The Resistance v The Resentful
A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Jefferson’s mission statement in the Declaration of Independence said, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”Today a majority Americans refuse to support the resentful governing class in Trump’s White House and Congress.
So Abraham Lincoln’s words at Gettysburg, in support of the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence, ring true with timeless meaning: “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”
The Trump family, who has taken a cue from the Russian oligarchs, are intent on deregulating lawful safeguards and have taken aim at converting political power into private profits for themselves and the power elite in plain sight of the electorate.
The rule of law in America began life in the flawed U.S. Constitution, a living document much amended in favor of making inalienable rights available to all Americans regardless of color, creed, or gender. Today the symbolic figure of the Statue of Liberty, once a beacon of hope to the world, is tarnished by greed and prejudice. The ideals embodied in documents promoted by the spiritual legacy of Franklin, Jefferson, and Lincoln, languish, undermined by the progenitors of greed who would take revenge on the poor, non-white, and women.
A farce plays out in Senate hearings as a nominee for a Supreme Court would redefine justice in favor of “originalism,” a retrograde concept that favors a document, which initially refused to recognize Native Americans or immigrant African Americans as human beings and elevated property-owning white men to leadership, men whose property also included female family members.
The recent failure of the “repeal and replace” tax refund for the wealthy failed because it did not go far enough to satisfy retrograde white members of the “Freedom Caucus,” who proposed cutting health care for millions of Americans.
As the Planet warms, threatening to create an inhospitable home for human beings, due to greedy appetite for carbon profits, American warplanes have killed hundreds of innocent civilians in the pursuit of ISIS terrorists at Mosul, a result of the misguided destabilization of the Mid East, due to American intervention in Iraq.
So under the dome of the Capitol, a melodramatic soap opera plays out, orchestrated by the White House pirates. As TV’s nighttime comedians play the President’s tweets for laughs, the world cringes in fear of destabilization.
As Emerson, the founding philosopher of American “Self-Reliance,” said, “The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion.” Aversive thinking and action is most in need. The Palestinian experience of “undefeated despair” sets the standard: “resistance is hope.”