HOPE

The dust is settling

The political fires are over

Some lost hope

Some are rolling in clover….

Another election has gone by, and I have post-election thoughts to share. I have resurrected my Google blog as this is where I feel comfortable posting about things of politics, beliefs, and hope.

Right now, 51% of our country is rolling in hope and joy. They have felt dis-inherited from their own country and have threatened violence in their deep angers and bitterness. Now they have their hero coming into place. Their hopes are high.

Forty-eight percent of the country is in despair, holding their breath, making contingency plans and hunkering down for a long - hopefully only 4 - years.

There is hope for all.

Now is the time for all of us - the 51 and the 48 - to come together to hold our newly elected leader accountable for his words both vague and clear, unpromised or dimly promised promises, and his actions. Fifty-one percent are expectant. Let them be fulfilled and joyous – may their times of hoped-for prosperity come to fruition. May inflation go down, wars end, small farmers flourish, and the rural working people prosper. May they receive the more affordable living they hope for, may they receive good health care for their daughters and themselves, be able to care for their elders, earn good wages and enjoy happy retirement. May they live in freedom and may the values of family living and integrity be preserved. May they feel safe and heard and may America be regarded as a great and good influence upon the world. May the national debt go down and our economy thrive.

And may the 48 percent be present to highlight these expected accomplishments, or the lack of them.

What can we, the disappointed, do?

Now is the time to watch, observe and comment. As things fail to live up to our countrymates expectations, we must be the patient and kind vocal commentators that help to keep the dreams alive. When the economy gets worse instead of better, when our allies do not view us as friends and our supporters are those who oppress, we need to raise a voice of comment to our 51 percent family and friends, calmly and lovingly pointing out where words, actions and results do not match or produce the desired and expected effects.

When their and our daughters suffer and die from preventable reproductive issues and the infant and maternal mortality rates rise as they have been, we need to talk about it. When costs are higher, not lower, when tax breaks and sweet favors flow to the very rich while the working people suffer, we need to talk about it with our families and friends. When health care becomes hard to get and does not cover what is needed, we need to talk about it – not accusingly, but commentatively. When small farmers see their lands and livelihood suffer and disappear, we need to talk about it. When internment camps and ethnic and gender group persecutions disrupt the flow of daily American life and when federal disaster response is a disaster, we need to talk about it. When prices rise due to tariffs, when higher education is unaffordable and public education puts our children behind the economic world curve, we need to converse around the supper table, in the grocery store, at the mall, in the parents’ meetings.

We are all in this together, 

for better or for worse. Let us ride the times with gentleness but with clarity and compassionate courage and speak, speak, speak in kindness with our neighbors.

These may not be the times we hoped for, but they will present the opportunities we need to bring our country’s people together. And that is the true source of hope.

Federal Government Terrorizes Protesters - A Study in White Fragility

An Op Ed Piece

Unlawfully unmarked Federal Troops have invaded the city of Portland Oregon to provide a show of Federal force with which to threaten and bully other cities in other states into suppressing protests supporting societal change for equality and justice for people of color in the United States. Now the tide of bullying extends to other states as well.

The true message of Portland and what is going on these days is one of white fragility in its most eloquently elevated condition. The greater the push for equality the greater the use of force to keep that change from taking place, once again reinforcing the underlying purpose of law enforcement in this country as being that of protecting the institutions and systems that keep white privilege in place. As the voices of change call out for equalization, those steeping in the security of white privilege feel threatened, become extremely alarmed and call for help to keep their institutions in place.  After all, says the white privileged person, we are all good people. We mean no one any harm. Please protect us from these irate and disturbed unhappy people. Please make them go away so everything can stay the comfortable same. Call in the military if needed! Do not let our way of life perish! Taking no responsibility for the systemic suppression they live in that directly harms huge portions of the population and therefore they are able to claim innocence and cry for protection. The use of force is then justified to protect their very white way of life and the systems they are comfortable with. 

Does this somehow not remind one of the French Revolution? The simple happy playing of the days by those with income, wealth and the means for a happy life that allowed the aristocracy to ignore their responsibility to the people upon whom their way of life depended until an uprising of what finally became utter hatred was spawned that brought them to their death and ushered in a military coup? Is this not the basis of white fragility? The heart-felt fear of loss of those with privilege? And is not that fear the basis of class war and revolution? Is it not the lesson of history – that those who ignore the cries of their brothers and sisters do so to their peril? That the innocently guilty cry innocent on their way to the guillotine? That a whole class of people is punished for its blind existence in and dependence upon the privileges it refused to acknowledge and felt entitled to?

Can we not learn anything from history? Must we repeat the blindness over and over again? Will we not listen – listen to the voices crying in our streets and take a second look at ourselves? True disaster will be heralded by the deaf and the blind. The very worst that they fear and fight to keep from happening will come upon us all collectively unless we begin to move toward change. Toward equality. Toward true freedom for all. The human spirit will not suffer constant suppression and oppression. The blood of our brothers and sisters killed through oppression, repression, and violence calls to us from the streets. The cries of those standing for them call to us from the streets. For all the Evangelicals out there – God is listening. Not to your prayers and cries for help, and remonstrances of innocence, but to the cries of the blood of the dead and their brothers and sisters calling to Him in the street. Wake Up.

Tell your dog to lay off. Quell his military trained private forces sent to defend and preserve your  way of life and your dominance and supremacy by attacking and suppressing "others",  and put your hearing aides on and listen. We are all hanging in the balance waiting for you to wake up. Sitting on the precipice of your disaster. This whole society with all its light and freedom will go down the slide into autocracy and military dominance with you, if you, the good white people, choose to stay deaf. The light of freedom will go out in America because of you. And you will think it is everyone else's fault. You will not even see it happening. It will feel like "the right thing" to you....until it is far too late. Wake UP.