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.

 

INSURRECTION IN AMERICA

     The television coverage brought tears to eyes and a strange emptiness to my core. My five year old granddaughter wondered into the room, sensed I was upset, looked at the television and asked "Are those real people Poppy?"

    

    Joe Biden demonstrated Presidential leadership and character. He vented and shared the horror most US citizens feel. He affirmed the scenes on TV is not the real America.  That is a moral victory of the day.

     Our collective history struck a new low. There is this to take away from the insurrectionist attack on the US Capitol-thousands of faces were captured on security cameras, by the media and on phones. Prosecutions will follow. Members of the House and Senate are resolved to finish the process of the republic to assure the dark night of the last four years will end.

    World leaders have stated their shock. I use this space to tell my friends abroad, we are sickened, but we are resolved as well.

    Five years ago I warned that Donald Trump was evil. I have said he is at least a Russian stooge. We are damaged because of him, but he is not alone in the attempt to undermine our republic.

    Senators Hawley and Cruz are seditionists. They should be tossed out of the senate and face charges. They were instigators of the violence we witnessed. Both of them, deplorable men to begin with, undertook their roles in the insurrection simply for their own political gain, trying to lay claim to some of the Trump loyal. There were others who gave shelter to the enemy with their support; Johnson, Loeffler, Lankford, Perdue Daines, Kennedy, Blackburn, Braun, Lummis, Marshall, Hagerty, and Tuberville. They should at the least be censured and stripped of rank. I would prefer to seem them tossed from the Senate.

     The fools in the House should be simply tossed out prosecuted. 

    What they all did was unAmerican, and encouraged the domestic terrorism we witnessed. 

    The Republican Party that condoned and encouraged the Trump outrages of the last 4 years will stand in shame. History will note they encouraged the lunacy that has grown under Trump.

    Trump is a traitor. He is unfit to continue in office, even in these late hours. Congressional leadership, the Chief Justice and Vice President Pence should move to preempt any more Trump madness. There are ways to move him out power and they should be executed. 

    That we can say those MAGA hatted, Trump flag waving rioters and insurrectionists acted in an illegal, and crazy manner does not undo the fact they BELIEVE the lies. They think, no, they know in their heart, that Donald Trump won the election. 

    This is the greatest poison that Trump pumped into the republic. The lies, the attack on media credibility, the dog whistles, the nod and wink to racists, the endorsement of the absolute lunacy of the Q conspiracies and his attempt to overturn the eletion were part of this evil man's game plan.

    The brain washed need action. First law enforcement and security need to find, arrest and prosecute those involved in the Capitol breech and it's planning and/or any further insurrectionist activity. They should be pursued with the full force of the law. They are domestic terrorists, even if they are brainwashed. Their actions are a threat.

    Harder to handle will be how to deal with friends, family members and those among us who believe the lies. That will take lots of attention, careful execution, prayers, love, and finding a civil way to simply no longer suffer fools easily. 

    It will take a massive public education effort.

    When my granddaughter looked at the TV, I explained quickly the people were behaving badly because they had been lied to, did not use their brains, had no respect for other people and were violating the law. Hard concepts for a 5 year old. I told her that the very bad man Trump was responsible for it, but there were more good people in America than there are like those on TV. It was then time for a walk with Nana who was also shaken by the horror of this day. 

    Stay strong. There is a democratic republic to support and rebuild. There is lunacy to expunge. There is honor, dignity and civility to lift up. We have to walk the talk.

    See you down the trail.

    

Doing What Lies Clearly At Hand

 

"For last year's words belong to last year's

language. And next years's words await another

voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning."

T.S. Eliot

            It is emblematic of this moment in history; the population of the world is apprehensive, but as humans we have never been so unified as brothers and sisters of the earth; sharing fear, vulnerability in our kinship in mortal coils, hoping for global healing for loved ones, our planet, ourselves and we are  desirous to live into our dreams again.

       We celebrate the passing of a year with as much vigor as has been our custom to welcome a new start. 

        We reflect on the calendar change following a year like no other. We too have been changed.   

BEING BUT MEN

by Dylan Thomas

Being but men, we walked into the trees

Afraid, letting our syllables be soft

For fear of waking the rooks,

For fear of coming

Noiselessly into a world of wings and cries.

If we were children we might climb,

Catch the rooks sleeping, and break no twig,

And, after the soft ascent,

Thrust out our heads above the branches

To wonder at the unfailing stars.

