Some stories need to be remembered, told and told often year after year, passed on to our children like a torch they will one day pass on to theirs. What happened on June 6, 1944, was one of the greatest examples of collective heroism in the history of the world. 130,000 Allied troops - primarily from the United States, the UK, and Canada - landed on the beaches of Normandy to make the assault that would mark the liberation of France and the beginning of the end of Hitler’s Third Reich. Tens of thousands of those men would not survive.

Any time you read about the D-Day invasion, there is some new element that fascinates. Planned over a period of two years, the level of coordination, secrecy, and pure military genius involved was something no fighting force ever matched before or since. Years ago I visited Normandy, and the impact of being at the site - actually seeing the Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword beaches - was something I will never forget. I only got to spend a couple of hours at one of the extraordinary museums there, but it’s one of my goals to go back and spend at least a day or two absorbing more. I don’t know anyone who has visited Normandy and not been emotionally overwhelmed.

That day- after years of fighting Hitler on land, sea, and air for almost five years - the Allies were finally ready to invade the Western Front. The invasion began with airborne assaults shortly after midnight on June 6th, followed by amphibious landings at 6:30AM. The average age of the soldiers who participated was 22 years old. Given the intense fortifications of land mines, metal tripods, and barbed wire on the beach, plus heavy German gunfire that would greet their arrival, one can only imagine the scenes of bravery and horror. I’ve read that the opening of the film Saving Private Ryan supposedly gives a realistic depiction.

General Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander in charge of Operation Neptune, knew that no matter what happened - whether the Allies succeeded or failed - he was sending thousands of young men to their death that day. And World War 2 was not a war of choice or a military misadventure; it was a civilization-defining battle between freedom and fascism. One man was set on destroying the world, and millions rose up to stop him.

It was Eisenhower who listened to daily meteorological reports and made the final decision, “Okay, let’s go.” The unknowns were many and the stakes immeasurable. If the skies were too dark at the time of the invasion, there wouldn’t be enough light for the landing. If there wasn’t enough cover of darkness, the landing craft would be seen from too far away and the Germans would have more time to respond. Hitler was convinced that the invasion would be at Calais, not Normany, and it was important to act before he could figure out otherwise.

Finally, in one of the most astonishing historical twists of fate, German Field Marshal Edwin Rommel, whose job it was to oversee the Nazi army’s coastal defenses, had returned to Germany on June 5th for a quick visit to see his wife on her birthday! He traveled 500 miles to personally deliver to her a pair of grey suede shoes he had found in Paris, having been assured that the rough seas at the time would make an invasion over the next couple of days impossible. While he made it back to France by the night of June 6th, Rommel’s absence during the first hours of the invasion was a blessing for the Allies and a devastating blow to the ability of the German panzers to respond adequately to the initial assault. By the time he returned, the Allies had largely secured the Normandy beaches.

Eisenhower was famous for walking around talking to his men on the night before a battle. He’d say, “Scared, soldier?”to which the response of course would be, “Yes, Sir.” Ike would say, “You just gotta keep moving. That’s the thing. Just keep moving.” I remember from my visit to Normandy, where you can actually still see barges in the water, that there is a ghostly feeling there very hard to explain. You close your eyes and can almost see what happened on what is now a tranquil beach and was then such a scene of carnage. Starting then and for over the next twelve weeks, thousands of lives were sacrificed so fascists would not take over the world.

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President Roosevelt was at the White House when a call came through at 3:00AM on June 6th from the Army Chief of Staff General George Marshal, reporting to him that the landings had begun. Roosevelt is said to have remained on the phone throughout the day, Eleanor with him, trying to get whatever news he could from military headquarters in Southern England. That night, the President spoke to the nation on the radio…

My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.

And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:

Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.

Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.

They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.

They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest-until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men’s souls will be shaken with the violences of war.

For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.

Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.

And for us at home - fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas - whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them - help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.

Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.

Give us strength, too - strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.

And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.

And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.

With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

Thy will be done, Almighty God.

Amen.

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Eisenhower, meanwhile, drafted an unsent memo on June 5, 1944, planning to send it to Roosevelt if the invasion failed. It opened with these words, “Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops,” and ended with, “If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”

Fortunately, Eisenhower never had to send that memo. He crumpled up the document once it was clear it wouldn’t be needed, but it was found and saved for posterity by his military secretary. Hitler was supposedly excited when he learned that the invasion had begun, so certain was he of German success. But he was wrong, of course. From that day forward Hitler’s days were numbered. On the anniversary of D-Day. we remember those whose names we know, and those whose names we will never know, who fought and died to make sure of it. They died, so we could live.

Hey, you. Just thought I’d drop a quick note to catch up.

The techno-authoritarian dictatorship envisioned by Peter, Curtis, Elon, David, Russell and the others seems to be taking shape fast.

The part where you have to demolish democratic institutions in order to start over on a foundation of everything under 24-hour corporate control has been going swimmingly. Ellison is ransacking CBS, so that’s good. Women and minorities seem to be on their way out, or at least quieted, so that’s unfolding according to plan. The Supreme Court got the message (Clarence was a good investment). All in all, it’s a great day. America is back!

I mean, there were bound to be some squeaks from the serfs along the way. Did you hear what happened in Albania? Jared and Ivanka have a great idea, bought an island over there for development - plans for a billionaire resort, gonna be beautiful - and now a bunch of Albanian street scum are all up in arms as though it’s their island! Ungrateful bastards. If people would only realize, be compliant and this won’t hurt.

