some sinister version of P.T. Barnum, fooling a great many gullible people). He is not even moderately intelligent nor possessed of knowledge the average school child manages to absorb. For those who want to read telling examples of just how ignorant he is, I suggest you peruse the book, A Very Stable Genius, by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig, detailing the Trump administration’s tumultuous years in his prior term of office.

One example: “Hey, John, what’s this all about? What’s this a tour of?” Mr. Trump reportedly asked John Kelly, his then-chief of staff, when they took a private tour in 2017 of the USS Arizona Memorial, a ship commemorating the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor during the Second World War.

So…not intelligent, not self-aware, and not interested in being an informed individual. I would be surprised if he had ever read an entire book except the book he didn’t write, The Art of the Deal. And I am quite certain he has not read a single chapter of the Christian Bible. He was asked in an interview about his favorite passages. He said “he liked it all… it was all good.” When pressed, he could not come up with even one Biblical figure he admired, nor could he choose a favorite between the Old and New Testaments. He repeated that the Bible, you know, well, it’s all good, and all the parts so special he couldn’t possibly HAVE a favorite verse or chapter.

On the other hand, we have ample evidence supporting the truth that

• he has always been a wily, manipulative, selfish cheat who could dream up endless ways to fool people into lining his pockets (vodka, steaks, coins, hats, trading cards, posters, fake gold watches, crypto, even a fake university… the list is long)

• he is devoid of conscience or even the most rudimentary sense of morality,

• he doesn’t give a damn about anyone other than himself.
  

His pathological arrogance has reached a point where he claims (and is, unfortunately, not wrong) that his faithful disciples and minions will believe (and repost) absolutely anything he says, no matter how patently false, and they will cheer for anything he does, no matter how cruel, stupid, greedy, or illegal.

His people are ensconced in their bubble(s) with their ridiculous story, and they have no desire to give it up. Why? They drank the Kool-Aid and they want some more. They put on the MAGA tribe’s red hats and aren’t taking them off…because they are CERTAIN.

Sadly, their certainty doesn’t spring from the sort of inner spiritual, heart-centered knowing that joyfully plays the drums in the same band with compassion, kindness, and acceptance. Instead, it’s the kind of certainty that gets a big boost from a tale “told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing,” that nourishes their human fears, biases, disillusionments, prejudices, assumptions, and anger.

But, as I’ve said before, truth can be slippery and perhaps more rare than we’d care to think. That doesn’t mean, however, that we have to go through life in a fog of UNcertainty. We simply need to exercise discernment. Of course we can feel quite adamant about some issues. This world is no place for the terminally wishy-washy. I am adamant that certain choices and/or actions are absolutely, unequivocally wrong. A few entries on my personal list: murder, rape, child molestation, domestic violence, acts of terror, stealing, cheating, genocide, enslavement, greed, slaughtering thousands to advance one’s ambitions or philosophies, and hating others based on their race, ethnicity, skin color, language or religion.

These are all terrible choices and yet untold numbers of humans make them every day. We could fill a multi-volume Encyclopedia Britannica with theories about why they do terrible things, but in some cases (particularly where choices are based on prejudice), the initiators are certain their hatred is righteous and their actions justified. EVERY political faction or entity involved in the bloodshed in the Middle East, for example, is certain it is on the side of right. (It seems to me that the people dying every day of militaristic violence, starvation, and illness are not quite so sure of that. The stark reality is that one could be dead wrong or dead right, but dead either way.

Returning for a moment to our fictional cardinal as portrayed by Ralph Fiennes, what lies at the heart of his warning? Simply this: If you are CERTAIN you are indisputably right in your chosen views and opinions, you will feel little to no moral obligation to seek common ground with those who may not share them. You will become comfortable with the idea that those who disagree with you are your enemies. You will not devote even one moment trying to understand someone else’s religion or culture. You will not ‘waste’ your energy listening or reading or thinking. And you most definitely will not change your mind, or your heart.

We live in a global community composed of some eight billion people who share at least one common ground—we are ALL human beings with minds and hearts and the ability to choose what we think. Recently actor Richard Gere, while accepting an award, said: We are all part of a universe of overlapping pain, sadness, joy, expectations, dreams, and hopes and visions…and I see this world that we’re in now forgetting that….This very foolish tribalism is beginning to take us over, where we think we’re all separate from each other….We’re in a very dark place in America where we have a bully and a thug who’s president…but it’s not just in the U.S. It’s everywhere.”

We who choose to be thoughtful human beings CAN agree on the value of compassion, understanding, kindness, and simple respect for human life. We can consciously examine our beliefs in the light of new knowledge. We can, in fact, no matter who or where we are, participate in the work of transforming a broken society into a healed one. And then we will be writing a new, and blessedly true, account of light and love vanquishing darkness. May it be so!

**Clip from “Conclave” starring Ralph Fiennes. YouTube.

**https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-pearl-harbor-new-book-very-stable-genius-b2700639.html

To listen to Felon45’s many, many rants is to have a front row seat for curtain up on the first act of a Kafkaesque drama.[1] Nothing makes sense when viewed with a rational, thoughtful mind and it’s increasingly hard to make heads or tails of it. Or… is it?

Yes, he’s crazy. (Note: I’m not a medical professional, just a person with critical thinking skills and a compassionate heart.) And when I say “crazy,” I do NOT mean ‘crazy like a fox.” I mean just plain mentally ill, and, besides, I suspect most foxes are several IQ points smarter. Medical professionals have weighed in after spending hours observing his public behavior and “malignant narcissist” is just one diagnosis among many equally alarming ones. A host of personality disorders exacerbated by serious cognitive decline are on full display, whether or not POX News or the hardcore MAGA-ites wish to admit it.

BUT, is there a method to the madness? His nonstop flow of demented propaganda and verbal sewage does serve certain aims, but not necessarily HIS aims. I daresay HE thinks the end game is making him king of the world or (apparently) the Pope of the Catholic Church. Certainly millions of us saw that revolting and disrespectful post to his Lie Social account—an AI image of him in full papal regalia. But, as I’ve said before, he’s the sideshow. What’s going on the Big Top is more real and infinitely more alarming. I would even stretch to “terrifying.” The actions F45 has taken certainly have not all come out of what passes for his mind. They may seem like the irrational whims of a tantrum-throwing toddler, but they are all of a pattern, a pattern that has repeated itself again and again in the history of civilization. (I’m almost hesitant to use that word because I’ve begun to doubt that our species is capable of acting in a civilized manner, but I have hopes.)

Skulking around in the shadows, though they are more visible of late, are the architects of the takeover/world domination plan. Don’t scoff. We’re not talking Dr. Evil and Mini-Me although the correlations are there. If the words, “Well that could never happen here,” are floating through your thoughts, stop and think again. In one form or another, Project 2025 with its undeniably white supremacist agenda has been around for decades. The cohort of would-be authoritarians don’t even bother to try and distance themselves from hate groups like the Proud Boys. (One of them just visited Mar-a-lago.) The neo-Nazis are their allies in the bid for control. Which is one reason the administration’s claim of preventing antisemitism on college campuses by deporting students who protest on behalf of Palestinian people is so ludicrous. The P2025 guys are as antisemitic as they come. They are also anti- a lot of principles Americans are rumored to hold dear, though that is in some question, too. What the plotters and planners are counting on is that not enough people actually understand the evil social order encompassed by the following nouns.

FASCISM is an ideology focusing on extreme nationalism, racism, militarism, and the glorification of the state over the wellbeing of individuals. It frequently sponsors and carries out racial and/or ethnic cleansing.

TOTALITARIANISM is a form of government that assumes total control over all aspects of life, including thought and action, often through reinforcing a dominant ideology spread through propaganda and establishing a secret police to identify and punish dissidents.

AUTHORITARIANISM is a broader term that the two above. It describes any encompasses any system where power is concentrated in the hands of a few.

RACISM is prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, institution or nation against people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.

A number of writers and commentators have alluded to the similarities between F45 and the infamous and despised Adolph Hitler, but do these individuals bear resemblance to each other? I think not as much as has been asserted. In point of fact, analysts (though having no clinical tests to back up their theories) estimate Hitler’s intelligence at a fairly high level. The current occupant of the Oval Office… oh well, let’s not even take time to debunk the “stable genius” claims he’s made. But the current situation is about more than two would-be dictators separated by 90 years of history. It’s about the implementation of the blueprint for fascism that is following the same trail of jack-boot prints. What happened in the Nazi takeover of Germany is happening right here, right now. There are significant differences, yes. But there are striking similarities, all of them chilling.

As I gathered notes here and there, I created a table comparing SOME of the events of the 1930s and SOME of the ones we are seeing play out in 2025. I picked a few major elements (not all; this is hardly a comprehensive analysis) in the Nazi’s strategic march to power and found their counterparts in headlines of the last 100 days. As Yogi Berra said (or may have said), “It’s déjà vu all over again.”

THE PATTERN… THE PLAYBOOK

You see, it’s all about the insidious, relentless injection of dark and frightening influences into our society that warp our perspective, divide us from each other, and perhaps crush us into silence…one step at a time. For me, the old tale of “how to boil a frog,” often comes to mind. For those not familiar with this cautionary tale (especially cautionary for the amphibian), it teaches that if you drop a frog into really hot water, it will be shocked and wisely leap out to save itself. BUT, if you put a frog in tepid water and very gradually turn up the heat, the frog doesn’t reconize its peril until it’s too late.

In viewing today’s podcast from Mary Trump, I was struck by her opening dialogue: “I’ve been thinking about lines that we thought we’d never cross. We all have our limits and sometimes we assume that other people do, too. Like, how much treason can we take? How much lying? How much cruelty? How much unconstitutional, illegal behavior are we willing to put up with? As human beings, as Americans?” [3]

These are excellent questions that cry out for an answer from each and every one of us who can still lay claim to having ethical principles, a love of democracy, a reasonable measure of integrity, and a genuine sense of compassion for other human beings.

It’s time we pay attention to just how hot the water is or our democracy, like that poor frog, will be sacrificed on the altar of fascism. And from that, there might be no going back.

[1] Information about “The Trial” by Franz Kafka. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial

[2] https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/

[3] https://www.youtube.com/@MaryTrumpMedia

Today we may not have many hereditary monarchs and people of noble birth ruling over nations with absolute authority, but a similar top stratum of human society exists in the form of extremely rich people who are the beneficiaries of capitalism run amok. It isn’t news that most of the wealth in the world is concentrated in the hands of very few, including those who simply inherited fortunes and do little if anything to share their riches. These are the economic “royalty” of modern society and they share the same sense of entitlement and superiority as their historic predecessors. So basically, same game, different name. “We pay the piper, we call the tune” becomes “We have all the marbles, we make the rules.” Their singular motivation is good old-fashioned greed. No matter how much they have, they want more. They are today’s robber barons.

What is a robber baron? It’s an old, and not complimentary, term that emerged in the late 19^th century when laissez-faire capitalism (free of most government regulation) was the cause célèbre of the day. These robber barons argued that being forced to adhere to regulations on minimum wage, working conditions, environmental protections, nondiscrimination in hiring, and being made to pay too much in taxes was “bad” for America. What they really meant was that these protections and taxes paid cut into the bottom line. And, after all, what does the safety and security of the un-rich matter?

