AMERICA ON THE PRECIPICE: WHAT WILL WE DECIDE?

Authoritarian dystopia or a new birth of freedom is the choice that lies before us

America is a story, like an ongoing book in which every generation writes its chapter. Each of us is a character in the chapter of our generation, whether we were born here or immigrated here. America’s story has been at times heroic, at times shameful, but always dramatic. We are an extraordinary mix of things; we always have been. Both devils and gods find refuge here.

We’ve been both slaveowners and abolitionists, those who suppressed women and the suffragettes who won for us the right to vote, those who institutionally suppressed Black Americans and those who forged the civil rights movement to desegregate the South. We’ve been, and are now, both union busters and labor reformers. We fought a righteous war against fascism, at which we spectacularly succeeded; we fought criminal imperialistic wars at which we spectacularly failed. We’ve been, and are now, both those who use their money and power to hoard for themselves and deny the rights of others; as well as those who struggle daily to help expand the rights of others.

In short, we have always been and are now, human beings, both good and bad, both wise and wicked, both filled with love and overwhelmed by fear. Individually and collectively, we have risen and we have fallen before, then stood before the precipice with a choice that only we can make. Will we rise from the dust one more time, or succumb to the lure of unconscious living - give in, surrender, and allow the darkness to overwhelm us?

A nation that has represented to the world both the glories of freedom as well as the scourge of empire now teeters on a razor’s edge, as precarious a position as any since the Civil War. We’ve come face to face with our own malfeasance, our arrogance, our irresponsibility in the name of profit, and find visited upon us the ugly face in our national mirror. Darkness that emerged from our own cold hearts now threatens the angels of our better nature, laughing at the very thought of them, using guns and and confederate flags and the most hypocritical notions of a Christian God to bully our hearts into submission. If Republicans - a party no longer recognizable so surrendered it has become, to neofascist ideology, relatively overt in its attacks on the very foundations of our freedom - win both houses of Congress in November, it will no longer be a prospect but rather a probability that our democracy will fall.

Dire warning and prediction that, though nothing but realistic. Yet it isn’t too late to lift ourselves up, to rise, to begin again. Neither major political party has any reason to congratulate itself, so mired have they both become in an idolatrous relationship to the marketplace. One has put America into a nosedive, the other into a managed decline. But smug, arrogant, selfish people are still better than authoritarian and antidemocratic people when it comes to running a country. I will be voting for the Democrats in November and hoping that this time, maybe, we will have a chance to resurrect the politics of FDR and turn this country around.

I believe in miracles and I believe in America, therefore my heart is calm. I believe in miracles because I believe in God, and I believe in America because I believe in people. There is a threat to our freedom we should not underestimate, but things have gotten so bad that they could now become good. For the people of the United States, from what I can see, are awakening. From the Left and from the Right, from every corner of our geography and our socioeconomic landscape, hearts are rising up now: to atone, to bear witness, to take responsibility for where we go from here. Each of us has within us the guidance, the small still voice within, to tell us how to show up for this time. It is our inner eyes that will show us the way, and our inner ears that will hear the guidance needed to navigate this precarious moment. Not just the technological but also the spiritual, not just a change in our policies but also a change in our hearts, will pave the way to the promised land of a repaired and renewed America. No one should miss this. In the darkened sky of our national awareness there is still yet a light on the horizon. It exists in every one of us. It will lead us forward if we but consider the possibility that there might be another way. American history has been dotted with tragedy but it has also been dotted with miracles. It is our turn to stand on the precipice now. It is ours to decide - for us, in our time - which one it will be.