Donald and his guys are gonna make sure the midterms won’t be a problem. They’ve got some plans to lock that up, the whole team is on it. It’s a complicated process but it will be worth it in the end. If they do it right, we’ll have the next twenty years or so completely sewn up and from then on out it will basically just be maintenance. Dems will make a lot of noise in 2028 but as long as the November midterms go well, we’ll be okay. There’s always the chance some upstart Che Guevara type starts to rally the masses, but our people are on it. We got DHS, DOJ, ICE etc. They’ll handle any problems. We’ll be fine.

Let me know if you wanna meet at the club next week and play a few rounds. I’ve heard they’ve cleaned things up a bit and all the girls are over 18 now. Not quite as juicy but hey. I’m sure it’s temporary, just till the furor dies down. What’s important is the long game. We got this. They would need a miracle to stop us now.

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Reminder that day 2 of Marianne’s book club starts at 4pm PT / 7pm ET. We’re covering A Politics of Love.

The Zoom link is below for paid subscribers

See you there!
Team Marianne

*All chapters of the book can be found in the Book Club section of Marianne’s Substack.

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A reminder that paid subscribers are meeting on Zoom at 4pm PT / 7pm ET for a discussion about my books Healing the Soul of America and A Politics of Love.

You can find all chapters of both books posted in the Book Club section of this Substack.

Paid subscribers can access the Zoom link below.

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Hey, Everyone.

A new world begins with a new conversation, in our minds and in our world.

Wednesday and Thursday we’ll be getting together for a level of conversation that we sorely need. It’s historically and spiritually informed, heart-centered as well as head-centered, and forms the genesis of a new politics. “Politics,” said Gandhi, “should be sacred.” He didn’t mean religious or dogmatic or doctrinaire. He meant coming from the deepest, most soulful place within us.

Join me 4pm PT / 7pm ET on Wednesday, June 3 and Thursday, June 4, as we gather to discuss my books Healing the Soul of America and A Politics of Love. The material in the books, however, is just a jumping off place for a larger conversation. We will address the brokenness of our world today, considering how each one of us can help repair it.

I posted all chapters from each book in May. You can find those in the Book Club section of my Substack. Paid Subscribers can access the Zoom link below.

I look forward to being with you. This is our moment to rise.

Till then,

Marianne

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Visiting Paris for a few days, I’m reminded of the intense beauty of this city. Anyone who travels here has to be.

Driving around the Luxor Obelisk at the bottom of the Champs-Elysee, I started thinking about where all that beauty came from. It doesn’t take away from its magnificence to realize how much money had to be hoarded by a small group of people in order to create it. Century after century, a vast majority of the French population lived like serfs in order to support the unbelievable extravagance of a few. And while we gaze with awe at the gorgeous art, sculpture, and architecture in such places as the palaces of Fountainebleau and Versailles, you can also understand the anger of the French people that built up generation after generation, century after century, among those who witnessed all that while having no way to feed their hungry children. Millions of people with no hope of anything ever being better. People whose frustration and despair would lead in time to the grotesque horrors of the French Revolution and the overthrow of the French monarchy and aristocracy. All that beauty led to all that ugliness.

There’s a whole lot there to ponder.

It’s when you realize the human dimension of history that your own point in time opens up to you. Monarchic and aristocratic systems throughout Europe led some of its citizens to simply accept what was, many like the French to revolutionize their societies from within, and some like the American colonists to seek a better life elsewhere. The North American colonies were not settled by people who wanted to separate from England, but they moved to a new continent in hopes of achieving things they felt they could not achieve in Britain. When even in America they felt the frustration and anger of living at the effect of an oppressive King, they declared their independence, fought a revolutionary war, and created their own way of doing things.

So began the United States of America, as an audacious experiment in repudiating the reign of kings. What a sad and bitter irony that our 250th birthday celebration is overseen by someone who clearly doesn’t get the point. Our president has no sense of the radicalism of the American ideal. He doesn’t seem to understand that our country was founded to reject the dictates of an oppressive king; quite the opposite, he wants to be one. Just like Napoleon had the letter N written everywhere, Trump wants his name to be everywhere. Absolute monarchs and imperialistic emperors appeal to him, actually, both those of the past as well as the present. But the United States does not have a king. The role of our president comes with restraints, and President Trump doesn’t like restraints. He wants it to be all him, all the time, doing whatever it is he wants to do. He sees any limits to his power as a personal affront. And while he has cunningly purged the government of almost anyone who would hold him accountable, every day it’s more and more obvious that the American people plan to do so. He knows this, which is why his rigging of the midterms has begun in earnest. We are already in the throes of a cold civil war.

The American people are the heirs of our original ideals, and we are not the first generation needing to defend them. We’re called on now, as others have been before us, to stand for our liberty despite intense opposition. Our Founders understood the horrors of a system in which the whims of one person, enabled by an aristocracy of sycophants, suppressed the hopes and dreams of ordinary people. Nowhere in the Constitution is it written, “Don’t worry, it will all be fine.” Quite to the contrary. It’s a document written by people living hundreds of years before us, our Founders trying as best they could to protect us from the worst aspect of ourselves.

What an audacious bunch they were. It’s not enough to celebrate those men; we need to embody their audacity. This 250th birthday celebration should be a time of recommitment and rededication. The sign-off to the Declaration of Independence was this: And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. We need to do that too.