At the time, these ‘business empire builders’ used any tactic they could devise to amass more money and power—bullying and exploiting workers, forming monopolies, conspiring with each other and with bribable politicians to keep wages low, driving smaller competitors out of business, and cutting deals based purely on the amount of profit potential and never on the cost to other human beings. Notable examples of those robber barons, as cited in an article found on the history and humanities section of website ThoughtCo: Cornelius Vanderbilt, owner of steamship lines and railroads, Andrew Carnegie, steel manufacturer, J.P. Morgan, financier, and banker, John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil, and others of similar mindset. They considered themselves royalty of a sort. [1]

Their contention was: “let us do what we want to do, get as rich as we want to be, and the whole world will be better off.” It was, and remains, a specious and self-serving claim. The stock market still crashed (partly due to lack of regulation on how the markets were run), we still had the Great Depression during which people became homeless and some starved, and yet the very rich stayed… very rich. The assertion that rewarding the wealthy with more wealth was good for the rest of us wasn’t any more true in 1981 when Ronald Reagan unveiled his Economic Recovery Act (Reaganomics, or “trickle-down economics” as the strategy come to be labeled by many). Same old song. Legislate tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals and corporations, award government contracts to them, and do a lot of looking the other way when it comes to fairness, integrity, ethics, morality, and so forth. A great many GOPers stumped for Reaganomics with all the zeal of Ron Popeil flogging the “Pocket Fisherman.”

Newsflash: There was little, if any, “trickling down.” The federal minimum wage to this day ($7.25), results in an annual income below the poverty level for the United States.

As of 2024, roughly 3.5 BILLION human beings (about 44% of the world’s population) on this beautiful planet Earth live in poverty (defined for statistical purposes as income of less than $6.85 per DAY). Doing the math in our heads, which we can do because we had dedicated teachers who drummed those multiplication tables into our brains, we’re looking at a little more than $200 a month! That wouldn’t buy your average oligarch a dinner at a trendy restaurant. In the United States, approximately 37-41 million people are living below poverty level.

And now… enter the Anti-Robin Hood(s). Though the felon in office is ostensibly in charge, we of sound mind know that isn’t really true. We can pretty much detect the puppet strings in the hands of far smarter individuals. As a devious strategy for establishing and solidifying an authoritarian system of government, picking an unstable, cognitively challenged, malignant narcissist with delusions of grandeur wasn’t a half-bad idea. While he’s strutting around like a crazed preening peacock claiming he’s the greatest president there ever was and knows everything about, well… everything, those with farsighted ambitions work behind the scenes. The EMBC (evil man baby clown… kudos to Scooby Doo Mystery Inc.) is a theatre-of-the-absurd sideshow that is useful in preventing the world from seeing what’s going on in the Big Top until it’s too late to turn back. Let him throw his tantrums, babble nonsensical lies, alienate our allies and play the fool; let him sell his endless stream of crap merchandise (made in China), and turn the presidency into an influence-peddling racket.

Meanwhile, the oligarchs, the far right, the white nationalists, the religious fanatics, and foreign entities whose prospects for power rise with the fall of America have found, at least temporarily, common cause—systematically ripping apart everything of true value in our nation so that it can be remolded in an entirely new and unrecognizable form. By true value, I mean priceless things—democracy, the rule of law, the U.S. Constitution, freedom of thought, civil rights. Their strategy makes sense from their perspective. What do you do when you are preparing the demolition of a really big building? You don’t just chip away at the upper stories. You strap powerful explosive charges to all those massive supports beneath the structure and when the charges detonate, the building collapses. You DESTROY what holds it up, what holds it together.

If we are to resist the intensity of this all-out assault, if we are to ‘hold the center,’ we must be our best selves, with utmost strength and absolute conviction.

Our country is built on a Constitution that has survived more than two centuries of social change. We have a body of case law painstakingly accumulated over 250 years. Laws reflect our moral and ethical principles, assuming we have them: I think most of us do. Among the first steps of would-be authoritarians seeking to take power and control is to be rid of laws that are grounded in morals, ethics, and principles of fairness, and discredit, threaten, intimidate and eliminate those individuals who are tasked with upholding them.

This current crop of spoilt, greedy oligarchs are modern day robber barons and they are determined to preserve their financial and political power by any means. The most infamous and visible of these billionaires and ‘tech bros’ is the person I prefer to call the “Muskrat.” He was appointed as the public facing leader of this not-so-merry dance of TAKING from the poor, the elderly, the struggling middle class, the small businessperson—the average American if you will—and GIVING to the rich. That’s their playbook. Cut taxes for the wealthiest, eliminate spending on programs and systems that the average American relies upon, stifle dissent and punish detractors. He has help in his infiltration of all of our systems, but not from strong, loyal followers like Robin Hood’s “Little John.” The Muskrat must make do with adolescent tech nerds such as his 19-year-old lieutenant on the DOGE team who goes by the moniker “Big Balls.” Yep, not kidding.

Fortunately (for democracy), the plan has gone awry. We weren’t supposed to notice the disastrous consequences of the first 100 days of (NOT) Making American Great Again or that utter lunacy reigns in the halls of government. But how could we not notice EMBC sitting in the Oval Office pretending the U.S. Constitution is a bunch of B.S. and can be ignored?How could we not notice the American economy hurtling toward disaster? How could we not notice a manic, unstable, allegedly drug-fueled multi-billionaire cavorting around on a stage waving a chainsaw, throwing Nazi style salutes, and promising to eliminate fraud and waste. But this monstrous exhibition of abject cruelty he has engineered was never about fraud and waste. It was always about creating an even starker division between the haves and the have-nots. He has trashed as many systems related to the wellbeing of Americans as he possibly can. And every move has been a callous gut punch to the millions of people who have never in their lives used the phrase “discretionary income” (i.e., what's left after they've paid their taxes and covered their living expenses like rent, food, medical care, childcare, utilities, insurance and other essentials).

But those millions of people do not matter to the current regime and the driving forces behind it. We are faceless, nameless people without big money, and thus, as oligarchs see it, without power. They are wrong, of course. For there lies within each of us an innate power to choose, to do what’s right, to defend ourselves, our faith, and our freedoms. The only catch – we DO have to choose. There is no middle ground. We must stand on the high ground in the full light of truth and defend it with all our might.

Remember: There are those (including many who ought to be stridently demanding justice) who are willing to pretend (out of fear or ignorance) that we can sit around the proverbial campfire singing Kumbaya and wait for autocrats to grow a conscience and relent, but that’s a dangerous self-delusion. Those who would destroy the democracy in which we believe have no desire to listen to, or compromise with, any of the “little people.” We have been dismissed as irrelevant.

We are not irrelevant and we shall not be dismissed.

I have always had a fascination with the Charles Dickens story, A Christmas Carol. I own every film version from 1934 onward. Certainly each has its own charm, and the writers take some liberties with adapting their screen plays. But the lesson the story teaches shines through always. One of the most powerful bits of dialogue in one production is taken from the original. Scrooge, as most of you know, is approached by a couple of businessmen endeavoring to raise a fund to provide Christmas cheer to the most underprivileged. His snarky response is to ask why the poor don’t go to the workhouses or poorhouses for which he pays taxes. The businessmen tell him that many would rather die than go to such grim and terrible places. Scrooge replies, “Then they had better die and decrease the surplus population.” Later, when Scrooge asks the Ghost of Christmas Present if Tiny Tim will live,” the Ghost turns Scrooge’s words back upon him. “What does it matter? Let him die and decrease the surplus population?” Ebenezer is indignant, but the Ghost delivers a sharp rebuke:

Some of us may be feeling like those hungry brothers (or sisters) struggling in the dust, but we are still here. We are still living, breathing, thinking human beings. And ultimately our future is in OUR hands, no one else’s.

[1] https://www.thoughtco.com/robber-baron-definition-1773342#:~:text=Examples%20of%20Robber%20Barons,Russell%20Sage%2C%20financier.

What the current administration has tried to do in the first few weeks of a shameful presidency is no less than a wholesale attack on everything supporters of true democracy hold dear. The “union” is in the greatest danger it has ever faced since the Civil War. In fact, this is a pivotal moment when we must decide who we are and what being an American means to each of us at the deepest level. Ignoring impending disaster (and those that have already occurred) is not an option. Look in a mirror, America! Your reputation as a democracy and a world leader is in tatters. Your big brass marching band is playing completely out of tune with morality, humanity, or legality. Your economy is sinking faster than an anvil tossed into a lake. Your constitutional principles are being shredded daily. Your people are suffering. In a nutshell, the “Stars and Stripes” may not be “Forever” unless we take steps to resuscitate the good that we are and soundly reject the greed, heartlessness, and lust for power that has settled over our nation like a miasma of noxious vapor poisoning the very air that we collectively breathe.

Getting back to good old “Sam,” he was created as a symbol of patriotism. though he does look rather scarily autocratic and demanding. But what about patriotism? People fling that word around quite a lot. It is certainly true that loyalty to one’s nation can be exceptionally honorable PROVIDED that such loyalty is not blind, deaf, and mute. And let us keep in mind that devotion to our particular system of government, complete with its constitutional guarantees of rights and freedoms, is not defined by waving flags, shouting pithy slogans, more or less mouthing the words to our national anthem sung before the big game, and cheering fireworks on the Fourth of July. That’s all in good fun. But standing up for the principles of a nation—aka choosing to do what is right—can be daunting, and is not for the wishy-washy, the faint of heart, the devoutly greedy, or the callously self-absorbed.

But some people will settle for a sort of superficial patriotism is because really thinking long and hard about what it means to be an American takes far more work, more care, more commitment to principles than many are willing to give. In theory, and despite its sometimes stumbling implementation of the ideals embraced in a Declaration and in a Constitution, America is (for now) a democracy, one of the oldest continuous democracies in the world. But its survival is NOT a given. In fact, simply assuming that it will always go on being the land of the free is dangerously naïve. Other nations have fallen victim to complacency and ended up in a very dark place, in some cases a dystopian nightmare of suffering and fear.

No democracy exists in a vacuum, nor does it go on living, breathing, and evolving all by itself. Having been established, it must be protected, served, nurtured, respected and defended, and those responsibilities devolve upon the members of that democracy – we the people. It is high time that pronoun “WE” became our focus. Just as those serving in the military learn to subordinate their individual desires in order to serve their country with courage and honor as part of a team tasked with a common mission, we here in the good old U.S. of A. need to scale way back on our obsession with “I” and “me” and join hearts and hands in an overdue acknowledgment that we have a common interest. You see, whatever our own human desires, needs, opinions, and biases, there comes a time when we need to acknowledge something greater than ourselves and more critical than our biases.

There is something at stake that matters MORE than whether we are conservative, liberal, moderate, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, male, female, straight, gay, young, old, blue collar, white collar, or any one of numerous skin colors. That ‘something’ is freedom for all of us, not just some of us. But too many people are willing to look the other way as the freedoms of others are curtailed, especially those with whom they disagree and/or those they dislike or judge to be inferior or ‘undesirable.’ And even Americans who are relatively free of biases and bigotry still may turn away with a shrug and mutter, “Hey, that’s someone else’s problem, not mine.”

