WHOSE REALITY WINS?

 With 20,000 troops protecting the District of Columbia and Congress and all 50 states deploying whatever security they can muster to defend their capitols, those of us waiting eagerly for Trump to leave office and for Joe Biden to become President might be able to breathe at least a bit easier in the expectation that the transfer of power will actually take place, although, tragically, far from peacefully.

Whose reality wins?

However, even with Trump out and Biden in the Oval Office, we can by no means relax. Despite the horrendous attack on Congress and democracy--and five dead--followed by what is being characterized as a bi-partisan impeachment, many members of Congress, other influential Republicans throughout the country and right-wing religious leaders continue to inject the Big Lie that Trump won the 2020 election into the supercharged echo chamber of right wing media, where it continues to resonate and radicalize.

It's hard to know how many of those influencers and opinion makers truly believe The Lie and all the evil collusion it implies, nor how many of the 74,000,000 who voted for Trump are fully committed True Believers. One clue is that after all that's happened somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of Americans still approve of Trump as President. Another is that fewer than 10 percent of Republicans think he should be impeached.

What is crystal clear is that being on the Trump team demands total loyalty, certainly not to facts or reason, nor even to a conservative ideology, but to whatever Trump, the only source of Truth--says. It makes little difference what mix of his supporters are passively going along with the mob, play acting, or acting out his revealed Truth; the real-world results are much the same. As DC Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone said about those rioters who intervened to try to keep him from being shot with his own gun, "Thank you, but f___ you for being there."

Right now the Big Lie still demands believing that the election was stolen through vast fraud, that Trump won by a landslide, and that democrats, progressives, RINOs, Vice President Pence and anyone who is not willing to eagerly follow Trump through every twist and turn of his quest for ultimate victory is evil, devoted to the destruction of the United States, and as such, an enemy of the people. That lie is likely to persist and fester for years. But even if it fades, we can be sure a new one will appear.

It's crazy, right? How could anyone believe such nonsense, not even counting the even more bizarre black hole of Q-Anon, nor whatever twisted beliefs about race, religion and White nationhood drive Trump's most militant and violent followers?

Yet crazy or not, whether we choose to recognize it or not, we are now in a war between our reality and theirs. It's beyond the point where patience, logic, facts, science, reality-based media or prestigious influencers can be counted on to win the day. Shots have been fired and blood spilled. The advance guard of an alternate reality has stalked the Capitol hunting traitors and carrying flex cuffs. The Trump flag has flown over Congress. The first gallows has been erected. 

We don't need a Churchill or Roosevelt to tell us that war has been declared. A war not just between progressive and conservative policies, between the talking points of left and right, between the "standard hyperbole" of politicians charging up their bases, or between competing narratives, but between a world that makes sense to most of us and a world that makes sense only within the armed perimeter of what has become a 70-million-strong cult.

Within that cult is a world defined by doublethink, where a fair election must be undone to protect the integrity of elections, where Patriotism requires an attack on the nation's Capitol, where tyranny is defined as unity and resistance to mob rule is divisive. Like the most dangerous cults, it promises power, prestige and salvation for the Righteous and death to feared and hated non-believers and apostates. Be on Team Trump or be damned.

There is a time for patience, empathy and understanding, but not when someone is battering your head in with his flagpole. There are periods during which one can hope that the simple passage of time will soften divisions and heal differences, but not when a crazed mob is crashing through your door. Whether we asked to be or not, chose to be or not, we've all been drafted into a battle not between right and left, nor right and wrong, but between two realities that cannot co-exist. Either Biden won in a fair election or Trump was robbed of the presidency in a treasonous nationwide coup. Either Q is right and the deep-state elite are an international cabal of satanic pedophiles--"baby-killing socialists"--as Pastor Robert Henderson preaches, or not.

Clearly our political, corporate, religious and civic leaders need to make it absolutely clear in speech and action that Biden won and is the legitimate President, and that white nationalism, racism and bigotry are not acceptable. The legal system from the Supreme Court down to police on the street needs to recognize the clear and present danger of domestic terrorism from the right and use all the tools at their disposal to contain and reduce it. The media need to look this threat in the eye and implement ways to limit the ability of hate-driven individuals and groups to organize and radicalize.

Unfortunately, even if all our leaders and institutions step up to their responsibilities, that will not be enough. This battle involves us all. I don't know just where or when you or I will be called to the front, but it will happen. Will it be with a friend, a family member or a stranger trying to get you to drink his or her tainted Kool-Aid? Or with a religious leader, school-board member or local politician arrogantly advancing The Cause? The time to speak up and step up is now, before their reality infects yet more hearts and minds. If not, there will come a tipping point after which you and I will find ourselves living in--or perhaps dying from--their toxic reality.