Those 56 men, by signing the Declaration of Independence, were committing treason against the King of England. Had the British won the war, each of them would have been hanged as traitors. It’s one of the great ironies of history that while 41 of the signers owned slaves - the most egregious transgression against the very principle of human equality - they nevertheless risked their lives placing into the ethers of human possibility that one day such evils would not exist. It’s been left to every generation that followed to make real in its own time the actualization of the document’s vision. Before we rush to cynically judge those who came before us - which is, after all, so chic to do these days - perhaps we should ask how well we ourselves are doing

America has never completed the task of “creating a more perfect union” - but at our best we have tried. Against great odds we have moved forward, we have self-corrected. Today, however, we’re not just not moving forward. We are not just standing still. We are walking backwards. We have regressed.

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July 4th, the official signing of the Declaration, is considered our country’s birthday. The Constitution was ratified twelve years later. With the Declaration of Independence, we separated from England. With the Constitution, we established how we would be doing things our own way.

While Donald Trump’s name is not written in the Constitution, the document was created to ensure that no one such as he would gain power in this country. It happened nevertheless, of course, but not only because of the aggressive nature of the political darkness he represents. It happened just as much because of the political light we failed to commit to. We failed to keep it in our hearts and to teach it to our children. “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” It’s not that we don’t have a vision; there has never been a more visionary statement than our Declaration of Independence. But our vision has been sidelined, and we the people allowed that.

Generation after generation, compromise heaped upon compromise, particularly over the last fifty years, we farmed out our best thinking to those unworthy of the trust. With every passing year our political institutions have become just another form of aristocracy-lite. When Thomas Jefferson said “The only safe repository for power is in the hands of the people,” he meant it. But somehow we forgot.

Let’s go over the four basic principles of the Declaration of Independence, just in case anyone needs to be reminded. 1) All men are created equal; 2) All men are endowed by their Creator with the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, 3) Governments are instituted to secure those rights, and 4) If the government is not doing that job, it’s the right of the people to alter or to abolish it.

Although Donald Trump neither understands nor respects those American First Principles (it was so clear in his interview with Terry Moran that he had never read the Declaration - he said it was about “unity and love and respect”) what ultimately matters is that we do. We can, despite the difficulties of this moment, protect our freedoms and the ideals they signify. That our country is in a state of decline is irrefutable; the question that remains is whether or not our decline is reversible. I choose to believe that it is, but then again I believe in miracles. Americans are in the process of a great remembering. We ourselves created the conditions of our brokenness, and we ourselves are the source of our repair. As we become more humble, as we become more receptive, as we become more available to the great work that lies before us, the seas are gonna rise and the winds will start to blow. The waters are gonna part I tell you. I feel it in my bones.

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This weekend I’m in Paris, where today I saw an original 1/16-scale bronze version of the Statue of Liberty at the Musee D’Orsay. I felt numb gazing at it, thinking of all the memes over the last few year or so of Lady Liberty bent over weeping. With our 250th birthday only weeks away, we have much to consider….about our country….and about ourselves.

Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, the designer and sculptor of the Statue of Liberty, said these words in 1898:

The experience of the old is not a motor: it is only a lamppost, warning against dangers; the light that illuminates the long path ahead is you, the youth, who are holding its torch; it is you who are to illuminate the future and its obscurities.

We’re living in that future now, and to say it’s filled with obscurities is an understatement. Never has there been a more important moment to consider America’s meaning. Not just our policies, our economy, or even our history. Our meaning. That, more than anything else - should we embrace it an understand it - will carry us through this awful hour.

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On the base of the Statue of Liberty is inscribed the poem The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus. Poet and activist Lazarus dedicated her poem to the refugees she was aiding at the time, applying for asylum from anti-Semitic pogroms in Eastern Europe. It’s worth reading every word of the poem, slowly and aloud to yourself. I’ll warn you now that it might break your heart.

THE NEW COLOSSUS

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

It’s worth asking, what has happened to us? We have gone from that poem…to concentration camps. Literally. To concentration camps. To Dilley in Texas, and Delaney Hall in New Jersey, and Alligator Alcatraz in Florida. Nothing could be more of a spit in the face to Lady Liberty, to Emma Lazarus, or to every brave American before us who has struggled and sacrificed for this country. Yet the darkness those detainment camps represent - and all the other assaults on our freedom today - will not prevail.

Millions of Americans are making sure Lady Liberty’s torch is held high, and we will continue to. From people protesting on the streets of Minneapolis, to judges all over the country standing up to the Administration’s corruption and criminality, to every American who will stand up for our democracy on November 3rd, her light has not gone out. And it will never go out as long as it lives in us.

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*Don’t forget our club for paid subscribers on Wednesday and Thursday. All chapters of Healing the Soul of America and A Politics of Love are in the Book Club section of the Substack.

Hopefully the material has brought you some Aha! moments. American history, in Bartholdi’s words, is “a lamppost, warning against dangers; the light that illuminates the long path ahead.”

Dates: Wednesday 6/3 and Thursday 6/4
Time: 4pm PT / 7pm ET
PAID SUBSCRIBERS WILL BE SENT THE ZOOM LINK ON TUESDAY

Let’s seek some light together.

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I did a Substack Live yesterday with Jeff Burningham about his book THE LAST BOOK WRITTEN BY A HUMAN: Becoming Wise in the Age of AI.

JeffBurningham.com
JeffBurningham.Substack.com
The Last Book Written by a Human: Becoming Wise in the Age of AI

JEFF’S BIO

Jeff Burningham is the author of The Last Book Written by a Human: Becoming Wise in the Age of AI, a thought-provoking exploration of what it means to stay deeply human in an increasingly automated world. In the book, Burningham draws on decades of experience building companies, investing in founders, and leading communities to examine how we can cultivate wisdom, empathy, and purpose as artificial intelligence accelerates around us.

A serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist, Jeff started his career building a tech startup in college and later founded Peak Capital Partners and Peak Ventures, establishing himself as a major player in real-estate, venture capital, and technology with multibillion-dollar assets under management by the time he was in his 30s.

Drawing from his business journey, his run for governor of Utah in 2020, and his lifelong interest in consciousness, spirituality, and human potential, Jeff brings a unique vantage point to the intersection of leadership, innovation, and meaningful community building. Jeff previously served as a Bishop in his local congregation, an experience that profoundly shaped his views on service, faith, and the human spirit.

With a compelling blend of business acumen, spiritual inquiry, and storytelling, Jeff reframes the dialogue around AI: It’s not just about replacing humans - it’s about recovering what makes us human.

He is a happily married father of four, a proud grandfather, and lives in Provo, Utah where he continues to dedicate his time, talents, and resources to be a leading voice that bridges the gap between technology, spirituality, and government in order toensure human flourishing in an era of highly intelligent machines.

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Be that as it may, as my mother would say, it is what it is … until it isn’t. As I make clear in my video, the last few days have been a doozy.

Oh, and another one! The Justice Department brought charges yesterday against Raul Castro of Cuba. And you know what that means. This could be the opening salvo in Trump’s next great misadventure. Let’s pray not, and at the same time keep our eyes on the ball.

Another day in TrumpWorld. Oy gevalt.

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We talked about what’s happening in our world today, both spiritual and material. Cylvia is a wise woman who I know you’ll enjoy listening to as much as I do.

Thanks for keeping the conversation going.

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Only the deepest kind of self-awareness can lead to genuine societal awareness. It’s easy to blame others, while not so easy at times to look deeply at ourselves.

Each of us can help purify the collective energy that has become so saturated with hatred in America. In A Course in Miracles, it says, “God does not give you victory in battle. He lifts you above the battlefied.” Our own thoughts, our own words - including the willingness to challenge words of hatred wherever we see them - are as important as our own behavior in lifting us to a higher place.

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Note: I’ll be going live today at 11am PT / 2pm ET with Cylvia Hayes. I hope you’ll join us.

Yesterday you received the final chapter of Healing the Soul of America. I hope you’ve enjoyed it! As promised, we’ve now rescheduled the book club so we can discuss the material together.

On Wednesday and Thursday, June 3rd and 4th, paid subscribers will join on Zoom at 4pm PT/7pmET to discuss the material in both Healing the Soul of America plus The Politics of Love.

In order to get to the other side of the chaos that our country is experiencing now, it will take internal as well as external changes. I’m eager to have this conversation with you.

In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “Power without love is reckless and abusive. Love without power is anemic and sentimental.” Put the two together, and we can change the world.

Let’s continue the conversation. The only thing more powerful than Big Hate is Big Love.

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The global struggle between authoritarianism and liberal democracy is in full swing these days. It’s been a good week for freedom in Hungary, and a bad week for the U.S.A.

Viktor Orban held power for sixteen years, turning a democratic Hungary into a mafia dictatorship publicly admired by both President Trump and Vice-President Vance. His tenure was marked by a rejection of multiculturalism, demonization of immigrants, suppression of dissent, embrace of Christian nationalism, crushing of independent media, erosion of checks and balances, rigging of elections, and an overall matrix of authoritarian power that held the country in a tight, fear-laden grip. But Orban was finally, soundly, astonishingly defeated last month by Hungary’s newly inaugurated Prime Minister Peter Magyar.

Orban was a role model to Trump, and the movement that rose up to defeat him is a role model to those of us who wish to save American democracy.

Orban was a hero to the new authoritarian class, calling his governing philosophy “illiberal democracy.” While the term is not technically an oxymoron, it is one in the sense that the entire point of democracy is to foster and protect the classic liberal values of personal liberty and individual rights. Someone voting for an illiberal democracy is basically repudiating the gifts of democracy, and Hungarians showed up in massive numbers to make it clear they wanted their freedom back.

Surprisingly to some, at least publicly Orban took his defeat calmly. He called Magyar early on election night, acknowledging the results and conceding the election. While he has claimed that for now he plans to remain in Hungary and rebuild his movement, many of his cronies — Hungarian oligarchs who got rich ripping off the Hungarian people for the past sixteen years — not surprisingly made a quick run for the exit, taking whatever assets they could with them. For Magyar has made clear he plans to hold people accountable for the criminal looting of Hungary’s economy as well as the destruction of its democratic institutions. No one should be surprised if a few of them show up in Florida.

As encouraging as the Hungarian election results were to democracy-lovers everywhere, and as inspiring as the movement was that defeated a dictator, let’s not kid ourselves that Donald Trump isn’t analyzing Orban’s loss very carefully to see where he might have gone wrong. Could he have tried to rig it a little more, suppress the vote a little more, frighten people even more? One of Magyar’s frequent messages to people during his campaign was, “Do not be afraid.” Whatever he thinks Orban might have done differently in order to win the election, it’s reasonable to assume Trump will try to do here.

As we all know, scruples are not his thing.

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The President’s latest gambit is the announcement of an Election Integrity Army. We can only hope he means poll watchers, volunteers, attorneys and other normal procedural monitors — not ICE agents repurposed for the day. ICE agents supposedly "guarding the polls,” let’s remember, has been Steve Bannon’s promise to us for a while. And Attorney General Todd Blanche says he doesn’t see why anyone would have an objection! If anything should be clear to everyone by now, it’s that the Trump gang is not all bluster. They’re serious about what they’re doing, and we should be too.

