Truth in America-Battle Lines are Drawn

 

        The more perfect Union, Justice, domestic Tranquility, the common defense, the general Welfare and the blessings of liberty, the very raison d'etre enshrined in the Constitution, are in doubt and the people of these states are not United. 

    All is at risk, in danger and under attack because of lies. In January 2021, the US Capitol is a fortress, on defensive footing after four years of assault.

    As power transitions, the future of the Republic demands a full investigation of the insurrection. A national commission, such as those that investigated  9/11, the Kennedy Assassination, the Roberts Commission on the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor, and other national trauma should be instituted. There is much to learn.

    The deadly insurrection appears to have had inside help from republican house members and/or staff. Capitol Hill police officers appear to have been complicit. Federal investigators have already identified police and sheriff department officers from across the US as being active in the assault. The truth of these insinuations needs to be learned.

    Aside from prosecutorial and national security threads to be followed, the commission would document the enabling social, political and cultural influences that undergird and created the foundation for the most heinous attack in US history.

    As the people who inherit the constitution and who are now responsible to maintain the democratic republic we must act forcefully against all bad actors, no matter where the trail leads.

    One of my heroes is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian who died for his role in trying to end the rise of the fascism and authoritarianism that spawned the Holocaust. Generations of Germans have confessed and lamented how Hitler's Nazi movement could and should have been stopped by German citizens, rather than enabling a mad narcissist to turn a full nation to evil. They believed the lie. The risk of not seeking the truth is grave. 

    Those Americans who believe the false claims of a desperate and demonstratively insane Donald Trump must understand it is about more than politics. They need to know the depth and expanse of the Trump deception, distortion and anti American behavior. For the well being of the nation and themselves, they must come to accept the truth.

     Trump's supporters on Capitol Hill must acknowledge they were wrong. It would be an affirmation of the sanctity of the separation of powers and the Constitution for those in the House and Senate to be removed and charged as insurrectionists and seditionists. It appears such a movement may be mounted in both chambers.  

    There are calls for remembering the January 6th attack on the capitol and attempted coup as we remember 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. The more we learn of the violent orgy of the Trump mob, the more egregious it becomes.

    The republican party is presently infested with cowards. As William Saletan wrote, "Republicans who were in a multi year frenzy over Benghazi are now downplaying insurrection at the Capitol." You saw that evidenced in the Impeachment debate.

    There's a mitigating circumstance, and while it is not a pass for their continued support of Trump, it speaks to the vile influence and toll he has spawned. People, politicians and state officials targeted by Trump now need security. Some republican House members say they feared for their lives if they voted for impeachment. Family members of the incoming administration are under protection from Trump supporters. State capitols and state officials have been threatened by republicans. 

    Since the day of his announcement Donald Trump filled America with lies, hate and fueled division. The republican party sold its soul to the only president to be impeached twice,  a man who has done the bidding, willingly or otherwise of the wily Vladimir Putin. Trump has presided over brining America to an all time low.

    The tide has changed, but millions are brainwashed. They will be resistant. When members of congress were hidden away, sequestered in tight quarters as the blood thirsty mob rampaged the Capitol, republicans in the group refused to wear masks, turning the terrifying experience of hiding for safety into a super spreader event. Members of the republican caucus have been seen shoving and blowing through the newly installed metal detectors. That is ignorant and abusive.

    The republicans are at war. Will Trump fascism and mindless loyalty dominate, or will those of reason, principle and belief in America wrestle control of the party their way.

    Democrats will continue to walk the tension line between their progressive wing and the centrist position of Joe Biden and the predominant caucus.

    Other things are changing. Corporate donors have blacklisted republicans who supported Trump. Trump's brand is on the way to being worthless. Josh Hawley, who thought he was an heir to Trump nation lost a book contract, and is being sued by Hallmark for funds they contributed.

    Mike Pence, who I knew when he was an unsuccessful congressional candidate and small market radio host missed an opportunity to be heroic and to be forever remembered that way.

    His refusal to activate the 25th Amendment, because his ambitions lead him to reason he can absorb the MAGA millions for his own presidential aspirations is delusional. The Pence tragedy speaks to ill placed faith of Trump nation and the broken republican party.

 

    These not no so United States must work its way back to a place where governance, and public good supersede political advantage, ideology, vanity and the souless opportunism of people like Trump, Cruz and Hawley. 

    There may soon be legislative punishment for Trump minions like McCarthy, Gosart, Gaetz, Jordan and 140 others.      To some their actions were sedition.  

    Most of us live far from the levers of power but US citizens are participants never-the-less. This history making era will be  infamous. It has been a time of division and pain. There is time for family members, friends or associates who have been on the low road, believing the big lie, to wake up, to see the truth.                      