And that last statement, dear readers, lies squarely at the heart of the matter: ‘not my problem.’ It is a stunningly false position to take, and yet millions of us do it every day, either because of ingrained prejudice, habitual laziness, a sense of helplessness, or sheer complacency. Millions of us have made a life practice of steadfastly ignoring problems that don’t SEEM to impinge on our little personal universes. Problem is, there is just the one universe and we ALL live in it. The circus that has rolled into Washington, D.C. may have a certain macabre entertainment value, but it sure as hell ain’t funny. And while it is tempting to fall back on pithy retorts like “not my circus, not my monkeys,” and walk away, the truth is they ARE our monkeys because we the people elected them and sent the circus and its accompanying sideshows to Washington.

The clown-in-chief isn’t funny either, nor is he the champion of America as so many self-deluded people seem to believe. He is not a leader, not a hero, not even someone who gives a damn about this country or anyone in it. He’s demonstrated time after time…after time… that he is a self-obsessed, mentally challenged, highly ignorant and consistently cruel person with wild delusions of grandeur and a long track record of failure. And he has surrounded himself with lackeys of the same caliber. More alarming, though, is that he is a puppet controlled by oligarchic interests and far-right political machinations intended to weaken the U.S. by destroying its economy and dividing its people into opposing camps. While it’s easy to sit back and observe, and indulge in ridiculing the endless display of “f-uppery” we’ve seen these past 100 days or so, how about we come together and put a stop to it?

In times of great crisis, our perceived (and often petty) differences must give way to an acknowledgment that if any race, creed, political viewpoint, ethnicity, or religion is at risk of suppression or outright punishment, NONE of us is safe. It is time to stop, look around, and join with each other to confront a common foe--totalitarianism. Under such a regime, no one’s rights are assured. And I do mean no one. There is a very old proverb that has its roots in the mists of ancient history, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” So, even if you disagree with other political viewpoints, even if you harbor secret (or not so secret) prejudices, even if you think your own perspective on social issues is the only correct one, you may find yourself needing to rely on an alliance with those very people in order to protect the rights you think you have now. Never assume an authoritarian dictatorship will always be on YOUR side.

Abraham Lincoln faced the potential dissolution of a fledgling nation over a bitterly divisive political issue—abolishing the enslavement of human beings. As he surveyed the battlefield at Gettysburg where thousands had sacrificed their lives to preserve the existence of the United States of America, he said, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” At the close of his brief yet eloquent speech, he declared that “we here highly resolve that … government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

In order for Lincoln’s vision of America to have a fighting chance of emerging from the terrifying chaos the Trumpian regime has intentionally created, we must recognize that freedoms cannot be guaranteed selectively; they aren’t just for some people and not others. And we cannot delay in speaking up, in making our voices heard, on behalf of ALL people wrongly treated, ALL people denied equal protection of the law, ALL people denied due process and fair hearing, ALL people who face discrimination, ALL people whose wellbeing and even survival is threatened by this descent into lawless madness… ALL PEOPLE. Period.

Decades ago, Martin Niemöller was a prominent Lutheran pastor in Germany. In the 1920s and early 1930s, he openly sympathized with some Nazi ideas and supported right-wing political movements. But, after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, Niemöller realized he had been terribly wrong. He saw the stark danger of a totalitarian government that could, on any pretext or whim, strip away the rights of any person or group. Thus he became an outspoken critic of Hitler’s interference in the religious faith and practice of Germans. As a result, he spent the last eight years of the Nazi regime, from 1937 to 1945, in prisons and concentration camps. He later wrote words many of us would come to know… and MUST absorb into our hearts and souls. It encapsulates a lesson we apparently have NOT learned yet.

Those who cannot see the runaway freight train of oppression that is bearing down on our nation is either too self-absorbed to notice, or intentionally stuck with his or her head in the sand or, (were I to be more graphic/crude, something to which I am not prone) stuck deeply into a body orifice of which we all know the name. Sorry… shouldn’t thoughtful commentary be devoid of crudity? Usually, I would say, “of course.” But we are not living in “usual” times by any means. The pillars of democracy, the principles we profess to hold dear, are cracking and crumbling under the kind of flagrant assault we haven’t seen since, well, the dark times of McCarthyism which followed hard on the heels of one of the more shameful episodes in American history – the internment of thousands of Japanese AMERICANS in prison camps. In both instances, the rule of law was rendered meaningless. We have reached another such moment.

The current administration has launched an all-out assault on freedom of thought and belief, on freedom of speech, freedom of religious conviction, all of which are among our most precious rights. The first targets are institutions of higher education. They are demanding that colleges and universities “toe the line” in quelling any type of protest (including completely peaceful in-person protests, or written commentary from those with whom the would-be dictator Donald and his minions disagree). He is a bully and bullies like to threaten. Thus students and other members of collegiate communities (legally residing in the U.S. and possessed of proper visas) have been quite literally snatched off the streets and are in jeopardy of being deported and deprived of the degrees and careers for which they have worked long and hard. One example is Turkish-born Rumeysa Ozturk.

She was enrolled in a PhD program at Tufts University on a valid F-1 visa, which allows international students to pursue full-time academic studies. A student of psychology, Ozturk has been studying in the US since 2018. “She came to America after winning a Fulbright scholarship, successfully completed her master’s degree at Columbia University, and then started her doctorate at Tufts University in Boston,” her brother Asim Ozturk wrote in a statement he posted to X. Ozturk was accosted on the street and arrested by “plain clothes” authorities of some sort, then shipped off, without any due process, to the State of Louisiana. Why there? Good question.

Her “crime?” In March 2024, she co-wrote an op-ed in the school’s newspaper in which she criticized Tufts’ response to a student government group’s call for the university to divest from companies with ties to Israel because of the conflict in Gaza, among other demands. She believed that “credible accusations against Israel include accounts of deliberate starvation and indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians and plausible genocide,” and that is what she wrote. She may be wrong or she may be right. It was an OPINION, not a call to arms, not a secret coded message to terrorists, not a threat to of violence to anyone.

But the powers that be actually have had the temerity to claim that her behavior undermined foreign policy interests of the United States. Let’s just call BS on that one because a grad student’s op-ed article is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a statement of a nation’s foreign policy, nor can it be characterized as such. Nor has she been accused of inciting violence, vandalism, destruction and desecration of our halls of government, assaults on law enforcement, burning political figures in effigy… oh wait, perhaps I’m thinking of the January 6^th mob that did all of those things, and threatened to kill members of Congress. I guess an op-ed article by a foreign student is much more dangerous.

Thus, even though he pardoned many of the criminals convicted of January 6 crimes, the person in the Oval Office has ordered the freezing of federal funding and research grants already awarded to Harvard University, showing himself to be the bully we of sane mind already know he is. To wit:

From his (Not) Truth Social post:

“All federal funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests. Agitators will be imprisoned and/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled, or depending on the crime, arrested. No MASKS! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

We can surmise that he didn’t write that post personally because it’s unlikely he would know to avoid a dangling preposition, and much of his posting is in done with many arbitrary instances of ALL CAPS to be sure everyone pays attention. This attempt at silencing political opposition and debate is certainly not limited to revoking student visas (about 300 or more so far) and deporting these ‘dangerously’ outspoken individuals. There is more.

Policy changes DEMANDED by the administration include:

· Reporting foreign students who commit “conduct violations.”

· Bringing an outside party to ensure that each academic department is ‘viewpoint diverse’ (say what?)

· Restricting the acceptance of any international students who are hostile to American values and institutions

· Immediate shuttering of all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, including for hiring and admissions.

These arrests and detainments are being done supposedly under the auspices of the the McCarran-Walter Act, passed in 1952, which heavily monitored immigrants for communist ideology. And of course, Joe McCarthy was looking for communists under every bed in every home. The act states that the U.S. government may deport "an alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States." Ironically, since a core justification for these actions is that student protests are fueling antisemitic harassment and are carried out in order to benefit the Jewish people, McCarran was a virulent antisemite who thought Jews and communists were pretty much the same—evil. (1)

A U.S. Department of Education (if there still IS one) insists these new policies are pro-Jewish. Again, I ask, is that true? I am not going to attempt to open a debate on the relative merits of the opposing “sides” in the Middle East. To me, there is no completely “right” side or completely “wrong” side. There are, however some methods and strategies employed by all the participants to the conflict which are, to say the least, utterly unacceptable from a moral standpoint. Attacks and abductions carried out by terrorists against innocent Israelis was a horrifying tragedy that has no justification, political or otherwise. AND, bombing of Palestinian civilians, hospitals, and homes is equally repugnant. In the October attack, more than 1200 Israeli citizens were killed, including at least 800 classified as civilians. An additional 250 more were taken into captivity. Since then, according to reports from the United Nations and other global organizations, some 50,000 Palestinians have died in attacks by Israel. I would like to point out that this policy of continued aggression is not universally supported by the people of Israel. There are increasing protests against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decisions. But that is not where I’m going with this particular essay.

Today is about those in power using a perfidious excuse for exerting federal, partisan control over our educational institutions, our media, and, by extension, all of us. And let us be clear, no one in this current administration has mentioned even once that surely we ought to crack down on one of the most hateful and violently inclined subset of our society—the neo-Nazis. Surely we should stamp out their overt antisemitism. But apparently not.

Since I do not believe I am culturally informed enough (and perhaps not wise enough either) to comment with innate understanding on the particular issue of what is or is not beneficial to people of Jewish heritage, I shall instead fall back on the wisdom and very well-written words of another Substack creator—Rabbi Joshua Hammerman. I highly recommend his channel, In This Moment: A Rabbi’s Notebook.

I especially urge you to read the entire piece from which I quote because I find his ideas exceedingly perceptive and thoughtful. [See link at the end, or search for him on Substack.] He has also followed up with a post that includes a message to academia: “Fight on Harvard.”

Recently he wrote:

“Trump's "defense" of Jews on campus is really a protection racket, aimed at destroying the academic integrity Jews hold most sacred. Favored treatment is always temporary and, for Jews, it always comes at a steep cost. And now, with the attack on Brown, Trump's use of Jews as tools for nefarious ends really hits home.” He also writes: “…when Jews are being used as human shields by an administration determined to employ “antisemitism” as the excuse to lock up and exile students without due process, padlock entire academic departments and oversee the implementation of Orwellian thought control, this is not what Jews want as the price for their protection. Those “pro-Israel” (but in fact far right and way beyond the mainstream) Jewish groups who are supposedly feeding names of prospective deportees to the government are only making matters worse Jews on campus, who need to be building bridges right now and not relying on I.C.E to be their avengers.”

What an intriguing insight, and one I had not considered until I read his article. The sheer hypocrisy of pretending you are protecting the interests of one group you secretly despise in order to attack another group you despise… that is straight out of the budding dictator’s handbook. The bottom line for such a person is that he or she doesn’t give a tinker’s dam (3) for ANYONE but themselves. And that is why WE THE PEOPLE had better look past the ends of our noses, raise our eyes to the world around us, and think about more than our day to day lives and routines, things that will matter to our children and grandchildren long after we have shuffled off this mortal coil. As I’ve said previously, we need to ask big questions. President Obama addressed this idea recently in an interview.