They also have friends in high places. Last week the Supreme Court, in a case called Louisiana v. Callais, chose to fully gut the Voting Rights Act signed into law by Lyndon Johnson in 1965. By tearing down Section 2 of that landmark Civil Rights legislation, SCOTUS basically threw us back to the era of Jim Crow and the systematic suppression of Black political power in America. They eradicated the law prohibiting racial discrimination being used to keep minority populations from full participation in the political process. That includes, of course, electing representatives of their choice. White Supremacist America won big with this decision, achieving one of its primary aims: to muffle the voice of tens of millions of Black Americans. Louisiana v. Callais swung open the doors for anyone and everyone who wants to deny Black Americans, or any minority, political power in America.

The effort to get rid of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion was never intended only for museums, universities, and businesses. It was intended for everything, everywhere. And that includes in the halls of government.

As soon as the SCOTUS decision was announced, its celebrants got right to it. In Tennessee, a special legislative session was held eliminating the state’s only majority-black and Democratic Congressional district by splitting it into three districts that include mainly white Republican voters. In Louisiana, the Republican Governor suspended an ongoing election in order to limit Black representation. Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina are similarly following suit. Enough with those uppity non-Whites who have the gall to think they can participate in determining what this country should look like. Enough with all that. Those days are over.

Well, those days are not over; they’re only temporarily put on hold. In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “we will be not satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." The Civil Rights movement, and the Voting Rights Act in particular, were themselves acts of rolling justice and mighty righteousness, in a country that had severely limited the rights of Black people for over four centuries. The Voting Rights Act was an effort to make right what had been a terrible, terrible wrong. It was a sword in the hands of the U.S. government for sixty years, giving it the ability to protect the rights of Black people and other minorities in the face of voter discrimination. While that sword has been ripped from the hands of Lady Justice for now, a generation of committed Americans will make sure it is picked back up.

Whether racism, bigotry and authoritarianism wear the face of an Orban in Hungary or a Trump in the United States, they are serious forces never to be underestimated. Nor should we ever consider them completely eradicated. In many ways, that was our mistake. Naivete and complacency among the American electorate is in many ways how we got here, as eternal vigilance gave way to laziness and lack of critical thought. But while it’s nothing new that freedom-loving Americans can be slow to smell the coffee, when we do we are a force to contend with. And we are rising up now. We had fallen down, but we are picking ourselves back up.

Americans have been getting over our shock for the last few months, psychologically and emotionally integrating the fact that institutions we always looked to for protection are in fact not doing so. Many of those institutions have even become the means of transgression against us. It’s depressing, and infuriating, but we get it now. We understand. The only ones who can save us are we ourselves. November 3rd is our first chance at liberation day.

It wasn’t easy for the Hungarian people -- it was an extraordinary feat they accomplished - and it isn’t easy for us. But they prevailed. And so will we. We will not surrender to the shameless abuses being perpetrated by the authoritarian forces in our midst, not now, not ever. We have already, and will continue to, suffer temporary defeats. But in the words of Peter Magyar upon his election victory, “….the most ordinary, flesh-and-blood people can defeat the most vicious tyranny.”

Damn right. We absolutely will.

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Mother’s Day doesn’t just belong to women who are mothers, because at a certain point in our social development all of us realize our responsibility to future generations.

The mother energy is bigger than personal circumstances; it is a level of realization.

And it’s needed now. Let’s take the original Mother’s Day Proclamation to heart. It was written by Julia Ward Howe after the end of the Civil War, signed by mothers of fallen soldiers in the North with mothers of fallen soldiers in the South. It’s a cry from the heart of mothers who had seen the carnage of war and felt its heartbreak. The women were proposing a better way, and hoped an official holiday would be created to be called “Mother’s Day for Peace.”

The Proclamation speaks to us now with great relevance. Let’s devote ourselves to our children children’s children’s children. This day and always. And this time for real.

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The original Mother’s Day Proclamation:

Arise, then... women of this day!

Arise, all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.

From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice. Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence vindicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of council.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take council with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after his own kind the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women, without limit of nationality, may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient, and at the earliest period consistent with its objects,

to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.

— Julia Ward Howe, 1870

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I was speaking to a friend of mine yesterday and he said something interesting.

“I see you’re not writing about politics as much” he said. “Gone back to all the Healing of America kind of stuff.”

I couldn’t get his comment off my mind. I understand what he’s saying, of course, but I also understand that how he sees politics — in fact, how most of the world does — is not the way I see it. American politics as we think of it now is a somewhat antiquated, superficial conversation that does little more than stir the pot. Most political journalism today — much of it very good, don’t get me wrong — is basically data collection. Trump did this today, or he did that today. Most of our politics is little more than a running conversation on what it will take to defeat him.

There’s got to be more to politics than just treating symptoms. We need a serious re-envisioning of what’s possible, if we’re to create fundamental change. Millions of people realize that just defeating Trump will not of itself defeat the forces behind him. There’s a larger struggle going on and all of us can feel it.

As dramatic as this moment is, there’s a larger drama behind it. It’s hard not to compare this to a James Bond or even an Austin Powers movie, where the bad guys meet somewhere and actually plan things. There has to be such a place, and they’ve been meeting there for years. Behind the President’s absurd impulsivity lies a group of people who are anything but. There is strategy there; a long game that’s been playing out for a very long time. Our Defense Department clearly doesn’t know how to fight a war strategically, but whoever is behind all this had very specific plans for how to bring down America.