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REA

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This article first appeared on OpEdNews, 1/19/21.

STAYING HUMAN IN INHUMAN TIMES

In 1601, Shakespeare wrote these exquisite lines about our potential as human beings:

"What a piece of work is man, How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, In form and moving how express and admirable, In action how like an Angel, In apprehension how like a god, The beauty of the world, The paragon of animals."

 

 Michelangelo's David

the Academia, Florence

Credit: REA

Shakespeare was not the first or the last to express a grand vision of what an individual human can be. Hamlet followed Michelangelo's David--an immortal illustration of a courageous individual facing an overpowering adversary--by a century, and preceded the Age of Enlightenment by many decades. From the 1680s until the end of the next century, philosophers, scientists and enlightened leaders--including the framers of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution--developed and advanced similar ideals, summed up by the German philosopher Emmanuel Kant as:

". . . the courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. Dare to Know! . . . Have the courage to use your own understanding."

We find ourselves today in a situation where our government, many of our leaders, and other powers  including giant corporations, are bidding or manipulating us to act in ways, or go along with actions, that are inhuman, immoral, and intrinsically disgusting. One example is the Trump/Sessions decision to separate children, even infants, from their parents for purely political reasons, with no plan in place to reunite them or even care for them adequately.

Whether you identify yourself as a Republican, a Democrat, a member of the Tea Party, an Independent, a Libertarian, an Evangelical, an atheist, an advocate of some other group or cause, or none of the above, should not make any difference; tearing children from their parents' arms is simply and terribly wrong.

In this case, the outraged response of millions of people plus rejection by the courts forced the Trump administration to change course and begin to reunite the families it had torn apart. Tragically, many families are still separated, some may never be reunited*, and many children may have been irreparably traumatized by this policy.

However, with Trump and his administration still in power, and with a Congress and, increasingly, a judiciary willing to support him, and with implacable corporations seeking to maximize profits at any cost, we can be sure that this will not be the last outrageous and morally repugnant policy that we, the citizens of the United States, will be expected to accept and implement. Whether it is the grindingly slow pace of reuniting families, the horrible conditions immigrants face in our privatized prison system, the killing of innocent civilians in drone strikes, discharging immigrant soldiers, polluting the environment, destabilizing the climate, or, perhaps the worst case scenario, going to war with Iran or North Korea, we will inevitably be confronted by stark choices between our human values and national or corporate policies.

Clearly there are many people and groups who would like nothing more than to ring a dark curtain down on the Enlightenment, and replace its ideals of the value, rights  and responsibilities of each individual human being with a mindless and amoral obedience to (their) authority. As Trump said about North Korea's absolute ruler, Kim Jong Un, "He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same."

At any given time, most of us will be bystanders or witnesses to these events. I would argue that this is not a time for passivity or inaction; we all need to speak out and act as our conscience dictates. Inevitably, however, some of us will be on the front lines of current or coming events. You may be an ICE or DHS agent, a prison guard, a lawyer being asked to justify an immoral policy, a psychologist asked to advise on torture, a pilot or flight attendant transporting immigrant children, a drone pilot asked to bomb "targets" thousands of miles away, or someone high or low in any number of organizations. If you are being asked or expected to do something that you find morally repugnant, I would plead with you to have the courage to blow the whistle, resist or refuse.

Here's a great example from a very courageous young woman who calmly stood her ground and single-handedly stopped a deportation--bravo to Elin Ersson. 

Dictators, tyrants, cult leaders and abusers of all kinds rely on followers willing to do their bidding. Let's recognize that any of us may find ourselves somewhere in their sphere of influence or line of command, and in preparation make our own declaration of independence. If, as Kant said, we have the courage to use and act on our own understanding, perhaps then we will see the results of following the better angels of our nature rather than the whims and wishes of the narcissists, fanatics, idealogues, oe the most profit- or power-hungry among us.

REA

*The latest reports indicates that it may take years to reunite many of these immigrant parents and children.  Why? Mark Greenberg, a fellow at the Immigrant Policy Institute, explains, shockingly, that ". . . there wasn't initial tracking to maintain a link between parents and their children."

The failure of the Trump administration even to maintain adequate records to eventually allow parents and children to find each other and be reunited is detailed in a recently released 25-page report by the US Office of the Inspector General. You can read the entire report here. The callous cruelty of this policy and the way it was carried out are profoundly repugnant.

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