“This has to do with something more precious. Who are we, as a country?...This is not just an abstraction, and I think this is one of the challenges we have. I saw this even before the last election. People tend to think, ah, democracy, rule of law, independent judiciary, freedom of the press… that’s all abstract stuff because it’s not affecting me….One of the things that has distinguished us in the past has been this basic idea that we are a rules-based society… it is up to all of this to fix this. Each of us must examine this in our hearts. We say we are for equality, we say we’re for rule of law. Are we going to stick to that when it’s tough, not just when it’s easy?”

In other comments, President Obama said, “Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions—rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom , while taking concrete steps to make sure all students at Harvard can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate, and mutual respect. Let’s hope other institutions follow suit.”

I wholeheartedly join him in that hope, for if we allow ourselves to abandon the principles that make true democracy possible, then the constitutional Republic of the United States of America, as it was conceived, codified and defended over the course of decades and centuries, will cease to exist.

REFERENCE NOTES:

(1) The controversial and obscure law being used against immigrant student protestors (from NPR) https://www.npr.org/2025/04/11/nx-s1-5360605/mahmoud-khalil-gaza-protests-columbia-university-immigrant

(2) Link to Rabbi Hammerman’s article:

In This Moment: A Rabbi's Notebook

Trump's "defense" of Jews on campus is really a protection racket, aimed at destroying the academic integrity Jews hold most sacred

In This Moment: A Rabbi's Notebook is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber…

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a year ago · 226 likes · 16 comments · Rabbi Joshua Hammerman

(3) “ a tinker’s dam” For those who don’t necessarily collect potentially obsolete yet still charmingly descriptive phrases the way I do… The phrase “tinker’s dam” likely originated from the practice of tinkers (who mended metal items) using small dams of dough or putty to hold molten solder in place during repairs. These dams were only used once and then discarded, thus becoming a symbol of something worthless or insignificant.

The national nightmare intentionally created by those involved in the first weeks of the current administration has been unprecedented in my lifetime and I daresay the history of the United States. Let me be clear in reference to said administration: I firmly believe, as do a great many people, that the reported results of the November election were invalid. More specifically, they were skewed and falsified through well-planned electronic interference and physical tampering with tabulation of ballots, as well as the systematic purging of valid, qualified voters from the rolls in several states. Evidence appears to be emerging which I believe will be truly stunning to many who had faith in the integrity of our election systems and relied on political appointees and elected officials charged with protecting our right to vote. Some of them failed in their duty.

It is my personal conviction that Donald Trump, one of the most mendacious, cruel, selfish, ignorant, and arguably insane individuals ever to set foot in the Oval Office, did not, in actuality, WIN the election, and most certainly did not receive the majority mandate he claims. He and his cronies cheated…simple as that. A detailed plan, decades in the making, to dismantle our democracy, our systems of government, abandon our most fundamental principles, and throw us into utter chaos, has been launched and is now on full view. Anyone who doubts this is not paying attention or is suffering from advanced “head-in-sand” disease.

When I began (several times, in fact) the work of drafting a new post for The Heart of the Matter, I couldn’t seem to settle on a direction. Now it isn’t necessarily difficult to write an article, assuming one has the time, a digital device, a reasonable command of the English language, and a point to make. But sometimes too many points come hopping along, each insisting on occupying its very own paragraphs, and the result is often a spray of tangents determinedly flying off in different directions. Let’s face it… there is a lot upon which one could comment at this moment. We’re talking novella at the least.

Naturally, I was initially tempted to vent my frustration (at some length) with the people who actually voted for Trump. (There is also the group that could not be bothered to vote, but that’s another tempting tangent, so I’ll put aside for now.) Though the numbers reported were inaccurate, I still can’t deny that tens of millions of people walked into a voting booth and said ‘yes’ to a convicted felon, sexual predator, failed businessman, boastful boor, and all-around lunatic. They ignored every fact available to them, and immersed themselves in inane tweets, a nonstop flow of verbal sewage, and a daily diet of disgusting memes and insulting comments about other people. Such input catered to their individual prejudices and intellectual laziness. For them, no matter what came out in the flow of moronic statements and outrageously false claims, it was stamped “believable.”

Yes, I knew that there was a certain segment of the American public who would remain MAGA hardcore. They would remain ignorant, callous, self-absorbed, and self-deluded. The die-hard racists, misogynists, jingoists, separatists, ethnocentrists, and their ilk, would look to the ‘orange menace’ to advance their bizarre and, when you come right down to it, un-American agenda. But it is far more difficult for me to accept that it was not only the hardcore MAGA, but many ‘middle of the road’ people who intentionally turned a blind eye to the potential of a truly horrific outcome.

What was going through their minds as they marked a ballot or pressed a selection button? Only the absurdly naïve, the terminally credulous, and those lacking in any measure of critical thinking skills could have imagined that he actually cared about ANYONE other than himself and the goals of his handlers…to include not only the far right nationalists, the fundamentalist CINOs (Christians in name only), but also people like his “buddy” Mr. Putin. Donald is, in every sense of the word, a traitor to America and its interests. How was that not obvious? Or did those hapless voters believe that none of his odious actions could harm THEM? That only nameless, faceless OTHER people would suffer? Certainly not anyone from their own families, their own communities. Did they abandon completely the spiritual, moral truth that what hurts our fellow human beings hurts us, too? I would say so.

It is interesting to see the reaction of former supporters who seem genuinely shocked by what has transpired thus far. People are facing disaster in their lives—the job losses, the interruption to profoundly vital government services, the skyrocketing prices of food, other commodities, and needed medicine, not to mention the intentional (and predictable) crashing of the American economy (along with people’s 401(k)s and IRAs), and the shambles he has made in short order of our relationships with important allies abroad and our most vital trading partners (Canada and Mexico). As if that were not stunning enough, he has ordered people put on planes and deported to violent foreign prisons without any due process (which would have revealed that a substantial number of them were NOT gang members and, in some cases, were legal residents). Freedom of speech is under the worst assaults by government I have ever witnessed. Members of college and university communities are seeing their visas revoked, or worse, being simply snatched off the streets by authorities without visible badges or IDs or uniforms. News outlets are under threat of denial of access unless they toe the propaganda line. Does all this sound familiar? It should. It’s happened throughout history. It’s how you turn a democracy into a totalitarian state run by iron-fisted dictators.

These are evil actions perpetrated by evil people. I define evil as the complete absence of love, light, compassion, kindness, and humanity. Need I say more? Trump appears to fit that definition as much as, or more than, the worst despots in the history of the world. And yet, he is not quite a modern day equivalent to people like Genghis Khan, Caligula, Nero, Hitler, Vlad the Impaler, Josef Stalin, Idi Amin, Fidel Castro, Mussolini… it’s a substantial list. No, he is a pretender, a wannabe strongman who isn’t strong, a wannabe king who isn’t smart enough to do anything but fail, a self-styled “stable genius” who is neither. He is too self-deluded to acknowledge his limitations. He’s the “clown who would be king.” I apologize to all the professional clowns out there. At least you are funny; he is not.

Unfortunately for America and its erstwhile allies, he IS demented enough to think he’s the cock of the walk, above the law, when in reality he’s a sad, pathetic orange-hued puppet being controlled by minds much more nimble, calculating, and malevolent than his own. And he cannot STOP lying. As the old saying goes, “if words are coming out of his mouth, he’s lying.” In his case, we can add, “or just saying incredibly stupid things that only stupid people believe.” Donald, you still don’t know what a tariff is, do you? What kind of idiot thinks signing a piece of paper with his ridiculously enormous scrawl will suffice to overturn parts of the United States Constitution? Or that the office of President of the United States is a plaything for his amusement, a cash machine, and a vehicle for his self-proclaimed “revenge tour” against anyone who has ever defied him? Well, we know, or damn well should know, what kind of person he is. Oh, and he’s like a military parade for his birthday, at a cost of tens of millions of dollars. Kim Jong Un would approve.

What is happening now, though, is moving beyond the historical instances of fascism or communism, for what is happening in the U.S. is more financial than political. It’s a money grab. Our situation is only one of the outward manifestations cropping up around the world of the attempted takeover of as much of the globe as possible by extremely wealthy, endlessly ambitious, and insatiably power-hungry elitists who want absolute control. They look upon the rest of us, whether we are poor, middle-class, or just reasonably well-off, as recalcitrant, stupid children who must be told what to think, what to do, what to believe, what to read, what to buy, where to live, whom to love and respect, and whom to hate and shun. We would have only those rights that THEY choose for us. THEY want to decide which businesses thrive and which do not. THEY want to decide what “facts” may be reported in the press and which may not. THEY would treat the U.S. Constitution about as respectfully as one might treat toilet paper. People of color, women, immigrants, will be shoved again to the back of the bus or face the unpleasant consequences. It is a nightmare worthy of George Orwell or Rod Serling.

But … despite the horror… I see that dwelling daily in a state of sheer revulsion is not useful. In fact, it’s debilitating to one’s spirit. Thus I’ve been searching for something meaningful that might come out of all this, and in the past few days, I’ve experienced an unpalatable yet oddly comforting epiphany. This had to happen in order to wake up the slumbering and complacent masses. Some people won’t pay attention until they feel the gut punch. The truth is being revealed, in all its rottenness. Yes, it leaves a bitter taste, but truth is the key to any sort of salvation—salvaging what’s good about America and rejecting with unyielding determination what is NOT good about a once-respected nation. To my delight, people are rallying, marching, tweeting, posting, gasping with dismay over the loss of jobs, livelihoods, and government programs designed to help us remain safe and well. People, even some of those ‘red hats,’ are waking to see that things are going terribly wrong.

Our democratic system that rests on the principles of government of the people, by the people, and for the people, is being systematically gutted and with diabolical motives—to abet the gathering of more wealth by elites to the extreme detriment of most Americans, and to take CONTROL of every aspect of our lives. The Muskrat calls Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” and the poor he deems “parasites” on society. He dismissed the pain their tactics have caused with a shrug and a wry smile. He and Trump and their band of dastardly chaos agents are out to do as much damage as possible. They are a mad circus of grasping, greedy, cowardly weasels dancing merrily to a screechingly off-key calliope that can be heard round the world. Those of us with ears to hear, minds capable of rational thought, and hearts that feel compassion for and connection with our fellow human beings shrink from that hateful sound We recoil from the sheer callousness of evil people with evil intent. These warped individuals do not CARE about the greater good … full stop.

To the warped personalities like Felon45 and the Muskrat, the population is composed of masses of irrelevant little dots, any or all of which may be wiped from the map with a wave of the hand, or a pen put to paper, or at the whim of a ketamine-fueled lunatic waving a chainsaw. Delete a few lines on a spreadsheet and tens of thousands of people lose their jobs, or their food stamps, or their school nutrition programs, or their medical care. So what? A few more lines from that list of erroneous “cost saving” measures, and there aren’t enough air traffic controllers, food inspectors, NOAA staff to predict dangerous weather, technicians who monitor nuclear plant safety, staff at VA hospitals, medical professionals who track diseases and epidemics, scientists doing cancer research, or anyone left at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to do just what its name indicates—protect consumers from greed, fraud, and other harms.