Whoever these guys are, they are masters. They are disciplined and they are heartless. If anything makes them laugh, it’s the DNC. Or even the RNC. They see traditional political organizing as the stuff of amateurs. On the level of metaphysics, they are worlds ahead of us. The forces of evil are not so naive as to discount the forces of consciousness. They hypnotize; they lure; they play on people’s deepest vulnerabilities; they go right for the jugular. What the Left laughs at, they take seriously. What the Left takes seriously, they laugh at. My God, I wish the Democrats would grow up.

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It’s a set up for mockery and derision for a Democrat, much less a Democratic woman, to say more is going on here than meets the eye. But be that as it may, more is going on here than meets the eye - including that the witches are gathering. That phrase does not refer to candles and spells, mind you. It refers to wise women who have had enough, who will no longer stand idly by, who are done with pretending that the men who’ve been running things for ages know what the hell they’re doing.

They are women who are healers, artists, therapists, midwives, nurses, spiritual counsellors and spiritual seekers ….you know, the kind political elites would have us think are too unqualified to even weigh in. Yet the power of those who see through the veil of materialism are exactly the ones who could have taken this warlock down. That was then, of course, and this is now. But we still can. And we’re going to.

I had lunch both yesterday and today with such ladies. One is a former American politician who knows the game inside and out. The other is a therapist and spiritual healer from the Arab world who sees international possibilities from above the battlefield. Both are very sophisticated, yet done with pretending. Women such as this don’t have the need, or the time, to keep mimicking the language of a dying order. They see it as an evolutionary kindergarten in which kindergarteners are lighting matches. They’re not trying to impress either corporate managers or traditional political types, though they easily could. They feel free to discuss their shamanic visions, their archetypal understanding, their mythic revelations, their prophetic visions. These aren’t women who know nothing. These are women who know everything.

A few years ago I was talking to a group of progressive activists and the name of the late author Barbara Ehrenreich came up. Ehrenreich was one of the most important progressive voices of the last half century.

“Oh I love her!” I said. “And did you know she wrote a book called Witches, Midwives and Nurses?”

You would have thought I had taken my clothes off on top of the buffet table. One of the gentlemen looked at me with such disdain, and informed me that not only had Barbara Ehrenreich written no such book, but that obviously this conversation was above my pay grade. At that point I was so tired I just told him he might want to look it up. Not only had she written the book, but it was seminal in her recognizing the systems that were operating centuries ago, and are operating today, that put our world at such risk.

It doesn’t matter anymore what people such as he don’t know, or won’t recognize, or don’t respect. Something new is evolving. The Great Mother is in labor now. She’s a collective energy, just like the patriarchy is a collective energy. She understands misogyny and she has endured it. But at this point she doesn’t really care. She’s an expression of something miraculous unfolding, as wise women meet who they are supposed to meet so that together we can reseed the world. She’s in Africa, and Latin America, and India, and the Middle East, and Europe, and Asia, and North America, and everywhere else, much like a magnet drawing unto itself the magnificent design of a transformed world. She is drawing up the blueprints. To put it simply, the old ways of thinking cannot handle the mess we’re in. She can.

No, she’s not political in the old sense. She’s the politics of the new.

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One day long before October 7, I was listening to friend’s podcast when I heard her refer to a woman in New York as an “Israeli Karen.” Shocked, particularly given that the host is Jewish, I looked over at a mutual acquaintance and said “What did she just say?” He smiled, not only unperturbed but apparently sort of impressed by her blatantly misogynistic, racist remark about a Jewish woman.

In the years since, such outright antisemitism has become commonplace. Antisemitic hate crimes are at an all-time high. Jewish contributions are erased from established historical record. Children at elementary schools face antisemitic taunts from seven-year-olds. Jewish parents remove the Mezuzah from their door, afraid it might prove a danger to their children. In fact, it’s becoming eerily reminiscent of some of the darkest chapters in human history. People say things about Jews that ten years ago they’d never have said - things which they’d never say about any other ethnic, racial or religious groups without being roundly criticized by those who think of themselves as non-racist. But hey, as author David Badiel says in the title of his very illuminating book: Jews Don’t Count,

So was all that Jew hatred always lurking there, in some deep dark cave of the antisemite’s psyche? My father used to tell us, “Even if they’re being nice to us now, never take it for granted. Make sure you’re always on the side of the oppressed. The oppressors usually come back around to us.” I thought he was overstating. He was not.

For the record, I think Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal and belongs before a tribunal in the Hague. My passionate and public critique of him goes back decades, and even as a Presidential candidate I made my thoughts about Israeli injustice towards Palestinians very clear. It was totally possible to be completely horrified by the events of October 7, and at the same time aware that sometime, somewhere, something was bound to blow.

Still, the U.S. killed up to a million Iraqis in the Iraqi War and I was never treated as though as an American I was personally responsible. Nor did I hear people say that the United States — given its history of abuse towards many groups in our history, including genocide of Native Americans — therefore has no right to exist. But the admittedly atrocious behavior of the now far right-wing Israeli government is apparently, in the minds of many, a reason to hate, to even attack, all Jews everywhere. This is not an enlightened political perspective. This is not a stand for social justice. It is insanity. It is antisemitic evil.

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I was raised at a time when many Jewish parents taught their kids, “Better to keep your head down and not talk too much about being a Jew. It helps keep antisemitism at bay.” In the first years of my career, I rarely mentioned publicly that I was Jewish though I certainly never denied it! And now is not a time to cower before the wave of Jew hatred which threatens not only Jews but the very fabric of our society. I think no matter who we are, we should be proud of who we are. No people, no color, no religion, no ethnic group, no gender identification, no sex, no nationality should ever feel afraid.

