A Quiet Truth

Americans must stop accepting the hardships of life and embrace the quiet truth that the world deserves better

In the 1987 film Cry Freedom, Steven Biko, played by a young Denzel Washington, tells a courtroom, “People must not just give in to the hardships of life. They must find a way, even in this environment, to develop hope—hope for themselves, hope for this country.”

There’s real wisdom in that idea, but also a word of warning. We can’t allow ourselves to be lulled into a state of apathy simply because we can’t be bothered to care, or to think it is all beyond our control. We can’t give in. We must fight back.

Now, maybe you don’t believe that Americans today are in the same boat as South Africans under apartheid in the previous century, and I suppose not, but if we’re not careful, we’re headed down a similar path. We face the very real prospect of cruel oppression at the hands of those who would gladly forgo pluralism and persona liberty in favor of white supremacy, theocratic authoritarianism rather than representative democracy. 

We should be angry beyond belief about this, but most people are so blissfully unaware and disengaged from reality that they can’t be bothered to complain, let alone riot in the streets. The danger, of course, is that by the time they wake up, if they ever do, it will be too late.

I don’t believe we need to be riotously angry in order to be motivated to enact change, but we do need to be sufficiently moved to act of our own accord and in our own best interest. You can be sure that today’s oligarchs are motivated to act in their own self interests, and they no longer have any shame about trampling the rest of us to do so. They have no use for democracy and the rule of law, because they believe they are out of the reach of both. They have become their own corrupt governments, their own rule of lawlessness. They are the shopkeeper, the mayor, and the sheriff. 

What we need is a revolution, a new world order where obscene wealth is viewed as a crime against humanity and not conducive to a civil society. We need to recognize evil when we see it and call it out as such, and unfettered wealth and power are inherently evil. We must restore some balance to the universe. We need to fight against the rising tide of fascism and the specter of self-righteous greed. We must resist the desire to preserve the peace over the promise of progress. We must do what is hard so that life can get just a little bit easier.

Angry ranting isn’t working, and neither is fear mongering. We have become immune to hyperbole and outrage culture. It no longer registers. We need a new strategy with new tactics, something that will break through. Something shocking and surprising to shake us from our slumber.

We need a quiet truth.

We Are Not The Resistance, We Are The Flood

On September 21, 2018, Michelle Alexander’s debut column ran in the New York Times. It was titled, “We Are Not the Resistance.” She argued that regardless of the early label adopted by progressives, claiming to be the resistance, they had it backwards.

Despite the many protests of Donald Trump’s administration, from the chaos of his first term to the travesties of his second, it was Trump and the Maga Movement that were the real resistance. It was they who wanted to take the country back to the dark ages. It was they who desired to dismantle democracy, destroy personal liberty, a free press, and the rule of law. It was they who wanted to set up a white, authoritarian theocracy.

“Every leap forward for American democracy,” Alexander wrote, “from slavery’s abolition to women’s suffrage to minimum wage laws to the Civil Rights Acts to gay marriage — has been traceable to the revolutionary river, not the resistance. In fact, the whole of American history can be described as a struggle between those who truly embraced the revolutionary idea of freedom, equality and justice for all, and those who resisted.”

Progress, as it turns out, is a mighty river, constantly flowing forward, and little stands in its way for any length of time. As Alexander deftly pointed out in her article, “the struggle for human freedom and dignity extends back centuries and is likely to continue for generations to come.“

If progressives are the river, representing the swollen flood of humanity barreling down on history, then we must stop acting like we are the ones doing the resisting. What regressive Republicans are doing is trying to hold back the tide of progress, which is a futile attempt to block the inevitable.

When you dam a river, you can restrict the flow down to a trickle, but the water has to go somewhere eventually. You can flood the valley for a time, but if the dam isn’t secure, it will eventually fail and the resulting flood is far more impactful than the original force. It can be catastrophic to those who were vain enough to think they could contain it. Woe be it for the town built in the shadow of the dam.