I believe that the government of a democratic nation has certain duties and responsibilities. Among those are NOT to oppress any group or demographic, NOT to advance a purely partisan agenda, NOT to ensure that millionaires and billionaires get richer, NOT to establish a state religion, and NOT to slake the thirst of power-mongering authoritarians. A democratic government exists to protect and preserve the safety and wellbeing of the nation’s PEOPLE. That’s right. PEOPLE matter. Those conspiring with each other and the authors of what is now named Project 2025 but is a plan for domination that has been decades in the making, have fueled a strategy that is to figuratively burn down an entire nation so as to build a totalitarian state from what’s left of democracy’s ashes.

I hold onto a vision (however tenuous) that Americans shall finally unite around the conviction that we cannot sacrifice our democracy on the altars of greed and prejudice. We cannot bow down to self-proclaimed “pragmatists” who say none of it matters in the long run. It sure as hell DOES matter. I don’t care what labels people adopt: progressive, conservative, or centrist. Either you will defend democracy (and the Constitution of the United States of America), or you won’t. Either you will insist on justice for ALL, or you won’t. Either you will insist that government uphold the rule of law, or you won’t. These are clear choices. Our choices have consequences. If we cannot find the courage to make the moral ones, the right ones…if we cannot go within and listen to the wisdom of our hearts, then we and generations to come shall suffer for it; we and they will pay a steep and tragic price for our ignorance, cowardice, and complacency.

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility." - Eleanor Roosevelt

Spirituality and religious practice may walk hand in hand. Sometimes they do not. To me, spirituality is a personal set of beliefs that guide our daily choices and define who we believe ourselves to be, whereas religion is linked to membership in a group that frequently determines in advance certain ‘correct’ beliefs and philosophies FOR its members. This is not to say that there is anything inherently ‘wrong’ with accepting the tenets and credos of a religion, IF they resonate with your heart and soul, IF you can align with those teachings without surrendering your own spiritual sovereignty, your divine gift of free will, and without abandoning your critical thinking skills.

There is no doubt that many religion-based organizations around the world do good works. By this I mean, feeding, sheltering, healing and being of service to those in need. I don’t count proselytizing as a ‘good work,’ since it smacks of ulterior motive. But the spiritual communities that give without expecting anything in return, the ones that welcome people of all walks of life without judgment, and focus on a message of divine love rather than a system of rewards and punishments—they lift people up, and do so without demanding conformity of thought and opinion. But these are not always the characteristics of many organized religions.

When I say “organized” I mean, generally, sects and denominations. Most people know the “big three,” which are, in alphabetical order, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. All are Abrahamic religions, meaning they spring from the same roots. Abraham is the first prophet of all three. He is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Bible, and the Quran. And, there are offshoots of each of these religions that also come under this Abrahamic umbrella. One might speculate that having common roots would foster a sense of unity between them. But, sadly, that has not proved to be the case. All evolved in different directions, developed their own views on their Creator, their own rules of acceptable behavior, their own ideas about human existence, the soul, and of course the afterlife. It was thus inevitable that organized religion would end up being a source of disagreement and divisiveness. Over time, political leaders (the ambitious ones always looking for an ‘edge,’) saw the advantage of aligning themselves with specific religions, and, before you could say “Amen,” people’s faith was harnessed to a political bandwagon, and armies marched under “God’s” banner.

Crusades and pogroms and jihads and holy wars were (and still are) carried out with the zeal of the self-righteous, often serving as camouflage for naked aggression and some of the most selfish reasons, thus shaping the world in which we live. I mean, Henry VIII shifted the British Empire from Catholicism to Protestantism (Church of England) so he could divorce Catherine of Aragon. And the ultimate irony was that Catherine’s daughter, Queen Mary I, aka “bloody Mary” did her darnedest to switch the country back to Catholicism and she put quite a lot of people to death in the name of God. Shortly thereafter, her sister, Queen Elizabeth I, restored the Church of England as the official religion. Confusing? Yes. One day you’re a heretic, the next day you’re an upstanding citizen. Then along came Oliver Cromwell, a strict Puritan. His soldiers killed monks and priests and despoiled beautiful and ancient churches. But after a few years, the Church of England made a comeback. Makes your head spin… and this was all churning around mostly in one small region of the world.

Where is God (however you may define that word) in all this turmoil? Nowhere, unless one adopts the view that God is a jealous, angry, vindictive tyrant with a favorite brand-name church, in which case, all bets are off. I, for one, don’t believe in that man-made image of God. Nor do I believe that wars purported to be religiously justified are genuinely about tenets of faith. War is war. Killing is killing. There is nothing divinely ordained in striving for power and control over other people or conquering one’s neighbors. There is nothing divinely ordained in standing in judgment of people who are different from oneself, whether in terms of skin color, language, ethnicity, religion, gender, age, or any other aspect of who they are.

There is also nothing divinely ordained in using religion to make a profit. Yet it is not infrequently used that way, developing into something more akin to a commercial enterprise than a spiritual bulwark of human society. The rise of megachurches, the leaders of which live in excessive luxury, seems to underscore the idea, “religion sells.” They operate on the assumption that some people are willing to part with their money in order to be included in the special club whose members can consider themselves rather superior. There is one evangelist who sells ‘magical’ water, another who sends healing ‘by remote,’ and churches have been ‘selling’ reserved front row pews for centuries, but this concept of profiting from people’s faith in a greater power (the ‘generic’ definition of religion) is hardly new. Up until the 16^th century, the Catholic Church sold “Indulgences” which were a sort of absolution for one’s sins (past, present and even future). Purchasers received a certificate of absolution. These were useful as a massive fundraiser to fill the coffers. They were available to all on a sliding-scale pricing structure—rich people had to pay more than poor people. Martin Luther, however, had a real problem with this selling of absolution, arguing that only faith could ‘save’ people from eternal damnation (or at least a stint in purgatory), and nailed his 95 Theses to the door of a church in Germany. Quite a lot of people agreed with him, and whole new sects of Christianity would arise as a result, including, of course, the Lutheran denomination.

What may we conclude thus far? That religion is an exceedingly negative aspect of human culture and society? No. That would be a generalization, and generalizations are dangerous, destructive and as often false as true. Not all churches, spiritual paths, and theologies have the same nature or character or effect on their respective members. There is a qualitative difference between a religious community that seeks, first and foremost, to bring people together in faith, love and unity, and a religious organization that primarily strives to convert people to its way of believing, and thus to expand its headcount of obedient faithful. The latter are the sorts of religious organizations that have prided themselves on sending missionaries into distant lands to convert indigenous peoples by whatever means necessary, whether those people wished to be converted or not (and often they most certainly did not). Whatever spiritual beliefs indigenous peoples already had were arrogantly declared ‘wrong’ because the missionaries believed themselves ‘right.’ Untold suffering ensued…again in the name of God.

Many religions set up an “us versus them” relationship between its own members and everyone who isn’t a member. The message is that it’s much better to be part of the “in” crowd than to be one of those heretics ‘out there.’ But in accepting this special status, the individual person often gives up something—his or her individuality and perhaps the freedom to question what is being taught. Some organized religions seek to subsume the individual into a single unit. Some organized religions strongly encourage (even require) obedience, and perhaps more troubling, an unquestioning acceptance of specific tenets and teachings. Most well established religious “brands” are quite attached to their dogma even though their dogma is man-made. They perpetuate a system, a hierarchy, in which leaders at the top decide what is true. Consider the conferences held by various religious sects where certain members vote on what and what is not allowed, e.g. whether women can be ministers or pastors, whether same-sex unions will or will not be blessed, whether certain versions of scripture are more ‘true’ than others. How is this a matter for voting, and not one of personal conscience alone? Many individual churches have ‘seceded’ from parent organizations over these very issues. They aren’t willing to toe the line in terms of dogma.

Dogma is usually rooted in a specific set of scripture or historical writings from an “authority” of some sort. But those are all products of the human mind, filled with a great deal of opinion and limited human perspectives on the human condition. Why else have analysts, apologists, philosophers and clerics been arguing about scripture for millennia? Everything we have in terms of scripture are handed-down stories created by human beings. And when did a story repeated and re-translated and reinterpreted over thousands of years retain the same content as when first told? I would say…approximately never. We humans can’t tell and retell the simplest story without losing bits and pieces, or even altering it completely. Why? Not to put too fine a point on it, but we humans hear what we think we hear, and often what we want to hear. Our brains interpret, analyze, categorize, and try to make what we hear and observe ‘fit’ with what we think we already know. Much of this mental “translation” is done quite innocently, without any intention to mislead. But there is also an element of “righteous” fervor, a desire to be as convincing as possible, and a host of other contributory factors—personal biases, prejudices, and cultural influences. So… basing an entire way of life on a collection of oral histories, cultural myths, legends, and conclusions that people formed centuries and millennia ago… has some inherent risks and can lead humanity down some very dark paths.

Once we have understood that the Bible, for example, has been interpreted again and again by more humans than we can possibly know, we begin to see there might be a bit of a problem with relying on it as irreproachable source of truth. Aramaic, Greek, Latin, and English are just some of the languages through which the stories have been filtered. Even before we consider the sources of the original manuscripts (which comprise only those texts church authorities approved of as suitable in furtherance of their declared belief system), we have to realize that every translator could not help but be biased, either linguistically (translating a word a certain way), or culturally (believing in certain ingrained principles) or politically (being influenced/overruled by those in power). To take a simple example, the word “virgin,” from the Greek παρθένος, or “parthenos,” doesn’t mean someone who hasn’t had sex. It meant maiden or young woman. Another example is that scary Book of Revelation that gets a lot of people (who are told to believe in its literality) living in fear of impending doom, gloom, destruction, rapture, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, Armageddon, and the “end times.” Fear, like religion, does sell...but what a tragedy to characterize the Source of all Life as something of which to be terrified.

Perhaps it is at this point where religion and spirituality particularly diverge. Whereas organized religion must needs rest on some framework of scriptural teachings, spirituality does not. To walk a spiritual path does not rely upon rules, dogma, conformity of belief (group-think). Spirituality is, admittedly, harder work. Once we abandon the less strenuous option of allowing someone else to tell us what to believe, we have to decide for ourselves. We must look inward, examine our own hearts, and do some soul searching. We must decide what resonates as truth and what does not. If we are fortunate, we find support in welcoming spiritual communities with inspired leaders and loving members who see us as fellow adventurers. We are encouraged to live in unity, be of service to other humans, and treat every day as another step along the path. Why? Because our own achievement of spiritual consciousness is a process. Enlightenment is a journey, not a fixed point, or a box to tick. There is no one book, no one set of rules and no handy-dandy map. There is only our powerful, enduring inner connection to Spirit, our recognition of the divine spark that expresses itself through us.

Some religions would have us believe we are poor, pathetic, error-prone, carbon-based life forms blundering our way along, hoping some deity or pantheon of deities will rescue us. That is NOT who we are. We ARE eternal, spiritual beings who have chosen to be right here… right now. For all the talk of being “born in sin” (how misleading and depressing is that?), we were born of Love. We are dwellers in a remarkably vast and complex universe and we may choose to embrace it. We may choose to stand in the Light through thick and thin (there is a lot of both), and heed our better angels. Or, we may not. We are beings of free will with the right to choose our beliefs about ourselves and other people, and the willingness to see who we truly are… instead of who someone else tells us we are. That is probably the most powerful ‘revelation’ of all…that we CAN decide for ourselves the answer to any question…no matter how profound or ‘huge’ it may seem. The Love in our hearts can always lead the way…if we let it.