One problem, and there are quite a few, is how many antisemites don’t think they’re antisemites. For many Jews, one of the most galling aspects of the nouveau antisemitism is how people with zero understanding of our lives now explain to us that we were taught a big lie when we were kids, see, but we can realize this now and be reeducated! It’s all okay - all is forgiven - as long as we’ll wear a keffiyeh, shout “Genocide” at the top of our lungs, and disavow any belief that Israel has a right to exist. Oh no, wait, correction! It has a right to exist, they say, but only as a non-Jewish state. I love how a bunch of supposedly anti-Imperialist (mainly) white people feel they have a right to tell Israel it can’t be an “ethno-state,” when there is one Jewish state in the world and 56 Muslim ones. Does Jordan not have a right to be Muslim? Does Egypt not have the right to be Muslim? Does Indonesia not have the right to be Muslim?

And again, this is not to justify injustice. While twenty percent of Israel’s population is Arab, they have rights but they do not have the full rights and freedoms that they should have. And that needs to change. The occupation of the West Bank is a profound human rights atrocity, and that needs to change. I’ve long been on the side of the Israeli Left, and I will continue to be. But given our ICE raids and the recent shredding of the Voting Rights Act by SCOTUS, Americans should think long and hard before pointing the finger at others as though we’re doing so well ourselves.

Jimmy Carter tried. Bill Clinton tried as well. In those days, the official position of the United States was to be “an honest broker” in the Middle East. Once George Bush became President, however, the Neo-cons in charge changed America’s official policy. From that point forward, they said, any friend of Israel’s would be considered our friend and any enemy of Israel would be considered our enemy. After eight years, however the Democrats won back the White House. When Obama became President he had the change to say firmly to Bibi, “NO WAY, NO MORE!” The United States could have used its considerable influence to stop the rise of the right-wing Jewish Supremacists, namely the settlements, at that time. He did not, however; as with so many issues, Obama complained about the right things while refusing to use his political capital to make a difference.

The painful irony is that on one hand, Israel was founded to protect us. On the other hand, the behavior of the Israeli government — too often with help from the United States — has further endangered us. Both things are true. Antisemitism has lurked beneath the surface for well over a thousand years, yes. But Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich have activated and nursed it. With crimes against Palestinians ranging from the West Bank to Gaza etc., they’ve made it far less safe for Jews throughout the world.

American Jews face a difficult balancing act, discerning what’s true and what’s not true at any given time. Most importantly, we need to articulate those truths - often difficult to do in the face of social media propaganda that rains down on us like sheets of mud. The question of the “Jewish lobby” is an example. It’s certainly true that AIPAC is awful. It used to not be, but now it is. It is not however, nearly as big an influence on U.S. policy as is the aggregate corporate hegemony of Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Food, Big Tech, or the Big War Machine. If the Israel lobby is being thrown back on its heels, I have no problem with that. But to name it as the scourge that has ruined and is ruining America — as many on social media would have you believe these days — is an antisemitic trope no different than thinking that Jews eat non-Jewish babies. And even the most preposterous lies can have power. There’s even the new one from Candace Owens, have you heard…? Jews were behind the slave trade! That’s the kind of disgusting murk so much of this stuff comes from. A woman with six million social media subscribers can influence a lot of people to think, “Well, were you?”

By the way, the answer is a resounding no.

That’s what makes antisemitism different than other forms of racism. It’s not a superiority complex, it’s a conspiracy theory. It’s a rewrite of our history (I saw it on Tik Tok!), a perversion of our beliefs (modern Zionism is the belief that Jews have the right to a home in Judea; it does not mean Palestinians don’t), and a delegitimization of the very idea that Jews have a right to self-determination. People who say “Globalize the Intifada” with gleeful abandon may or may not know that they’re calling for globalized violence against innocent people. I had a huge falling out, I’m sorry to say, with a colleague who has a problem with the fact that I have a problem with that. From Bondi Beach in Sydney to a synagogue in Manchester, how many Jews who have nothing to do with Israel’s politics will be asked to pay the price for its sins? Of course I have a problem with that. A big problem indeed. And in my mind, everyone should.

Several weeks ago, I visited Abu Dhabi. There is a place there called the Abrahamic Family House — a park in which stands a mosque and a church and a synagogue, celebrating a vision of the common humanity at the heart of all three Abrahamic religions. The United Arab Emirates is a Muslim country, of course, yet as a Jew I felt very welcomed there. Having talked to many people, I felt less antisemitism in Abu Dhabi than I do in my own country. And while we certainly haven’t achieved it yet, I know in my bones that the vision of a world in which all of us can be who God created us to be, children of the same Father, living alongside each other in justice and in peace, is a light that the dreamers of the world will not stop chasing. The dream itself is our common bond. Our love will become so incredibly strong that hate will be no more.

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Just as Roman society had already begun to crumble before the barbarians ever reached their gates, so America was on the path of dying empire before Donald Trump reached ours. So many sectors of American civilization - and so many of us, I’m afraid - had compromised our principles, our ethics, even our decency too often and too completely, for years. Tiny lies, tiny vulgarities on the part of individuals as well as institutions became cultural norms. Things that seemed perhaps like unimportant compromises with our own integrity, easy enough to gloss over, became features rather than glitches in how we did business, even inhabited our personal relationships. In the quantum field out of which this moment emerged, there’s no difference between a lying lover and a lying corporation.

