100%. That made me cry after a long hard day of the worst things I have ever seen and heard. Brilliant and all true. I am for all of us humans every time.
Let’s also note that not only does the constitution not recognize Africans as people, it does not recognize women as people. Or whatever legal word you want to convey that as a human being the rights of this country include you in scope.
This is great and inspiring, but (of course) I want to add a couple of things. #1 is that the "central flaw that is killing America" has to include our willful obliviousness to economic power and its ability to eat democracy alive. This is embedded in the 1787 Constitution for sure, e.g., in slavery in general and the 3/5 compromise, but it came into its own after the Civil War with the accelerating Industrial Revolution and the rise of the plutocrats. The war against workers who tried to organize was vicious, and even the elites realized that plutocracy was a threat to democracy: the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was passed in 1890, and the subsequent Progressive Era was a reaction against unfettered economic power.
Meanwhile, the Compromise of 1877 put an effective end to Reconstruction and Jim Crow took over where slavery had left off. It reigned supreme until the mid-1960s, but despite the setbacks dealt by the civil rights movement it never gave up. White Southern Democrats flooded into the Republican Party. In the '70s they made common cause with the anti-feminist backlash (Roe v. Wade, etc.), and with the election of Reagan in 1980 they took control. With a few interruptions they've remained in control ever since. Trump II, including Project 2025, is the endgame.
My #2 point is related. As you aptly point out, "the fundamental tension in our nation’s founding lives on in our country today. In our world today. It’s a tension born of colonialism." Now apply that to the Middle East. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 was born of a colonial mindset -- why was the British government making pronouncements about Palestine? -- but even more blatant was the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, in which Britain and France planned to divvy up what was soon to become the carcass of the Ottoman Empire. This came to pass in the Versailles treaties, specifically the (unratified) Treaty of Sèvres (1920) and the subsequent Treaty of Lausanne (1923). France became the mandatory power for Syria and Lebanon, Britain for Palestine, Transjordan, and Iraq. Promises made during the war to the Palestinians and Arabs more generally were ignored or overridden.
The Balfour Declaration was a response to the ongoing anti-Jewish pogroms in eastern Europe and Russia and antisemitism more generally. The rise of the Nazis and the beginning of the Holocaust increased the pressure exponentially. Jewish emigration to and settlement in Palestine increased, and the native Palestinians had little to no recourse. And then came World War II and the horrors revealed at its end for all to see . . .
And let us not forget the paramount role of the U.S. education system in perpetuating that "central flaw," a condition that has in fact already killed America. From kindergarten onward, it elevates kids with athletic prowess to super-heroes even as it demotes kids with exceptional intelligence to outcasts and shuns intellectual acumen as if it were symptomatic of some particularly odious mental disability. This was so bad during my K-12 years (1945-1958), it was a primary issue in the post-Sputnik controversy. But now -- from what my present-day friends and acquaintances who have school-age children tell me -- it has become infinitely worse, intensified with the overt shift toward nazification led by the Republicans and deliberately enabled by the hopelessly compromised post-JFK Democrats. All of which, of course, is in abject service to the predatory mandates of capitalism as it methodically reduces the entire planet to its grand finale as the high-tech equivalent of an antebellum slave plantation.
That guy who said that those who refused to learn from the past were condemned to repeat it had a point. <g> (P.S. I know who said it: George Santayana.)
Oh my goodness… You’re not overthinking it. This is really really straight talk. Sharing and spreading the word. I wish it were better news but… Definitely a wake up call….?! Thank you so much for the exquisite post. I wish it were better news. We still have a chance… Some really basic premises here that have to be healed.
Thank you for sharing your observations in such a thoughtful manner on such a complex and fraught subject. A two state solution is no longer possible without massive concessions by the Israeli government and people. I can’t see it happening.
Carrie, I hope you don't mind that I share this on my FB page. Everyone I know should read it.
Please do my friend
100%. That made me cry after a long hard day of the worst things I have ever seen and heard. Brilliant and all true. I am for all of us humans every time.