Out of confusion, as the way is,

And the wonder, that man knows,

Out of the chaos would come bliss.

That, then, is loveliness, we said,

Children in wonder watching the stars,

Is the aim and the end.

Being but men, we walked into the trees.

          We need more wonder, to be those children watching the stars.

          The night sky here is often pristine and I am indeed filled with wonder at the depth and expanse. I've noticed that speeding meteors do something even more. They change the dimensionality of my view of the cosmos and, like a pandemic year, they erase barriers, norms, and indeed our very sense of normal. They break the constraints that modernity imposes for its own benefit. There is something good about that.

        Once we cede the freedoms of our imagination to the constraints of things like rationality, and when we tuck all mystery into an explanation like "infinity," we change the dance between head and heart. 

        The world is not binary and it comes with a spectrum of color. In the passing year we have been slowed, life has been rearranged, and disruption has taught us a new dance and opened our eyes. 

"You can't use up creativity.

The more you use, the more you have."

Maya Angelou

    How do we see, how do we reflect, what do we think about all that has happened to us? We've had plenty of opportunity to make sense of it, to take stock of our lives and its meaning. 

"Seek patience and passion in equal amounts.

Patience alone will not build the temple.

Passion alone will destroy its walls."

Maya Angelou

    I've grow impatient with our inability to embrace the consequence of our thought and actions. Why do we (the total US-especially the Congress) appear to be so lazy, and without ethical conviction? Why does this nation remind me of the once golden athlete who, now years hence, is the out of shape and belligerent drunk at the end of the bar? Why does good judgement seem impotent? Why are there so many who are easy marks, gullible and willing to believe obvious lies?

"What you see and what you hear depends a great 

deal on where you are standing.

It also depends on what sort of person you are."

CS Lewis

    Diane Ackerman, a poet, says she is an "Earth Ecstatic. My creed is simple: All life is sacred."

    Ackerman says we can improve our behavior toward one another if we remember that. She says it is basic, a kind of tonic and deeply spiritual "glorifying the smallest life-form and embracing the most distant stars."

"There's a terrible hollowness, an emptiness at the core

of society right now that comes from our trying to exile ourselves farther and farther from nature."

Diane Ackerman

    As she says, nature is something that people visit on weekends or vacations. During the pandemic many had no choice but to deny our natural heritage. Working, entertaining,  living through and on our screens, has presented a new kind of alienation.

     This planet lives and our lives depend on its health. But still I know that change is not done with us.

    Millions of us shared the holiday with loved ones, but we could not hug, we could not feel fully alive.  Such is abnormal to us, but not to children. For them, it is the way it is. Their new normal comes more quickly. They have less history by which to measure disruption.

    Adults and children need to end the exile. The planet is full of wonder.

    We used to ask our colleagues to find new ways to drive home and to work, so as to jar themselves out of the complacency of a norm that can rob sensitivity, awareness and appreciation. 

    After a year of pandemic, we need to explore and look for wonder.

    We need to be honest. It is easier for some of us. It is heartbreakingly worse for many of us. 

    The pandemic year has made a few very rich, and hundreds of millions more poor. It is another global fellowship.

"An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest

and most fatal ailment of all republics."

Plutarch

"Wherever there is a great property 

there is a great inequality"

Adam Smith

       2021 will not deliver us. It will be a commencement. 

        All nations will need triage for their economies. People will suffer financially. Governments will respond, either wisely and justly or not. 

        Voters in the US overwhelmingly rejected the leadership of an authoritarian. Authoritarian regimes dot the planet. Millions live with lies. 

         Getting a fix on reality will come in the new year. The tasks are many:

        -affirming facts

        -supporting science

        -demanding the truth

        -restoring professionalism

        -acting with integrity

        -feeding the hungry

        -housing the many

        -putting people to work

        -healing mind and body

        -setting new boundaries of right and wrong, truth or lies

        -being honorable and dependable to those beyond our shores

    And since it is our business as citizens, in the US at least, we can work, demand and hope for women and men in government to act with the character of health care workers. Courage, devotion to duty, service to others.

    We can and should celebrate true heroes.

"Since it is so likely that children will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage."

CS Lewis

       I mark this change encouraged by the increasing number of women, men and women of color, and emigres who fill the screen as medical experts, government officials, new cabinet appointees, relief directors, social workers and people of competence. I am especially encouraged that my grand children are witnessing this, as their new normal.

      There is a new cast emerging and they will likely produce new heroes as they chart us through the new year.

"Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand."

Thomas Carlyle

 

            Your writer marks this change with a call for rationality and sensibility, in all matters and most specifically in public discourse.

        In the public square we should employ the Socratic method. It allows for spirited debate and fosters understanding. Questions and answers, an argument that is both cooperative and civil. The process itself digs out the truth, exposes underlying factors and, most importantly, the presuppositions.

        We are passing from a time of the great lie. To survive as a democratic republic we must ferret and root out the presuppositions that are making us uncivil, destroying friendships, splitting families and leading us to damage.

"Perseverance...keeps honor bright..."

William Shakespeare

Troilus and Cressida

"...suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. Hope does not put us to shame..."

Paul

    Wishing you health, happiness and hope.

    See you down the trail.

        

 

The Season of Mirth

story time at lightbreezes

   We have a tale of danger, played out on this plain...

  ...and we ride the way back machine to meet our favorite of the bearded old boys.

 eye to eye with the old elf

    There he is, standing back on the left in the collection of St. Nicholas' who have taken a home in our house over the years.

    A new fellow would arrive each year, when the girls were young. But one old boy, worn, weary, battle scarred and from the old school, has a favorite spot in our heart.

     This Santa showed up in the early 1950's. We lived in a two bed room VA financed tract house on Muncie's South Ebright Street where other WWII vets settled. 

    Brother John and I shared a room. We also shared this bank, an inducement from Mutual Home and Savings Association to participate in a Christmas Club.

     Times were simpler, and being what they were, the bank was declared a Christmas decoration. That was a unilateral act of parental diplomacy, a way to effect a permanent truce about control of the bank. John and I wrestled and rumbled about most things and the Santa bank was, in our minds, an heirloom. 

    We played with the metal jolly fellow each year, until our interests turned to cowboy guns and holsters and then basketballs and boxing gloves. By the time we were interested in transistor radios and records, Santa had assumed true heirloom status and made his yearly appearances, second in importance to the angel that reigned over the family Christmas decorations from atop the tree. 

    When I came home from college, it warmed me to see the increasingly worn chubby old elf. One year while dad and I watched the Tonight Show, I remember looking it over closely and wondering how John and I had inflicted all the knicks and dings.

    One season, Santa was missing. I learned John had borrowed it since he had a new daughter. Before John died, as a young man many years ago, Santa came back home. Even in the year of John and our younger brother Jim's passing, the old Santa was put on display. After Dad died, the little bank was a kind of talisman, and a holder of memories. 

    Yes Virginia there are a lot of Santa's in this world and it rounds out a life to pick your own favorite, even if they are part of a display in a twinkle shop. We'll take a closer look in a bit.   

        Now, a story of the maternal blessing of motherly protection. We find ourselves among the Sycamores and Oaks of the California central coast. 

      If you look closely there is gold in those leaves on the ground.

    It is a kind of "gold," I clarify, the sort of gold that Lana, dedicated gardener and composter, taught me to collect many years ago.

    This season she conveys "the thrill of the hunt" to our grand daughter. The objects they seek are cow pies. Yep, nitrogen to enrich the soil.

     They carefully watch their step.

Ah, and here, entering stage right, comes the danger. Another mother, grand in her own way, protectng her progeny. 

    In fact there was a lot of maternal interest on this field on this day. 

     With a sufficient number of collections in the bucket, we were returning to the car when a rancher pulled her pick up along side. 

      "Watch out for those mothers," she said. "They're more dangerous than the bulls. They're very protective. There are lot of young out there and they are very protective. Worse than the bulls, they'll just bowl you over."

        "Thanks, we'll be careful. We're leaving now," I sheepishly replied to this keeper of the beef heard.

        "They'll bowl you over, run you right into a tree," she said before pointing her horsepower toward the west.

        As she drove away, I noticed most of the mothers watched her truck disappear around the bend. 

eye to eye with Santa 

     Santa, dude, we all are glad to see you and the gang this year. That is especially so for the knicked little Saint Nick who showed up almost 70 years ago.

  After mom passed he started making memories for daughters Kristin and Katherine and now for the grands Addie and Henry. He is still all about giving, and love!

   Whatever is your tradition, LightBreezes wishes you Merry, Happy, Good Tidings, Great Joy and Peace. 

    Thanks for spending some of this challenging year here and for giving time to the thoughts we leave at this spot.

     Wishing you all health and happiness in the new year!

        See you down the trail!