Thus weakened morally, we became politically vulnerable. The problem wasn’t just that Trump prevailed; it’s that he found it to be so damn easy. He got to the gates and broke them open. And in ways tough to admit, it wasn’t that hard. He and his minions are raping and pillaging even as we speak, and they’ve only just gotten started. They won’t be done until every non-white person, woman, immigrant and non-Christian is put back in their place - you know, that place below, acquiescent, compliant, subservient, less vocal. The worst thing is, the people behind all this actually think that will be for the best. That’s how evil this phenomenon is.

The vision of the New Barbarians is everything the founding vison of our country is not. Their efforts are a direct attack upon a society in which we are true to the idea that “All men are created equal.”

That sentence is not simply that we’ve decided to create a society in which all men are treated equally. It’s a statement that we will treat all men equally because we were created that way. To our Founders that meant everything, and it should mean everything to us as well. The sentence is a spiritual creed, not just a political agreement. And only a devotion to that creed will empower us to prevail against the barbaric forces at work in our modern politics.

Unless We the People reclaim for ourselves the radicalism of our Founding vision - that all men are endowed by our Creator with unalienable Rights, and governments are instituted to secure those rights - then everyone from Peter Thiel to Elon Musk to Russell Vought to Donald Trump and the rest of them will be successful at demolishing it. To them, those principles are just meaningless nonsense; it’s our decision whether they will be meaningless to us. It was so obvious when Terry Moran asked Donald Trump what the Declaration of Independence meant to him, the President responded, “Well, it means exactly what it says... it's a declaration of unity and love and respect, and it means a lot." It was glaringly obvious he had never read it.

Now that we are where we are, what matters is not who Trump is but who we are. The Declaration of Independence is America’s mission statement, and what matters is whether you and I understand it. When enough of us reclaim its vision, deeply, in our hearts, then we will have the power to push back the barbarians. But not before. Why? Because that document is not just a statement of politics, it’s a statement of moral force. It transmits more than information; it transmits power. And we need that power to support us now. It’s what Martin Luther King, Jr. called “cosmic companionship.” Shouting about what the Constitution says, without claiming the emotional and spiritual power of the Declaration, ultimately gets us nowhere. Elected officials and legal experts shouting at the modern barbarians every time they trample on our Constitution, “You can’t do that here! It’s against the law!” is not enough to save us. The barbarians don’t care that they’re trampling on the Constitution. That’s exactly what they’re here to do.

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The Founders’ task, as they saw it, was to create a government that would reflect divine universal law - not just British law. They referred to “Laws of Nature and of Nature's God” as having entitled us to our freedom, therefore our rights are not granted by the government. Governments are instituted to secure the rights already granted to us by Nature’s God. Government derives its just power from the consent of the governed, as expressed through representative electoral processes outlined in our Constitution. If and when government does not secure our rights, We the People have the right to alter or abolish it. The Constitution is politically brilliant; the Declaration is morally profound. The Declaration, like the Constitution written eleven years later, was radical in 1776 and it is radical today.

Abraham Lincoln did not expect to win a second term. With the Civil War dragging into its fourth year and almost half a million Americans already killed, he couldn’t blame Northern voters for having had enough. He expected a huge majority would agree with his opponent, General George McClellan, that it was time to make a deal with the South; why should their husbands, sons and brothersd have to die just because someone else owned slaves? If they wanted to go, went the argument, let them go. Negotiate an end to the war and we could start again as two neighboring countries, one slave- owning and one not.

Lincoln stood his ground however, with a platform calling for the South’s unconditional surrender and the abolition of slavery. He did so not only to preserve the union, but to stand by what he saw as the moral raison d’etre of the war: the principles of the Declaration of Independence. If you’ve never read his Second Inaugural Address or haven’t read it recently, do so now and it will rip you open.

To him, whether this country would abandon the principles of the Declaration was the crux of his generation’s political struggle. It was their struggle then, and it is ours now. To Lincoln, if all men are created equal, entitled by their Creator to the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then slavery must not be allowed to exist. The Confederate states had no plans to contain the institution of slavery within their own borders, by the way; their plan was for a huge slave-owning empire that would stretch not only across this continent but would include large swaths of Latin America as well. For millions who had never owned or traded slaves - who had lost their own loved ones in this most hideous war - to then vote for Lincoln on the strength of that moral argument, remains a staggering testament to their greatness as well as to his.

My mother used to tell me, “Growing old is not for sissies.” And neither is saving a country. We cannot, and must not, allow the political rupture of our own time to devolve into a second Civil War. Yet we must stand up as bravely as our ancestors did - true nonviolent struggle takes courage too - if we’re to preserve the principles on which we purport to stand. We have never fully actualized those principles, but from Abolition to Women’s Suffrage to the Civil Rights movement, at times we have made great strides. It is the job of every generation to seek to “create a more perfect union.” In our time, unfortunately, we are literally slipping backwards. There are those among us, barbarians in business suits, who have no use for our founding principles - they find democracy inconvenient to their purposes, mocking what they see to be its quaintness and inefficiency. It’s up to us whether or not we will join the barbarians, or care so little to stand up to them that they’ll continue over the next three years to march like Hitler through the Rhineland.

Our Founders didn’t underestimate the dangers that King George’s authoritarianism posed to their rights as free people; we shouldn’t underestimate the dangers that the new crowd of American authoritarians poses to ours. Our biggest mistake in the years leading up to this was a toxic form of complacency; our biggest mistake today is if we choose to be naive.

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*NOTE:

For those of you wanting to delve deeper into our Founding principles, I’ll be leading a two day book club on Healing the Soul of America for paid subscribers.

I so appreciate you being here.

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It’s late night here in London. I had some thoughts I felt like sharing so I jumped on Substack live.

Sending love to all…

M.

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