Over the past 15 years or so, I’ve had the profound privilege of officiating at quite a lot of funerals and memorial services. In fact, I didn’t realize how many until one day I looked at the subdirectory where I stored all my messages written for these occasions. I have never believed in a ‘canned’ one-size-fits-all funeral message that would be suitable for any random person. Some established religious traditions do not allow much individuality, and may, with the best of intentions, cling to standardized practices to the point that result in all their members being given the same ‘send-off.’ Yes, we are all alike in that we contain the divine spark of life, but every human expression of the divine is unique.

I scrolled down through more than 150 funeral messages I’d written. I saw all the names of people who had passed on, and in some cases, I could recall the families of those folks, too. I remember their grief, disbelief, confusion, uncertainty, and, now and then, some interpersonal conflict (that happens under stress), but what struck me were their often mixed feelings about religion. What might have been a theoretical discussion about what happens when people die takes on a new sense of urgency when someone we know and love does die. My families often felt caught in the middle of conflicting religious tenets that offered contradictory viewpoints about the afterlife. For them, having a minister who took an expansive view of spirituality and was not bound by the tenets of a particular religion, made sense, and empowered them to follow their own hearts in choosing what kind of ‘send-off’ was right for their loved one.

Obviously and understandably, devout adherents of some religious paths prefer clergy from their own tradition—be it a Catholic priest, a Jewish rabbi, a Muslim imam, Baptist pastor, or Hindu pandit, for example. Familiarity can be comforting and reassuring…though not always. I once heard, with my very own ears, a clergyperson telling assembled mourners that their loved one, having been quite “imperfect,” might still be saved from eternal damnation by the ‘sacrifice’ of Jesus of Nazareth if God chose to forgive their loved one. Only my ingrained sense of decorum, and respect for others’ beliefs, prevented me from standing up and saying, “Are you seriously saying that to this man’s family? At his funeral?” I kept my mouth shut, and my indignation to myself.

Mine is an admittedly small sample of families, but there was a common thread to their beliefs, and other transdenominational ministers like myself have experienced similar attitudes among the people they served. When I sat down with families while planning a service to learn as much as I could about the individual who had died, the question of religious views was inevitably part of the discussion. I wanted to understand what their loved one’s most closely held views were on the topic and to honor, insofar as possible, the beliefs of the family. That could be quite a mixed bag. As I said earlier, they often settled on “we’re spiritual, not religious.” They usually had a sort of instinctive belief in a higher power, a Source of Life, but they had not yet come to any definite conclusions about what felt true to them. Sometimes there was disagreement between more (or less) religious family members. I finely tuned my messages to respect differing views. It takes some effort to smoothly blend, say, Buddhist principles, New Testament scripture, and a soupcon of Henry David Thoreau, but it can be done.

The majority of traditional paths often have rules and standards about what constitutes a proper funeral service—what messages it contains, how lay people may or may not participate, what prayers are appropriate, and even the venue in which it is held. In some cases, only a bona fide house of worship is considered suitable. This may make perfect sense, depending on the humans involved and what they believe. For instance, devout Catholics are likely to arrange for a funeral mass to be said by a Catholic priest, and that mass will take place in a consecrated Catholic church, chapel, or cathedral. For these families, this is the natural and most appropriate way to mark the passing of someone they love, and gives them a comforting sense that they have done their religious duty.

But not everyone is quite so certain. They wonder. They have questions. They shy away from making a commitment to the kinds of formal religious beliefs others find comforting. Some are naturally rebellious and tend to push back against being told what is true and what isn’t. To them, spiritual truth isn’t codified in a particular book. Instead, the journey of discovering what is ‘out there’ is a lifelong adventure. I empathize with inquirers, seekers, and rebels because I count myself among them. So when I sat down with a family, all issues were up for discussion. Must one read aloud certain words written in a book, or may we bask in the words that flow from the hearts of the participants? Must there be solemn music (the funeral dirge) or could we have more lively music that the deceased loved? Is a funeral only ‘legit’ if it takes place in a house of worship or at graveside? There are no ultimately ‘right’ answers. Grief is a deeply personal experience. Thus, how people choose to say good-bye is equally personal.

I have presided over memorial services in traditionally sacred spaces (churches, funeral home chapels, and at graveside) and also at non-traditional venues. I’ve gathered with families at parks, beaches, meeting halls, and even airplane hangars at John Wayne Airport (twice) to honor individuals who had been renowned pilots. Yes, I had to pause here and there for the roar of planes taking off, but also had the awe-inspiring experience of leading everyone outside to watch a low-altitude flyover as part of the memorial. I also welcomed unusual ways of paying tribute to a loved one, such as playing favorite (non-religious type) songs, or placing an array of stuffed toys and colorful artwork on the casket of a person who had lived the challenge of Downs Syndrome until she died in her 50s. And there was the son of a gentleman who had been an avid amateur magician; the son wanted to perform a sleight of hand trick that produced a lovely photograph of his dad on the ‘reveal.’ Why not?

Some families wished a memorial to be a joyful, even playful, celebration of life; others preferred something serious, somber or low-key. What they all had in common was an independence of spirit and a desire to create something uniquely suited to their situation and the person they wished to honor. I followed their lead. For example, if the deceased had a great sense of humor, I included some humor in my message and encouraged those who shared to do likewise. (Laughter through tears is an extraordinarily healing experience.) I encouraged the assembled guests to applaud after someone shared, to thank them for their love and courage. I let the events flow. This isn’t to say that I ignored my “supervisory” duties if inappropriate behavior cropped up on rare occasions. For instance, the young man who walked to the front of the church in mid-service and tried to open the fastenings on a fully sealed casket so he could see dad one more time… not the right moment for that. Or the first wife of a thrice-married gentleman who came up the aisle of a packed church, clearly three sheets to the wind, loudly insulting wives number two and number three in rather unladylike language. Her son and I helped her to a seat and, though she fully intended to share her grievances at the podium, we diplomatically forestalled that potential disaster.

Aside from addressing the occasional deviations from good taste, I chose not to tell family members what to believe or what they should do. I made suggestions when asked, but never pulled out a religious text/manual and declared, “This is what is said at a funeral, and this will be the order of service,” or, “these are the prayers that will be prayed, and the hymns that will be sung.” I also avoided those common cliches that some clergy employ, like “He/She is in a better place.” That may be true in many ways, but is not necessarily helpful. People in grief only know that the one they love is not right here, right now, in the flesh, and their hearts are broken because of it.

Working with families, I was always conscious of how frightening it can be to contemplate death, whether our own or that of someone we love. The last thing a person in grief needs is to feel afraid for their loved one… afraid of “God,” afraid of judgment, afraid of what lies beyond. In the interests of full disclosure, my own New Thought path does not believe in the concepts of judgment, punishment, hell, or damnation. We’ll delve into that more in the next part of this mini-series. For the moment, suffice it to say that ours (and many, many other paths, too) believe in eternal life and do not believe in a ‘personified’ deity… or, as I put it in many a sermon, “God is not a person. God is every person, every creature, every blade of grass and ray of sunlight. There is no deity arbitrarily choosing when people die, choosing to “take them away” from us. No one is taken before their time… except, understandably, in the eyes of those who love them and can’t imagine life without them. But there is no ornery, cantankerous, mercurial god figure on a throne in the middle of an Olympian style heaven who decides who goes where based on the good or bad stuff we’ve done… and, heaven knows, we’ve all done both.

Some of what is traditionally taught in numerous mainstream churches is fear-based. The incomparable Bea Arthur, in the role of Maude, had a catchphrase, “God will get you for that.” Of course, it got a laugh every time, at Walter’s expense, but when you stop to consider the ingrained assumptions that make it a sort of universally accessible joke, it is not all that funny—a supreme deity who punishes the ‘disobedient.’ Wow. Scary. And that’s the point, to be scary. Hell has been described in excruciatingly specific and horrific detail throughout the centuries. A few hours perusing Dante’s Inferno is a sure fire prescription for nightmares. But would it surprise you to learn that hell is a relatively new invention… at least from the perspective of many thousands of years of human history. Greek mythology had a Hades, divided into sections for the good, the medium, and the bad, rather like a set of pigeonholes for types of transgressors. In Norse mythology, Hel is the name of the realm of the dead and the goddess who oversees it. And once upon a time, people thought Charon ferried the dead across the River Styx to the underworld.

Some of you will remember that scene in the Albert Finney musical version of A Christmas Carol, entitled Scrooge. The final ‘ghost’ visitation lands him in hell where devils are forging his 50-ton chain. When he finally awakens from the nightmare, he does a wonderfully exuberant scene dancing around the room celebrating that he’s alive. Of course the ghosts of Christmas Past and Present had also done their part in awakening his inner consciousness, his compassion, his memories of what love felt like, but the prospect of hell seemed to be the ‘clincher.’ So what is the ultimate message … that it feels wonderful when love courses through you and connects you to your fellow human beings, or that if you don’t wake up and give a damn about people, you’ll be fitted with a big chain and dwell in pain and misery forever? Hmm. I’d prefer the former.

The hell and damnation threat may have worked in past centuries in moderating human beings’ worst impulses, or instilling a conscience of some sort, but it has in modern times apparently waned as an effective deterrent against bad behavior and harmful choices. Naturally, there are those who would argue that what the world needs is MORE and stricter religion and less independence of heart, mind, and soul. I would disagree. We need to know, within ourselves, what is right and what is wrong. What is loving and what is not. No amount of “thou shalt nots” is a substitute for a spiritually grounded conscience. So does fear of retribution serve a purpose at all? We can’t know for certain, but it may well be one of the pillars of traditional religion that we are first prompted to question, especially when confronted by death. And if “hell” is a myth, what else might be? Thus begins the inner awakening to a personal and meaningful spirituality which guides us to become the best possible version of ourselves.

The adventure can be challenging to say the least, and baffling, too. There isn’t a handy road map or an owner’s manual, and you can’t ask Google. (Well, I suppose you could try; I hear AI is making a lot of progress.) Is it any wonder that many us find the task of formulating our own set of beliefs so daunting? Of course not. None of us likes the unknown. In fact, we shy away from it because it makes us feel rather nauseous and unsettled, like riding on a particularly scary roller coaster. We prefer to know what’s around the next bend. We yearn for facts and information, although for a world positively drowning in information overload, a lot of us are woefully uninformed about a great many things. But I digress.

The afterlife, in some traditional western religions, is a “perfect” place which often involves angels (often with wings), perhaps some pearly gates, possibly harps, and it is reserved for the ‘good’ people. When they get there, that’s it. That’s the end of the line.  But is it? Even those of us who are inquisitive will still have to wait and see what comes after we shuffle off this mortal coil. I actually do think it’s a perfect “place,” but not because I’m envisioning my own comfy cloud couch and the instant ability to play a stringed instrument. I find perfection in the notion that once we’ve shed the mortal body, we are free to explore something extraordinary. Nothing dreadful awaits, and each person’s experience of transition will likely be different from those of others. Whatever that looks like, each soul is welcomed back into a complete awareness of the oneness that is Life. There is nothing to fear. And if you ask yourself, REALLY ask yourself, you know that, too.

