FORWARD:
To say we find ourselves - like Thomas Paine - in times that try men’s souls would be an understatement.
To invoke the words of Charles Dickens that these would be the worst of times and the best of times would also be an understatement.
To invoke John Milton’s journeys through heaven and hell would also be an understatement.
To see that the great white whale of Melville is in our midst and that we have much to learn would also be an understatement.
To invoke the blindness of King Lear, the backstabbing of Julius Caesar and the witches of Macbeth would likewise be understatement.
But it is perhaps the poetry of Rudyard Kipling which stands us in best good stead right now - for it is time for us who are able to accept the mantle of being the adults in the room - to do so gracefully and with humility within the greater purpose we serve.
If-
1865 – 1936
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
This poem is in the public domain.
WAKING TO NIGHTMARE
And although literature and poetry are helpful there is much confusion as to the ways we as individuals can hope to cope and make a difference as the entire planet of some eight billion human beings now wakes to a nightmare.
How do we cope when we recognize the entire planet of humans now wakes screaming and horrified to a nightmare?
A nightmare - which they are likely to find - is one of our own making and which is going to lead to many years of soul searching.
We must first - as in any recovery from a delusional episode acknowledge the truth - and at a time when many are struggling to avoid the truth.
Truth, like love and life itself, often hurts.
But life without truth leads to exceedingly painful nightmares like this one we are living through.
This is the time when the real adults in the room must stand up.
Although we must deliberately and intentionally participate in bringing justice - we must be careful to do so in such a way that it does not condemn us all to the considerable tyranny to be had from the unleashing of a vengeful mob.
Mob rule and behaviors got us here - and it will not get us out.
RULE OF LAW - A DOUBLE EDGED SWORD
All of us are rightfully now leery of the rule of law - as the rule of law has been used to invoke tyranny and genocide.
But the rule of law - is like just about everything in life - a double edged sword - subject like all of us to considerable blindness and short sightedness.
When used with a full awareness of compassionate engagement and interpersonal connection the rule of law can be one of our best keys to a healthy civil life.
When used by soul less half wits and those bent on control of others for their own gain - the rule of law the becomes a ball and chain around our civil necks.
That the rule of law has almost become a joke under the current half-wit agents of modern totalitarianism is true. They have made a mockery of it.
It will be up to us - the adults who can stand for the principles of freedom and justice and equality - without losing their way.
Because to stand during these times is painful.
PUBLIC SERVICE - A DOUBLE EDGED SWORD
At a time when tyranny has managed to weaponize just about everything against the public good we must face the good and the bad of public service.
It is called service for a reason and should never be a self serving exercise in serving one’s own fame and fortune while ignoring the public good.
Serving the public good as a public servant should be a calling with its own rewards.
Those who truly serve do so be they must and out of a spiritual or personal calling which is its own reward.
Public service should not be - as has become the custom - just another way to serve the cult of personality - rewarded by fame and material gain - and failing to serve any public good.
Those who stand now will serve as lightning rods for the terror, confusion and anger of those waking to nightmare.
There will not be any rewards other than the satisfaction of a job well done.
Those motivated by power trips and by a desire for personal and material gain will be quickly discarded.
Excellence of many kinds will be the requirements - a desire to work for the common good in difficult times - willing to put shoulders to the wheel as long as necessary to see the job done.
We need those who understand how to build - how to engage with others to complete the new due diligence to see it through.
From the inception of designs through the planning and building of foundations through the final building of a strong edifice due diligence is needed.
No one person can do this and everyone involved is equally important. Any point of weakness in the chain will cause problems or even failure of the structure down the line.
AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM - A DOUBLE EDGED SWORD
I write as an American - since I am one.
It would be impossible for me after this lifetime as an American to identify as anything else.
But as I write about America I also write about the terrible dangers of American exceptionalism - and of what it has done to my own country and to many others.
As most of you know the United States has essentially been under the effects of a coup d'état since at least 1963.
I mention this in passing to illustrate that America has never ever been immune to tyranny from both within and without.
The nightmare we are in now affects the entire planet but this does not diminish the role of America and Americans in helping to create the very tyranny we live under.
America and Americans may well play a role in the remedies for this planetary totalitarianism - but only along with the rest of the world as it comes to grips.
TREASON IS TREASON - A coup d'état IS A coup d'état
Americans have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are more than capable of protecting a shadow government of totalitarians who deliberately waged tyranny against both the American people and against her duly elected presidents and candidates.
Wether this was an intentional act on the part of we as Americans - or the result of misunderstanding - or the result of other extenuating circumstances - is something yet to be fully ascertained.