While I like the river analogy due to the incessant nature of the downhill progress, we might also use a tidal metaphor because nothing withstands a rising tide. Nothing stops a tide that is coming, despite every man made effort to contain its fury. The dune and berm are but a temporary and futile resistance.

Bruce Springsteen once sang, “Hey kid, you think that’s oil? Man, that ain’t oil, that’s blood. I wonder what he was thinking when he hit that storm, or was he just lost in the flood?”

We’re definitely in the midst of a storm, and a flood is most certainly coming, but it might not be what people think it is. A flood is never regressive, it’s always progressive. A few weeks ago, an acquaintance asked me what I thought was going to happen to America, and specifically, if I thought we were liable to descend into the madness of a civil war. I said no, I did not think that was inevitable, even though anything is possible.

To begin with, even though people get all hot and bothered over tribal partisanship, it’s still mostly theoretical for them. It’s one thing to fly a Trump flag or attend a rally, and quite another thing to shoot your neighbor because you think he’s a snowflake. Do we really believe most Republicans in their quiet suburbs, gated communities and rural farms, are going to take up arms against their neighbors?

I think people are endlessly stupid, but not nearly as crazy as we think. We have a distorted view of humanity from too much melodramatic television. Most people are frightened to leave their house. There are more serial killers on television than in all of human history. Your neighbor is more interested in who will be the next Singer to be Unmasked or the next celebrity to do the Fox Trot.

I think the Maga clowns might very well run this country into the ground, but I’m guessing it’s going to take awhile. Unfortunately, I think climate change is going to accelerate all sorts of pain and suffering, and we will be left without a functioning government willing or able to help. That’s the larger risk in my calculation and what I’m truly afraid of. I’m not afraid of being shot so much as dying from neglect.

I see quality of life slipping in America. The wealth gap will continue to widen. Home ownership will drop. Poverty will rise. Unemployment will skyrocket. There will be riots. Crackdowns. Civil unrest. Cities will be the problem and Republicans will blame Democratic leadership and urge more violence. But Netflix and HBO will develop a new series to enthrall us as Rome burns. 

Unless something radical changes, it’s going to get worse—much worse, before it can possibly get better. The question will be how long it takes and what will it take to hit bottom before Americans realize what they’ve done to themselves.

If the worst truly comes to pass, I think we could see an unprecedented exodus of liberals with money to other countries; a massive brain drain of highly skilled, educated professionals. It would be akin to the agricultural South of the 19th century, surviving after they split from the industrialized North, or more recently, the wealthy blue states separating from the poor red states. It’s not as easy as it sounds. That’s merely the bad news. There are many reasons to be hopeful.

Mankind has moved forward, evolving and improving since the beginning of time. Sometimes it’s been a slow crawl out of the primordial ooze, and other times we have seen sudden changes that were abrupt and cataclysmic. Someone once said that history happens slowly, and then all at once. But the fact that human evolution has leaned towards the advancement of personal liberty and social equality means that anything that stands in the way of that progress is not likely to last long against the weight of human history.

Liberalism is the willingness to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one’s own; an openness to new ideas. It is the holding of political views that promote social welfare. It is the understanding that many traditional beliefs are dispensable, invalidated by modern thought, or liable to change. Finally, it is a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise. America is, by definition, a liberal democracy. Illiberal ideas are therefore, by their very nature, anathema to our core beliefs and ultimately unpatriotic.

What we need our elected leaders to understand is that progress isn’t the exception in a democracy, but the very rule that defines it. But also that we are the flood.

Norman Maclean wrote, “Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.”

Within both the Christian and Celtic traditions, the willow tree has long been a symbol of strength in the face of adversity due its ability to bend without breaking. But it’s also known as a tree that grows near a river for its incredible ability to draw vast quantities of water.

Confucius said, “The green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm.”

Humans are incredibly resilient; tyranny has always been temporary. The mighty oak seems invulnerable until the wind and the waves topple it. The willow that grows by the river simply bends and let’s the water pass. A storm is upon us, and the flood is eminent. The flood is also progress. You can choose to bend, be broken, or be washed away. 

What you cannot do is stand in the way.

america democracy politics Progress