I'm sorry I made you cry. For me it was a release to put my horror into words. I am for human, too. It's heartbreaking.
Please don’t be. Your words were perfect. Thank you so much for writing for us. Hope your day goes well.
Also absolutely loved this one.
Thank you sir
Let’s also note that not only does the constitution not recognize Africans as people, it does not recognize women as people. Or whatever legal word you want to convey that as a human being the rights of this country include you in scope.
This is great and inspiring, but (of course) I want to add a couple of things. #1 is that the "central flaw that is killing America" has to include our willful obliviousness to economic power and its ability to eat democracy alive. This is embedded in the 1787 Constitution for sure, e.g., in slavery in general and the 3/5 compromise, but it came into its own after the Civil War with the accelerating Industrial Revolution and the rise of the plutocrats. The war against workers who tried to organize was vicious, and even the elites realized that plutocracy was a threat to democracy: the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was passed in 1890, and the subsequent Progressive Era was a reaction against unfettered economic power.
Meanwhile, the Compromise of 1877 put an effective end to Reconstruction and Jim Crow took over where slavery had left off. It reigned supreme until the mid-1960s, but despite the setbacks dealt by the civil rights movement it never gave up. White Southern Democrats flooded into the Republican Party. In the '70s they made common cause with the anti-feminist backlash (Roe v. Wade, etc.), and with the election of Reagan in 1980 they took control. With a few interruptions they've remained in control ever since. Trump II, including Project 2025, is the endgame.
My #2 point is related. As you aptly point out, "the fundamental tension in our nation’s founding lives on in our country today. In our world today. It’s a tension born of colonialism." Now apply that to the Middle East. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 was born of a colonial mindset -- why was the British government making pronouncements about Palestine? -- but even more blatant was the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, in which Britain and France planned to divvy up what was soon to become the carcass of the Ottoman Empire. This came to pass in the Versailles treaties, specifically the (unratified) Treaty of Sèvres (1920) and the subsequent Treaty of Lausanne (1923). France became the mandatory power for Syria and Lebanon, Britain for Palestine, Transjordan, and Iraq. Promises made during the war to the Palestinians and Arabs more generally were ignored or overridden.
The Balfour Declaration was a response to the ongoing anti-Jewish pogroms in eastern Europe and Russia and antisemitism more generally. The rise of the Nazis and the beginning of the Holocaust increased the pressure exponentially. Jewish emigration to and settlement in Palestine increased, and the native Palestinians had little to no recourse. And then came World War II and the horrors revealed at its end for all to see . . .
And let us not forget the paramount role of the U.S. education system in perpetuating that "central flaw," a condition that has in fact already killed America. From kindergarten onward, it elevates kids with athletic prowess to super-heroes even as it demotes kids with exceptional intelligence to outcasts and shuns intellectual acumen as if it were symptomatic of some particularly odious mental disability. This was so bad during my K-12 years (1945-1958), it was a primary issue in the post-Sputnik controversy. But now -- from what my present-day friends and acquaintances who have school-age children tell me -- it has become infinitely worse, intensified with the overt shift toward nazification led by the Republicans and deliberately enabled by the hopelessly compromised post-JFK Democrats. All of which, of course, is in abject service to the predatory mandates of capitalism as it methodically reduces the entire planet to its grand finale as the high-tech equivalent of an antebellum slave plantation.
Well said. Unfortunately, it’s human nature to focus on the crimes of the present while ignoring how they were created by the crimes of the past.
That guy who said that those who refused to learn from the past were condemned to repeat it had a point. <g> (P.S. I know who said it: George Santayana.)
Oh my goodness… You’re not overthinking it. This is really really straight talk. Sharing and spreading the word. I wish it were better news but… Definitely a wake up call….?! Thank you so much for the exquisite post. I wish it were better news. We still have a chance… Some really basic premises here that have to be healed.
Thank you for sharing your observations in such a thoughtful manner on such a complex and fraught subject. A two state solution is no longer possible without massive concessions by the Israeli government and people. I can’t see it happening.