The Direction of Intention

It comes to this.

Our nation is like an alcoholic in denial: it has never been capable of taking an honest look at the full scope of its history. And so, it can only take another drink of the thing that is killing it. Until it does, until it admits it has an addiction, it cannot move forward into health.

In our history is a mixology of ugly forces: Manifest Destiny (white males ordaining themselves as divinely appointed), with a splash of oligarchy shaken (not stirred) in a chilled tumbler that calls itself democracy. It’s a potent drink that favors racism, exploitation and continually pits the have-nots against the have-nots. It scars our liver, diminishing our capacity to process garbage.

It comes to this again.

In our history, this is not our first cycle with an attempted oligarchical takeover. This is the third. The first led to a Civil War (slavery was/is the engine behind the oligarch). The second, our “Gilded Age” culminated in severe economic depression [created by tariffs], the assassination of a president (McKinley) and the rise of a progressive president, Republican Theodore Roosevelt. “Progressive” meant – and means – checking corruption and corporate power while moving toward economic equality and equal rights for all citizens – regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation.

“Progressive” is a term used when our nation attempts to fulfill the ideals of our rhetoric. Equality. Liberty and justice for all. “Conservative” is the term used by the oligarchy when it attempts to drain resources from the people and into the pockets of the few. Liberty for some. Justice for the select. For the fox crowd, “progressive” has become synonymous with the epithets “woke” and “socialist” – it serves as a testament to the power of fox-intoxication that maga – a group comprised of have-nots – are the champions of the oligarchy that openly mocks and blatantly exploits them.

The current administration is in a panic to white-wash our history. White males who consider themselves divinely appointed like to edit their ugly history so they appear, well, divinely appointed. Just. Righteous. Their Big Bloated Bill is not the first time in our history that the richest of the rich would take the spoon from the mouth of the poor so that they might have more, more, more – and gloat about it. And lie about it.

It’s ugly, this bar-stool denial cycle. This time around we are subject to an embarrassing military parade, a Congress that flees town AND their responsibilities, while a delusional executive whips up discord so he can order the military to fire on citizens – en route to suspending future elections. Conserving power has become more lucrative than serving the Constitution.

So. It comes to this. Again.

All we need do is to put down the toxic tumbler and look honestly at ourselves as a nation – a good hard full-scope look. We need to admit to ourselves what we are wrestling with – again and again and again.

Perhaps in our march against a would-be king, on the same day as the sham-shame-parade, we will find the fortitude to stop and ask ourselves a few candid questions: Who are we when not intoxicated with division? How do we get off this swiveling bar stool and actually – finally – fulfill the promise of democracy for all? A sober aspiration like equality is neither progressive nor conservative. It is the calling of the nation and, if we can be honest with ourselves, we just might someday come to it.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THIS COUNTRY

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