A young man whose mother had died said to me, as we wrapped up our pre-funeral planning: “Do you think Mom will be there?” I said, “Absolutely, and she will always be with you.” I meant that with all my heart. He smiled and said, “I think so, too. That’s what keeps me going right now, knowing she will love me forever.” He gave me a hug and walked toward his car with just a little more lightness in his step. I knew his healing would take some time, but I also knew Love would see him through.

Thus, the shift in verbiage and energy for today.

I’m not denying or ignoring the realities. I personally believe that, at the hands of Russia and Elon Musk and others, there was extreme and results-altering interference in the technology and machinery of voting and can only trust that it will come to light. This is not some outlandish conspiracy theory. People all over America are still reporting their votes have not been counted and/or acknowledged. None of the math really adds up. But we need not be incredulous. An intelligence chief for Vladimir Putin publicly announced: “The election campaign is over. To achieve success in the election, Donald T____ relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. As a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them.” The subtext is simple: We own you. To add insult to injury, Russian state TV aired several images from Melania’s book which depict her fully naked. “Here” they were saying, “is America’s about to be First Lady.” Humiliating, and intentionally so.

But however we got here, we are here. I decided the situation called me to release my anger and indignance as much as possible. Stepping back, I looked at a bigger picture. Yes, MAGA malevolence and ignorance has struck a blow at our dearest and most cherished principles and threatens our most important institutions, at least for now. We shall see if this is indeed the painful, chaotic wakeup call that America needed and whether it is successful in shaking us out of our apathy and complacency. It seems we may have assumed that democracy, once established, need not be nurtured and defended. You know what they say about making assumptions… and it ain’t good. I see, too, that the lesson is not restricted to the U.S. Our turmoil is not unrelated to similar trends toward fascist autocracy in various parts of the world. May they learn from this, too. No doubt they have their own versions of the MAGA mentality creeping through their societies.

But all MAGAs are not of the same mentality, so I cannot lump them all together. Some are actually vicious racists; there is no doubt about that. Some confuse patriotism with jingoism (as do many). Some are wealthy oligarchs whose only goals are vast wealth and the ability to wield absolute power over other people. Some are “bro-culture” misogynists who have no respect for women, viewing them as nothing more than useful providers of sexual satisfaction (willingly or not) and producers of progeny (willingly or not). But there is also a huge subset of what I call the willfully ignorant. This is a far different from what we may call an ‘honest mistake.” Those are the kinds of errors in judgment we have all made because we genuinely lacked sufficient information to make a better choice. Here, though, there was so much information pointing to the unfitness of the GOP candidate, it was impossible to ignore unless one decided to bury one’s head in the sand.

The people of the red hat COULD have absorbed the truth from a variety of reliable, unbiased sources, but chose not to do so. They COULD have looked at the hundreds of hours of the MAGA leader’s “speeches” aired on unbiased media that didn’t try to “sane-wash” all the crazy, outrageous things he said, and did. They COULD have admitted to themselves that he was clearly deranged, unhinged, unwell, and dangerous. They didn’t. They COULD have indulged in a bit of introspection to see if hatefulness and poisonous bigotry was truly okay with their own consciences. They didn’t. In fact, it appears that we may have amongst our electorate a huge number of uneducated, unaware, self-absorbed individuals who are woefully ignorant, incapable of critical thinking, and intend to stay that way. They do not consider a bigger picture, be it national or international. They do not see the logical consequences of what they have done. And now the “reap what you sow” principle comes into play.

The greatest tragedy is that millions and millions of socially conscious, self-aware, informed voters who marched proudly for democracy, who knocked on doors, rallied for freedom, then stood in long lines to joyfully cast their ballots for Kamala and Tim and their vision for a prosperous, united America … they will also suffer for what the MAGA mentality has wrought. Depending on how the situation unfolds, millions could be deported (including naturalized citizens, citizens by marriage, and even those BORN in the U.S.). Senior citizens could see their support system disappear with the bankrupting of Social Security and Medicare. Some 40 million or so individuals who rely on the Affordable Care Act for health insurance could be left without access to medical care. And women in even more states could be left without reproductive rights. Absurdly irrational tariffs and more tax cuts for the wealthiest could tank the economy and hurt every household budget. There is more, but let’s leave it at that for now. Otherwise, the list could go on for pages.

Again, here we are. Recrimination and fury accomplish nothing, although it is imperative that our political leadership (the sane, wise, responsible ones from both sides of the aisle) get very, very focused on preventing as much harm as possible. Many strategies and solutions are beyond our control as private citizens. But we must stand firm in our principles. We must never lose our ideals. Even if hate and greed seem to have put down deep roots in the landscape of America, we shall not allow them room to grow and spread. Resistance to the power of the negative begins with us. In our own lives, our own communities, we can still be ambassadors of sanity, kindness, and unity. We can peacefully but firmly refuse to cave in to FEAR. You see, fear is the most virulent weapon that dictators and oligarchs wield. They want “the little people” to be afraid, to give up hope, to accept the loss of self-determination and personal freedom. Hitler accomplished precisely that nearly a century ago, and apparently we didn’t learn, because fascism is back for a repeat performance. And maybe this time, we’ll finally grow up.

• Let us not be afraid for the moment, nor dread the future, however bleak some possible futures may seem at this uncertain moment.

• Let us never surrender the power that lies within us, because IT is what makes us invincible souls.

• Let us make our voices heard, not in hysteria and fury, but in unified, resonant commitment to what is right.

And now let me shift to a more specifically spiritual view of this now moment, which is, after all, the reason I began this ‘channel,’ The Heart of the Matter. I wanted to write about not only current events, but about the spiritual significance of those events and how we choose to react to them. I began my blog series with America’s Shattered Heart, because I could see that our nation has truly broken apart. I could see that the surge in hatred and lies and sheer nastiness toward others was sending us all down a dark road. I could see that the ‘heart,’ the part of a person, a society, a nation from which love radiates, was lying in tatters … from sea to shining sea.

Then I watched with increasing joy as Kamala Harris crisscrossed the country sharing a powerful message, demonstrating an authentic desire to restore unity, offering a plan to help as many Americans as possible enjoy the blessings of comfort, prosperity, safety, and freedom. I FELT deep within me the energy, the spirit of the people surging upward… bathed in light and love. But I guess not enough people cared to listen. Now I’m working on the need to forgive, and that doesn’t come easily, does it? But every journey begins with a single step forward, and the journey lies within each of us.

The only thing we can absolutely, positively change is ourselves. More specifically, our attitude. It’s tempting to vent our fury on the MAGAs who didn’t consider the consequences of their actions, who cast their votes without discernment or emotional intelligence. It’s usually best to avoid the impulse to “slap someone upside the head.” Okay, we may want to, but still not a good idea. Besides, stewing in anger will not change anything, will it? And the stewing just makes our own hearts ache and our stomachs hurt. We can’t do ourselves or anyone around us any good if we are consumed with anger and resentment. I’m not saying that we ought never allow ourselves to be angry. That’s silly. Humans have emotions. Humans get angry and for good reasons. We react to being mistreated, insulted, threatened and betrayed. But we need not become prisoners of our emotions nor carry anger around like a loaded weapon to blast people. Nor ought we become lost in the illusion that we can make anyone be something other than what they have chosen to be.

There is a wonderful “alternate” version of the Serenity Prayer, often used as part of addiction recovery programs. It goes like this:

“God grant me the serenity to accept without judgment the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know that ‘one’ is me.”

I have often delivered Sunday talks in which I delved into the deeper meaning of “The Golden Rule.” I refer to the real one, not the sarcastic parody, “He who has the gold makes the rules.” (That’s the oligarchic version.) I am citing the one usually phrased “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Although Christians tend to claim the Golden Rule as their very own, because a version of it appears in the Sermon on the Mount, they don’t have ‘dibs’ on it. From the Buddhist Udana, “Hurt not others with that which hurts yourself.”  From the Tao, “regard your neighbor’s loss or gain as your own loss or gain.” Bahai: Desire not for anyone the things you would not desire for yourself.” From the Talmud: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.” From Islam: “Do unto all people as you would they should do unto you.” Hindu Panchatantra: “Never do to others what would pain you.” Those are but a few examples, and please note that this way of thinking is not restricted to religious paths, but works in a secular philosophy, too. This kind of balanced reciprocity can be found in ethical systems everywhere.

Thus you can be a Muslim, a Jew, an atheist, a deist, an agnostic, a Christian of any denomination, a Buddhist … or anything at all and STILL have your own personal ethics, personal standards. We may not be able to change anyone else’s attitude, but we CAN change our own attitude. We may encounter some truly horrifying situations as we find ourselves wading around in so much BS we need a shovel. But whatever shows up, it is entirely our choice as to how we will respond. We need not go completely overboard on the ‘wide-eyed optimist’ approach, like the story of the kid who is confronted with an enormous pile of horse manure and immediately begins digging. When asked why, he says, “There must be a pony in here somewhere.”

Sometimes there is; sometimes there isn’t. We have to balance our faith and optimism with common sense, pragmatism, and a willingness to have a good attitude as much as we possibly can. We see what is wrong, and we do what is right. We balance righteous indignation with the understanding that it isn’t our place to judge all the people who appear to be running like lemmings toward the cliff edge. And most of all, we never lose sight of our connection to ALL human beings. We have so much more in common than we have differences. Sadly, it is the differences that seem to draw our attention more often than not, and, as we seem to easily forget, our futures, our destinies, our very survival relies on humanity acting in concert for the highest and best good of all. That, dear readers, is the truth.

Let me close with a parable created by an ‘anonymous’ writer, based on Proverbs 11:24-25, an Old Testament book found in the third section of the Jewish canon known as the Ketuvim.

There was a farmer who grew excellent quality corn. Every year he won the award for the best corn. One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting. The farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors. “But how can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked. “Why sir,” said the farmer, “Isn’t it obvious? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of mine. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn.”

So it is with our lives. Those who want to live meaningfully and well must help enrich the lives of others, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all.

The welfare of all. Although it seems that a huge number of Americans did not take that principle into account when they cast their votes, we cannot expend our time, deplete our energy, or ignore the guidance of our hearts by remaining steeped in anger and resentment. Instead, let us take a deep breath and find ways to help each other get through this storm. If the worst happens, and there are those left without resources they need, reach out to assist them. Go on being your kindest, most compassionate self. You might even “up your game,” love-wise. Keep believing in the divine spark within each human being, even when that spark is obscured by their actions and words. You may need to keep your distance from them, and that’s probably best. You need not condone bad behavior, ever. But avoid wishing them ill as best you can. And avoid abandoning your faith in the whole darn species. No purpose is served by taking on the persona of a misanthrope. You’ll just end up lonely, and humanity will be that much the less without you to help light the way.

Hate brought this darkness that threatens to swallow us up.

Only Love and Light can disperse it.

