"The voice of sanity is getting hoarse,"
Irish poet Seamus Haney said as he observed a war of soul, "the troubles."
"Cut it loose or let it drag you down,"
Bruce Springsteen wrote in Darkness at the Edge of Town, seeing the advance of nihilism.
Admonitions, across cultures, with divergent nexus points, but warnings, relevant still.
Culture, soul, belief, enshrouded in a deepening darkness.
Americans live with competing realities. It is a madness. There is no good in such a state.
"Lives on the line-where dreams are found or lost."
Bruce Springsteen
Who gains? Who loses?
Many of us find pronouncements of "existential threats" wearing, but we must listen. We live with a serial "What If " pointed at our temple, loaded and cocked.
What if the Supreme Court reverses Roe V. Wade?
The court will be dangerously out sync with the American population, and even with policies of Catholic nations.
What is the calculus of damage when the nation's highest court loses touch and behaves as an extremist moving against the beliefs and wishes of the majority?
What other rights might then be targeted?
Venality and deception were weaponized and turned against the republic and so it is true Democracy is under threat.
The republican party is an agent of destruction of all the American experience has been.
Recent findings of the January 6th Investigation and independent journalists put it out there in black and white. The Trump regime tried to execute a coup. We knew that in our gut. We know that now by fact.
The Kaiser foundation reports Republicans make up a majority of unvaccinated people. Unvaccinated people are those who are dying and who are spreading the virus and who are crowding hospitals to the breaking point.
Too frequently we've heard about those about to be put on a ventilator asking for a vaccination, only to be told it is too late.
Truth, fact and political sanity are under attack.
"...where tongues lie coiled, as under flames lie wicks"
Seamus Heaney Whatever You Say Say Nothing
What if?
The "Troubles" of Northern Ireland were/are deep by generation, belief, politic and sense of identity.
Heaney observed it and withstood pressures so as to clarify, to seek rationality and to uphold humanity.
Bold honesty in the face of madness.
Rationality, clarity and the advocacy of humanity are difficult to find in the US. The nation, tired from pandemic and the upending of all that is prized as normal, is angry, self- absorbed, and failing to think clearly. Broadcast and social media are contributing factors. Few people read. Fewer research, analyze and think.
Frenzied attention spans overlook a stability. Biden's approval rating does not give credit to the historic accomplishments of a first year. Historians, already hail the achievement and note it has been done without a real majority and while cleaning up after the debacle.
The pushback on the mask mandate is good for the system. I'm not convinced a President has the authority to insist companies do what he asked. I applaud his intention, but as an institutionalist, I question that use of power. It is good to let the body politic argue about it.
Like junk yard rats, republicans feast on the flack, while their constituency dies of the virus. Sad and tragic facts and it should not be so.
Economic and market strength, low unemployment, the recovery acts, the infrastructure programs, the massive vaccination totals, the steady hand at the tiller of the ship of state, the decency, the humanity, the display of traditional American values, and a genuine humility are all there.
If we are to prevent the darkness from descending and snuffing the American beacon, America as hope, work is to be done.
The voice of sanity, hoarse or not, must make itself heard, in the darkness. Reason, rationality and humane action radiate as powerful light.
"History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave,
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme."
Seamus Haney from The Cure at Troy
Dear readers, please accept this as this a Christmastide ghost story.
See you down the trail.
