When We Stand

We hold these truths to be self–evident

In the entirety of human history, a power greater than all those amassed for war appears at moments. Moments that carry the weight of our grief, our anger, and our resolve. Those moments shape the future, they define who we are, a people of all and every nation. That most powerful tool against that which oppresses and destroys us, is us, is we, is you and I… When. We. Stand.

This is not my country… In which, it is not the culmination of the history and events that I lived through that shaped the the past. It is not the future that had been presented to me throughout my lifetime… Something is very wrong, yes, wrong with the place we find ourselves. Something has festered into its own mass and altered the natural course and leaves many mostly blind to the cause and effect. The actions, and responses from all corners of the globe that leaves the present in stark contrast to the history that produced it. Building sandcastles was not what we were doing, but they were still washed away by the tides of time.

Those words could belong to many today. The governments of people’s have misplaced their duties, and failed in their responsibilities to those people. The tidal powers of economies of power and wealth too addicting to stop the cost of its wake. The costs fall to the lowest stage, humans, people, from all walks of life, and every corner of the globe. They even fall to the Earth itself, and the animals and nature we have been ignorantly poor stewards of. This is not the world that was supposed to arise, this is not what the progression we have made should look like, should feel like.

Plowshares – to Swords – to Garbage Cans

In Hong Kong the masses topped two million. In Russia 100,000. In places throughout the world the streets are filling with people. From the Arab Spring, to the protests that started just down the road. Those people are just like you and I, people with families and friends, work and homes to care for. In the U.S. strikes are happening at an increasing pace, protests against systemic forms of oppression, hatred, and support rallied for protected groups are growing by the days and months. These people are just like you and I, they need to express themselves somehow, stop their pain, someone’s pain… somehow. There is no shortage of friction between the layers of society’s materials. The entire structure of caste and economies, the various concentric circles of diverse workings are meeting forces that wreak havoc. Cause and effect, a Catch 44…

The loss of civility, and the loss of civilization in the process, is not the world that any of us wanted to have created. But we did create a world full of much of the wonders and possibilities from our past. In a Boston newspaper the debate is raging about the definition of Fascism, the Antifa movement, and the far right nationalists. The kids I grew up with, and their Fathers knew the difference. The Father’s wouldn’t be joining Antifa, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they wouldn’t be kneecapping the ones wearing the swastika’s. Not to espouse violence on them, I am just using the evidence I have to think about what they would have done. I don’t know how we got from my history to this one, but something else is happening too, we are. I am not one to protest, or even one that cares for confrontation… But that desire for change, that indignation, is superseding the ability to sit idly by.

I feel a patriot through and through, and I literally tear up when I hear those words, or write them for that matter, in a tone and tenor which we all can hear in our heads. We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. The foundations and directions of the future took root in those few sentences, ones which live on today. In places like Hong Kong, in Russia, in Venezuela, as we struggle with still building them here at home as well.

We have both won the day, and lost the war. The conditions that were set down were meant for the people, not profits. The amassing of affluency, of wealth, and status, is not which was intended. The opportunities for progress have been stymied by a loss of purpose, a loss of commitment, and a foreboding about the future that did arrive, which did fester, and which leaves us at a perilous point in our very being, humanity’s very being. With a society built on how shiny the outside of their garbage cans are, this is what occurs when the lids fall off, when the stench is revealed to all.

A Nation without People is just Land

The suffering is real, the dysfunctional societal models have ground their way to the bone. Those bones that used to belong to the one class falling up and down the scale in that class’s absence, to the skeletons of the lower classes and through the skin of the upper ones. The societal safety nets were not there to simply protect the poor from poverty, but the wealthy from the repercussions of the problems that plague us. The laws that we once stood in respect to, tarnished beyond recognition, and black with blindness toward the injustice of money bought innocence, and color based punishment. These out of balance workings can only go on so long until the mechanics are out of sync, the gears don’t mesh and the machine that is us, society, civilization… stops.

The proof is all around us, not simply those examples of Hong Kong and Russia. These strides are being made against oppression, the worst part of the human equation. The proof is not only found in the protests and marches, the strife and conflict in every day lives. The reasons why we do go on, why we do continue, does not need to be codified. It is not something that we are told to do, or under law to follow. It is found in religious mandates and natural ones as well. it is It is found in the best of us, when life has seemingly beaten us down, and when the world has laughed at our expectations of fairness. When our actions are brought to their very base coding, the very nature of our beings, we amass, we protect, we care, and… we stand.

When the boats are filled with every age and gender, race and creed. The destruction is complete, and the means of living no longer present. When farmlands are tended and fields are full of viable crops, yet there is no market for them. The destruction is complete, and the means of living no longer present. When employment is plentiful, but left unfilled, a workforce unprepared or educated for this future. The destruction is complete, the means of living no longer present. Means of living, necessities, not wants, are destroyed either willingly or naturally. When faced with the worst that the world can muster, we stand. We stand together without prejudice, without bigotry, without politics or class, with dignity and purpose, because this is who we are.

We can rest more assured in the belief that the definition of the human condition is not constructed by the worst of our nature, but by the best of it. The principles of freedom and liberty, the ideals of equality in all forms, the acts of charity and service. These are parts of the best of us, and by that definition, and by the very nature that guides us, they will not be changed, die out, fade away, or be ruled over. We will not climb down the rungs of civility to the depths that would silence us, harm us, and divide us. We climb, we resist, we stand.

We hold these truths to be self–evident,

Those words ring true, throughout time they have rang softly, or with a resonating, and deeply moving wave. They show themselves in humane acts, and ultimate sacrifice. They ring from the stands we take against bullying, or the needs of a stranger above that of what our society would dictate. The collective consciousness of a community, and quite plainly the passion and joy of humanity. We do not care for suffering, we are appalled at all manner of tyranny, and we sit by too often as these things occur, believing we cannot change things, we cannot change the world… Yet, we do. We do change the world, one action, one person, one voice. The powers amassed for war stand unready and powerless, because we can, and we will, and we have, risen.

Today, the world comes out of their homes. The people come out of their businesses, and children their classrooms. Class, age, religion, and race will all be present. The cost of our existence has brought us to the brink of losing the only place we know as home… Earth. They will march, and they will gather, and they will announce with one voice that we will not sit idly by. We will not go into that tomorrow without the decree that we must do something, now, before it is entirely too late. Some may feel that the tides cannot be changed and they may be right, they may be wrong. The answers are not going to be found in the continued ignorance, or the unchanged behaviors, that has ended up with us, here. They may yet be found in our newly strengthened resolve to do something now. Repair the damage, change our mannerisms, and plant more than a tree, but a sign of hope for a better future that may yet await us.

We did not plan to have this future. We did not plan to engage in the need to challenge the very powers that govern us, or those that apply their standards. We did not plan the years and lifetimes of work for change, to see little if any real success, and applicable, tangible solutions. We did not plan for the failures of leadership’s, with the stewardship of its peoples and the wellbeing of its lands and waters. We did not plan this, this is how it is though. The desire is usurped now by need, the cost of confrontation minuscule in comparison to the costs of inaction, of apathy and indifference. Today we are bound together by nothing more than hope. That there will be a tomorrow, and a future, with a little bit something left of what we started out with. Whether it be for freedom, or liberty, or the Earth itself, we are humans first. There is no greater power, no grander example of the human endeavor than the human spirit, and the passion and unending belief in hope, as when. We. Stand.