This election is absolutely NOT about the ideological differences between conservative and liberal political viewpoints. I don’t care what label you choose, be it Republican, Democrat, or Independent. I don’t care if you’ve been devoted to one of those parties (or any other party) your entire life. Because, and let me reiterate for emphasis, THIS election is NOT about partisan politics. It is about Light versus Darkness, Love versus Hate, and declaring who we ARE as a nation. If this sounds fanciful, rest assured it is not. We are at a fork in the road, and the direction we choose does not mean we might take a little unintended detour. We’ve done that in our history and gotten back on track. No, this is a choice from which there might be no coming back if we fail in our love of country and in our regard for our fellow human beings. That’s a remarkably strong statement, and I shall stand by it.

For years, months, weeks and days, I’ve watched the continued spiraling downward of the GOP. It has lost its values, its dignity, its principles, and its own roots primarily because of the strange and almost inexplicable rise of the MAGA leader. What WAS the Grand Old Party? Brief history: The Republican Party was founded in 1854 by anti-slavery activists who opposed the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which allowed for the potential extension of slavery to the western territories. The party supported classical liberalism and economic reform geared to industry, supporting investments in manufacturing, railroads, and banking. The party was successful in the North, and by 1858, it had formed majorities in almost every northern state. White Southerners became alarmed at the threat to the future of slavery in the United States. With the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, the Southern states seceded from the United States. Under the leadership of Lincoln and a Republican Congress, the Republican Party led the fight to defeat the Confederate States in the American Civil War, thereby preserving the Union and abolishing slavery.

The Republican Party today (as represented by the MAGA leader and his various allies) is a disgrace to America. It has been hijacked by racists, misogynists, oligarchs, wannabe autocrats, religious zealots, and those who are ‘in bed with’ foreign leaders of hostile nations, all without a shred of respect for the U.S. Constitution, our constitutional democracy, or the rule of law. They are, without a doubt, the greatest threat to freedom we as a nation have ever faced. And how did they get to that point of being a threat? How did we let them? There has always been a lunatic fringe of extremists across the political spectrum. But we didn’t imagine… did we… that the lunatic fringe would become the core drivers of the Republican party. We didn’t imagine that the worst human qualities would become the ‘norm’ for millions, or that they could ever get within striking distance of crushing democracy. Be very clear, the central influencers of this MAGA/Project 2025 brand of pure fascism have no interest in government of the people, by the people and for the people.

We all should have noticed, and we should have said ,”No… oh NO you don’t.” But we didn’t.

For nearly 10 years, the MAGA leader has made it acceptable to be a raving bigot, threaten violence against your opponents, profanely insult and defame other political figures, mock what so many of us hold dear—compassion, acceptance, fairness, equality, peace, freedom for all. He is the poster boy for sheer lunacy in a public figure, though I cannot take satisfaction in anyone’s obvious descent into madness. Mental illness is a tragedy. But it doesn’t need to be OUR tragedy too, does it? Does he speak for the majority of Americans? I do not believe that he does. Those for whom he does seem to speak are beyond my comprehension. And any person who actually casts a ballot for the man is either just as mean-spirited, just as self-absorbed as he is, deluded into believing his crap (like saying that America is a “garbage can”) or just NOT PAYING ATTENTION. But how could anyone miss or ignore the horribleness? I know, Pox “News” and similar outlets owned by billionaires have sane-washed, edited, clipped, pretended, lied, rationalized, or completely ignored the rhetoric for ten years. But with the availability of independent news sources, there’s no excuse to not be aware of the plain, unvarnished truth. He doesn’t hide who he is… at all.

The most shameful and horrifying event to take place in our country of late is without doubt the hate rally at Madison Square Garden this past weekend. On the very spot where, in 1939, Nazi sympathizers spouted their twisted “aryan” philosophy of white supremacy and ‘cleansing’ the world of human vermin, the MAGA leader and his evil band of haters did precisely the same thing, though with even more vulgarity, profanity, and putrid language. I’m not going to repeat much of it here because it is so distasteful and shocking I can’t believe I live in a nation where such things could be said out loud, in public, and on national television. Their ‘comedian’ offered up racist jokes one after another, the most widely reported being one about the “floating island of garbage in the Pacific…it’s called Puerto Rico.” Another ‘joke’ … about Latinos making lots of babies because they push their way in and don’t know when to pull out. I’m paraphrasing and that is bad enough as it is.

All speakers’ remarks were vetted and approved in advance by the candidate’s campaign, and loaded into the teleprompters, so there’s no credibility when they say, “oh, that doesn’t reflect what we believe.” The only remark that was reported to have been ‘censored’ shall we say, was the comedian’s comment calling Vice President of the United States Kamala Harris the “c-word.” No, I am sure as hell NOT going to spell that one out. Elon Musk, however, had no problem with it when he posted a big color ad on his twitter platform saying, “We don’t need a c*** in the White House.” One after another the various speakers ranted, shouted, screamed insults, and demeaned most of America. Spittle flew out of their mouths, rage twisted their features, and still the crowd applauded as the Proud Boys (white supremacists) handled “security.” It was a night that will live in infamy. No MAGA person can pretend it didn’t happen, but I suppose many will try.

When asked about the rally, the MAGA leader proclaimed it the most beautiful thing… a “love fest.” No, I am NOT kidding. That is a quote. He is monstrous.

While Vice President Harris has provided detailed plans for the way forward… for everyone in America…Mr. MAGA has no policies, no rational plans (though irrational ones to be sure), no long-term vision of creating a better life for us all. Other than rambling on and on about his 200% tariffs (which would tank the economy and add a huge burden to middle-class households and millions of working people and bankrupt Social Security) and promising to send the U.S. military around America rounding up immigrants AND all his “enemies from within,” he has nothing to offer but whining about his grudges. He doesn’t CARE about Americans. Why? Because he doesn’t know how.

Over 200 highly credentialed medical professionals took out a full page ad in the New York Times that contained a formal letter outlining all the observed symptoms displayed by the MAGA leader that he is a malignant narcissist--one of the most dangerous personality disorders in the DSM-5. Such people are capable of unimaginable cruelty, greed, rage, and serious harm to others. He HAS harmed others directly and the United States as a whole. He has lied, cheated, stolen, assaulted women, compromised our national security, colluded with foreign interests, been convicted of 34 felonies, all the while lining his pockets selling cheap tawdry souvenirs. He incited an attack on the U.S. Capitol and sat watching on his television with great satisfaction as people fought, bled, and even died. He and his bizarre mob of malcontents and deluded people vented their rage… on US.

Yes, on us. We the people who, even if we don’t agree with something, are not out violently trying to overthrow the government. We who think the U.S. Constitution is sacred. We who do NOT wish to enslave or denigrate people of color. We who know our own ancestors were immigrants, and legal immigrants have rights just as we do. We who believe genders are of equal value and deserve equal rights. We who do not demonize the LGBTQ+ community. We who offer acceptance to people unlike ourselves. We who believe in the separation of church and state. We who will not bow down to dictators.

So … I ask… where is the huge outcry, where is the massive indignation, where is the ‘hell, no’  from ALL thoughtful, fair-minded, decent Americans? Not just some, but ALL… except of course for the ones who are just okey-dokey with racism, despotism, the subjugation of women, and the rich getting oh so much richer. They, naturally, are gleeful, champing at the bit for a chance to turn America into a dark dystopia of people hating each other, where all hope for truth and beauty and peace is dead. Where basic human morality is irrelevant. I ask, when did the moral character of a leader cease to matter? When did standing up in front of crowds saying over and over the stupidest and most grotesque things, making up absurd lies, and still claiming to be God’s chosen one become okay?

Twenty-four hours ago, a Halloween parade took place in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania. One would think it was primarily for the amusement of the kids, but everyone loves a parade, right? Or maybe not. In that parade was a motorized ‘golf cart’ type vehicle. Sitting on its roof a sniper rifle on a tripod. Standing on the platform at the back, a person wearing a Donald costume and wig. Walking behind the vehicle, attached to it by a rope or chain, a person representing Vice President Kamala Harris. No, I am not making this up. A celebration of white people ‘dragging’ a person of color behind a car. Anyone think that’s okay? I don’t. Even less so because it has only been about 25 years (in 1998) that a 49-year-old black man, James Byrd, Jr. was tied to a pickup truck driven by three white supremacists and dragged for three miles along an asphalt road in Texas. Medical evidence suggested he was conscious for at least half the distance and would have suffered longer except that he was decapitated. The men dumped Mr. Byrd’s torso in front of a black church… to make a point.

Yes, it’s grisly, shocking, revolting… and why did I relate something so terrible that happened a fairly long time ago? Because the same thing could happen right now. People made a decision to put that display in a Halloween parade… to make a point. And it’s the SAME point. We just like to pretend it isn’t. We like to pretend that everything is fine… nothing to see here! Really? When is it “fine” to have a candidate for the highest office in the land, and arguably one of the most powerful leadership roles in the world, who stands on a stage spewing personal insults, claiming immigrants are eating domestic pets, accusing people of color of “poisoning the blood” of America, and fabricating, at will, the most egregious and outrageous lies imaginable. A candidate who dines with and praises some of the world’s most evil people. And all the while, he spirals down, clearly in cognitive decline, slurring words, forgetting where he is or what he’s saying, and not caring…because his cult of MAGA doesn’t care what he says.

It's interesting that some people act as if they don’t know what fascism is. We know Donald is never clear on facts or knowledge despite his claims of being a “genius.” He’s called Vice President Harris a “Marxist/communist/socialist/fascist” so that says a lot for his intellect. Here’s a quick explanation of fascism and why the would-be 47th has been accurately compared to Adolf Hitler. Fascism began with Benito Mussolini who, after trying to create a peaceful, prosperous socialist society, gave up on the idea and decided that the only solution was to have a very, very few powerful men in charge of everyone and everything. The assumption was that average people were too stupid to participate in government. The path to moving Italy to a fascist form of government was a strategy of creating hostility and discord among the citizenry, to appeal to a warped view of “national pride,” that excluded a number of religious and ethnic minorities. Divide and conquer.

Hitler enthusiastically embraced this philosophy and created what was in essence a complete myth about the “master race” of Germany and then sold it like a pitchman on a carnival stage. He perfected the art of demagoguery. He created a cult of personality. He played on people’s fears and soon the German people discovered there were lots of enemies within—not only Jews, but gypsies, gays, members of certain religions, people of color, uncooperative newspaper publishers, uncooperative jurists, and… anyone who did not agree with him. Women, he declared were only suited to the roles of “Kinder, Küche, Kirche” or “children, kitchen, church,” and told it was their duty to produce “pure” white children for the Reich. Sound familiar? It should, because one way or another, Donald, all his cronies at the Heritage Foundation, the architects of Project 2025, extremist evangelicals, and all the MAGA influencers and alt-right social media cretins have said exactly that. Their vision of America is Christian Fascism…period.

In Ronald Reagan’s farewell address to the nation, he alluded to a phrase written by an early Pilgrim settler, John Winthrop, talking about the America he imagined as a “shining city on a hill.” Reagan said, “I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.”

What will it be? A shining city on a hill, or a dark, smoldering pile of rubble where America, from sea to shining sea, used to be?

There are moments when there are only two choices.