The point to the rest of the world is that America is not exceptional in any way whatsoever and that what America does in the future to mark and to punish those who engineered the Coup d'état will be of interest to everyone.
THE SINS OF THE FATHERS
As a student of actual American history - and not of the approved schtick often sold to the public as American history - I see many problems which existed in the societies which would form America - and long before anyone ever contemplated the concept of an America.
In the formation of our own American government we can look back and see - with hindsight - how personal weaknesses and failure of due diligence led to the tyranny we live with today.
And it will not be overlooked by this American how often my own government terrorized not only Americans but the people of other countries.
Neither will it be overlooked as to the high degree of responsibility the American government, corporations and institutions have played in the current modern world tyranny and associated genocide.
Nevertheless I give full honor to the great American men and women who designed, implemented - and gave so much of value to our struggles toward human rights and freedoms.
Looking back now we can see both the genius at work - and the failures of due diligence which helped create the problems which plague us today.
We might expect that those who endeavor to take on the responsibility of such a course of action as the pursuit of freedom and liberty must first examine their own hearts.
Looking back we can see that it is in fact the writings of a Russian - Alexandr Solzhenitsyn - who struggled under tyranny which offer perhaps greatest clue here.
Solzhenitsyn wrote of apartheid as originating from that line which runs through the human heart.
Understanding apartheid - how and why we conceive the notion that certain others are somehow undeserving of the same rights and freedoms we expect for ourselves.
Apartheid is a terrible perversion of the golden rule - that we should treat others as we ourselves expect to be treated - and hypocritical in the extreme for a nation considering itself Christian.
Perhaps apartheid failed to be sufficiently recognized or understood by the founders.
The highest bar is expected to be reached by men and women who endeavor to create a government by and for the people
The founders wrote beautifully of human rights and these documents still stand today as a scaffolding on which to build a nation.
APARTHEID - SEPARATE AND UNEQUAL
But in what appears to me today to be a failure to complete the necessary due diligence - the founding ancestors perhaps failed to see - or overlooked - a few cracks in their foundations.
They failed to see or overlooked - the line of apartheid which divided their own hearts.
With perfect and compassionate hindsight we can now understand that in failing to see the full humanity of all Americans - and thus in failing to include blacks, women, Native Americans and others as full participants - they failed the highest bar.
America was founded by people who simply were not fully aware of the danger of apartheid - the error of allowing ourselves to see others different than ourselves - as separate and unequal.
Separate and unequal - apartheid - can no longer be considered as a policy for any of us in this world.
None of us us separate and none of us is unequal.
We really all are in this together.
THE NIGHTMARE OF TOTALITARIANISM
Cast adrift as we now are - under direct attack by a dangerous and able adversary - where do we begin?
I believe we begin with what works and reject what does not work.
Building what works in a society is very much like putting up a sturdy, well-designed and well-constructed building.
Quite obviously one would not set out to design or redesign a society or nation or world which includes anything as weak and destructive as apartheid.
Workable, well-designed societies require strong, educated, informed and highly independent citizens.
Any society which allows public servants to hide information about their work from citizens means the edifice is designed to fail.
Defeating tyranny - which is founded in the apartheid discussed earlier - means defeating apartheid - in ourselves and in others.
There is much more to the defeat of tyranny and to the building of a workable society than can be discussed in this essay.
My hope is it can serve as some kind of scaffolding for further discussions as to how we cope with this nightmare and rebuild our world and our lives.
For in this very broken world we need all the builders we can find.
Builders to put shoulders to the wheel with the full recognition that we are indeed all in this together.
With the understanding of what a full measure of human rights and freedom means and requires of both citizens and public servants alike.
Freedom is not free. It is a process of building over time.
Outwit that line of apartheid which runs through the human heart and we will have gone a long way towards a world we all wish to live in.
True freedom builders required. Destroyers need not apply.
My American roots go very deep and the understanding of the phrase used by Patrick Henry - “Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death” - has more meaning today than ever.
Patrick Henry - the American Revolutionary lawyer and founding father - was a 7th Great Uncle of mine.
Ebenezer Dorr - my 5th Great Grandfather - rode with Paul Revere on his midnight ride to warn that the British were coming.
Let us refresh our common cause in liberty as the human species.
Not an exclusively American cause - but the cause of all mankind.
What a great and stirring ending to this piece.
Patrick Henry! Give KW liberty and let freedom ring for all!
Happy New Year as well!
"As most of you know the United States has essentially been under the effects of a coup d'état since at least 1963."
JFK assassination planned, the plan readjusted, and then poorly covered-up.