Time to Act is Now
I was already long past my prime when I started writing in earnest. My how the times have changed! We’ve met with pandemics, wars, and disasters along with a few fading “days of wine and roses.” Now a deep mistrust has blanketed our land that many of us love more than life itself. America is under siege—not from outside our borders, but from within. We should have listened while the lies and slurs were being tossed about; we could have counter attacked as the misguided thugs ripped families apart; and interjected a brute mentality across the land as they literally killed our citizens, and destroyed many of our institutions.
We witnessed thugs roaming our streets where they beat and murdered our citizens, while our Institutions were being defunded or dismantled—just like the obedient hordes of “brown-shirts” from another era were led by a delusional dictator. Our tired, our poor, and our huddled masses were beaten and discarded like so much refuse as we were ill-prepared to take on these masked marauders from hell. Our view of deadly dealings was met with callous denials. It is a sorrowful tune to hear, a sad refrain from amateurish apostles who never felt the sting of a fair fight.
Time takes us all, I’ll not see, hear, or feel the outcome to this reign of terror. But as long as there are men and women of good will, with backbone, honor, and courage, that same spirit must ultimately be recaptured, so that our past also becomes prologue …
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. --Abraham Lincoln
Rebecca
Paraphrasing Theodore Parker (1835) and Martin Luther King (1960s), "The arc of history tends towards good."
Gradually, people are waking up to what is wrong. And we must stop underestimating the power of young people and their ability to make change in the right direction.
Ron
There is a brief columnar opinion by Editorial Director Hugh Gurdon, of the Washington Examiner (4 Mar 26 issue) that I think you would like and that bears quoting. Found on page 55, Gurdon says, in part: "Crowds of people can be a wonderful sight. When they quietly protest genuine wrongs, they acquire a collective dignity and moral force that can change the world, and have often done so. When with one voice they sing the praises of their favored sports team, or roar their appreciation of an Olympic event, they can be stirring and uplifting in their power and their positive emotion."
[I can think of another such notable moment back in the 60s, when black Americans literally risked their lives and welfare to raise America's conscious awareness of the bias and prejudice blacks have suffered in a predominantly white America, by silently protesting, en masse.]
Gurdon goes on to say, "But when they gather together in a sort of ad hoc conspiracy against law, order and the common good; when they coalesce in a febrile mass to taunt and jeer at the representatives of good government; when they disingenuously pretend that they are having a bit of fun or merely exercising their legitimate right to protest, but are in truth goading officers like medieval bear-baiters, they are knowingly and deliberately militating against the lawful society in which they live and thrive."
"Then they are not a good-humored, well-intentioned or moving throng but merely an ugly, unruly and disorderly mob. It is important for our continued civilisation that we can still distinguish between the two..."
Gustav LeBon's 1895 work, 'THE CROWD", expressed the same sentiments perfectly and presciently. His is a timeless analysis of the unpredictable human behavioral characteristics that unceasingly impedes cultural potential of our species to evolve into a higher, more perfect state of enlightenment.
It is highly ironic to me that back in the 60s, those silent masses of peaceful protesters I mentioned above were predominantly black Americans. Today, the 'ugly mobs' that Gurdon refers to are predominantly white, and of that total, virtually all white women (along with a small minority of 'virtue-signaling' white men). Alohas, -K2
[To borrow Chris Bray's (of THE SPECTATOR) droll observation, "Tell me how this ends..."]