    Society, generations hence, will study this time of infamy. Descendants will see photos or video clips of those who were part of a movement that worshipped a lie and were ignorantly part of an effort to destroy the United States. These Trump lovers and Republicans were played for suckers by a fraudster lunatic. History will have the last word. 

    There is a saying in several idioms and of various "origin," Jeremiah, Jesus, John Heywood in 1546,  and Jonathan Swift in 1713. It speaks to us in 2021.

    "There are none so blind as those who will not see."

     See you down the trail.

 

difficult conversations

     There is a reach in this post that may move us to not entirely comfortable places, though the place we land is better, I think.

          As a result of an impending surgery last week, I wrote
"The Letter." 
      "The Letter" is that document you leave your loved ones, in case.  It is your last words. You say what should be said, you offer valedictory thoughts, you include details to help their moving on, managing the business of life, and you say good bye. It is grim work. The finality of your own mortal life is front and center. It gets your full attention. 
       When it is complete, it is a good thing. It offers a peace of mind, but it also generates a clarity. There is much in living that keeps us from a clear view of life. This task leads you to the essence.
       Writing "The Letter" is something I suggest, for people of a certain age, even if there are no surgical or medical riddles on the horizon. It is either the best, or worse, kind of what if contingency. 
       I think it helps draw you closer to your own life and to understandings. 

         
         There is another difficult conversation, a dialogue, I think the nation should begin. 
          Some will find even this suggestion hard to abide, but I've come to think it is our only hope. We should begin a 25 year process of a moderated public conversation about reckoning and reparations.
       A quarter of a century is a long process, but we are talking about origin issues. It is time to come clean, to acknowledge an unvarnished history of this nation and to dial it back to the time of sovereign residents, before European exploration and colonization.
      I imagine a national commission of sorts to preside over a calibrated and measured process that would have an impact on every aspect of our national life. 
      Education, law, economy, cultural mores, and human understanding would reap the benefits and consequences of a society having a discussion with itself in a very deliberate and intentional way. 
       25 years would allow for every historical accounting, gripe, grievance, tradition, presumption, mis understanding, dishonesty, and all the other effluence of our hundreds of years of becoming who we are, to be heard, seen, examined and understood. 

     The first years would be the fact finding and the sharing, putting all things on the table. Detailed and exhaustive, building what amounts to an honest revelation of all that we have been, done, in unescapable clarity.
     It would be the national discussion and the world would watch. I can see public hearings in every major city and state. The mechanics can be worked out so everyone could have their say.
      It's a broad idea, but it emerges from a life being spent as an observer, watcher, journalistically reflecting who we are.
       Maybe it is just my time on the watch, but race has been at the core our national existence and drama since I started reporting.

      1965 put me on the trail of the Ku Klux Klan, which became the rabbit hole of race in America that occupied much of my reporting life.
       The late David Brinkley and Senator Barry Goldwater  were two of the judges who awarded me a National Emmy Award for an investigation of the Klan. Brinkley called it  "one of television's finest hours."
       For almost 50 years I've watched and wondered why don't we try to fix this, why don't we just get painfully honest. 

     A 25 year national conversation will allow the honesty and  time to create a full account of history. With that achieved in the early decade, generations can then begin to mediate what to do about it, how to adapt, how to make amends. 
    By adding the element of Reparations, it will force this nation to come to a time of adjudication, judgement, and seeking meaning through recompense. It becomes an act of contrition, a national seeking of redemption. It will not be easy, nor should it be. It will force knowledge to become common and it will challenge our sense of justice, and it will force us to proceed with honesty, vigilance, and a new sense of who we are and who we will become. It will change the balance of things.

     Living through a pandemic has given all of us time to think. Our initial "We've Got This" attitude got tired as disruption continued. Flattening curves worked, until we rushed too fully back to a sense of normal. No one has lived through a challenge of this magnitude and we have come to realize we are indeed vulnerable and without a cure.

      That realization can work on a human psyche.

  

    The eastern slope of the high Serra has become a favorite place. The power and beauty of nature is awesome. But I also find great renewal in the vestige of the frontier life, thinking about the spirit of those hardy souls who made their way against it all.

    
    I felt an extra measure of that when I visited ancestral Scotland the brave.  Surviving challenges has pushed our advance and toughened us to living on this planet in the face of hostility.

          

     As California summer brings the thirsty brown and tan, I've been watching a few fighters.

     The thistle is the flower of Scotland. Here in California it is the bane of ranchers and gardeners, but I delight in their persistence.

    And after cousin of the wild thistle, our prolific artichoke bed passes its zenith, it offers a final salute of resilience and beauty.  

       So there you have it; challenging notions, hard suggestions for difficult conversations. If we are to see this republic survive, if the best of our aspirations are a noble human endeavor, we need to get tough and we need to be fully honest.

       Stay safe. Take care of each other.

       See you down the trail.