What It Looks Like
POST 1129
Rebels in Damascus celebrate the downfall of Bashar al-Assad. Click me
We begin with a quotation from Anne Applebaum, writing in The Atlantic about the conditions that precipitated the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.
“There is nothing worse than hopelessness, nothing more soul-destroying than pessimism, grief, and despair.”
We shed no tears for this brutal dictator and murderer, but don’t imagine that because this is not Syria, but is the democracy that is the United States of America, that we are somehow immune. We are just as vulnerable to the cruelty and brutality that arrive on the same train as lofty nationalist, chest-pounding rhetoric, exactly as happened in Syria, Russia, Germany, Italy and many more countries. Indeed, the soul crushing hopelessness always starts with the arrival of that jingo train.
Steve Schmidt describes what’s coming to us as the new administration rams its train of destruction into America.
” . . . the furies will be let loose by wicked and arrogant people who think they have been picked by the hand of god to lead their people into a storm of their own making.”
That is what has been promised to millions of ears that insisted upon remaining deaf to the real danger. That is what we’ll get unless we put the brakes to the locomotive of our political and cultural destruction.
That is the reason we must rebel, but most of us don’t know what that can look like or how to go about it. Several action opportunities can be found at the end of some of my recent posts (here and here), and now there is a wonderful overview available to you from a source from which you would not expect to find the action items for the rebelling we need right now.
President Barack Obama delivered his remarks at the 2024 Obama Foundation Democracy Forum a few days ago. This is a must read for clarity, context and specifics about what we must do.
Don’t look for an angry diatribe about the horrid, anti-Constitutional fascist poison sprayed maniacally from the inbound train of the incoming administration. Although that’s an accurate descriptor of what is facing us, look instead for what needs to be done to save our democracy, actions for both the short term (2026 and 2028) and for the long term.
We are at an inflection point only hinted at since the Civil War and it is going to take us generations – the long term – to make the changes necessary for us to have a country that includes all of us – like the Pledge of Allegiance, “with liberty and justice for all.” But the thing about the long term is that it’s made up of tens of thousands of short term actions.
The rebelling we need to do doesn’t include demonizing those with whom we’re sure we have nothing in common. Indeed, a slight scratch beneath the surface of most of us will most certainly reveal things about which we agree – like the thing that moves strangers to help tornado and hurricane victims without first checking their political, racial or religious credentials. That’s where we must focus.
Your assignment today is to read President Obama’s remarks. It’s a long piece, but even in this age that trains us to have a short attention span, I believe you’re up to the challenge. Read it, then sit back and think about how his message applies to you.
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JA
Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
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