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      in World Politics

      Confronting America’s Drive to Collective Amnesia

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      It seems that there is a deep pent-up desire in America to avoid meaningful change at all cost. It is hard enough to confront issues honestly and forthrightly in the best of times. But it is nearly impossible to do so in an environment that prizes consensus over responsibility. The vocabulary of avoidance is everywhere and reaching epic proportions.

      Nowhere is this more obvious and dangerous than the way in which the vaccinated dance around the unvaccinated. If you are paying attention, there is simply no good excuse not to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in America, with some very minor medically-sound exceptions. But instead of just saying that in a straightforward way and then demanding policies and programs that mandate vaccinations, we are acting like vaccinations are some prize for knocking over a stack of steel bottles at a carnival stand: “Step right up, little lady, a quick flick of the needle and you are on your way with this keepsake stuffed elephant. Bring that big guy along with you, and you win the daily double, the stuffed elephant and a genuine MAGA hat.”

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      It is time to stop begging ignorant people to do something smart, and selfish people to do something selfless. How about: “Step right up little lady and show me your vaccination certificate if you want to eat here. Same for you big guy.” Or: “Mom, your kid wants to play high school football, but he hasn’t turned in the required COVID vaccination certificate.” Or my personal favorite: “I would have invited you to join us, but you are not vaccinated, and adding someone so stupid and selfish to the group seemed like a bad idea that would only serve to validate your stupidity and selfishness.”

      Validating willful ignorance is never a good idea, but it is a really bad idea when doing so puts people at risk. Further, most of us usually try to avoid truly selfish people, so let’s double down now to contribute to the common good. For impact, we have to be willing to tell the ignorant and selfish what we are doing and why. We have to be willing to demand that our institutions meet this challenge as well. It is beyond time for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to aggressively mandate vaccinations wherever they are authorized to do so.

      Another useful component of the avoidance vocabulary is the word “colleague.” The word seems to imply someone with whom you work, a co-worker. It shouldn’t apply to the SOB in your midst who seeks to undo everything you are trying to do. So, stop using the word “colleague” for those you believe to be willfully ignorant, selfish, dangerous and/or just plain too stupid to get out of your way. This is particularly so in the public arena, where every moron seems to be somebody’s colleague during any discourse — “My colleagues are unable to see that making it harder for black people to vote is racist behavior.” They could either not be your “colleague” or not be “racist,” but they shouldn’t ever be both.

      Normal vs. New Normal

      How about “normal” and “new normal” to make things sound just great as we surge forward as a nation? Returning to “normal” only works if your “normal” was fine with you. It avoids the uncomfortable truth that many people don’t want to return to their “normal,” because it sucked. As for a “new normal,” it is hard to imagine a less precise way of confronting the critical need for change to actually achieve a more perfect union. It surely creates an easy path to avoiding any measured discussion about hunger, poverty, access to meaningful health care, access to quality education, rampant gun violence, and racial and social justice, among other difficult issues.

      So, when I hear people say they want a “new normal,” it sounds a lot to me like they are talking about some vision of a better world that will miraculously emerge if we hold hands and pray a lot. What is needed is not a “new normal” but a new and transformed America where eliminating poverty is more important than giving up a tax break for your vacation home, where health care isn’t rationed by insurance companies and their medical allies, where school buildings and the teachers in them provide the same resources to black children that are provided to white children, and no child, not a single one, goes to bed hungry in America.

      Embed from Getty Images

      That’s the America that I want to see and to which there is so much resistance. “Normal” and “new normal” are comfort food concepts to spare the already comfortable the discomfort of sacrifice for the common good.

      And then just when you think you might be getting at least some Americans to turn their attention to a better life on Earth for the community of man, along comes billionaire space “tourism” to further distract a population grasping for the most banal of distractions. If you can’t afford Disneyland, an RV or even a trip to Taco Bell, America’s wealthy can give you the illusion of tourism in space. It is truly heartening to hear the mega brats talk so lovingly of opening up space to the masses, while working so hard to avoid sharing their wealth with those same masses. And take note that this illusion is getting enough attention and gushing goodwill to give us another touchstone on the golden road to “normal.”

      While I await my economy center seat with Kim Kardashian on one side and Martha Stewart on the other, I am getting pumped up for the debates to come as schools are about to open and the parental handwringing season of rage is commencing. This is so much fun, because in America’s dysfunctional democracy school decisions are seen as local decisions, thereby ensuring that everything from masks to midriffs, from black books to white books, from defunding teachers to defunding cops and the like, will be on the agenda somewhere everyday beginning now.

      This will be fine theater that is inconsistent with informed dialogue and ensures further avoidance of confronting systemic issues of import. Optics again will win the day, and the symbolism of preserving norms will overwhelm the content of change. The real losers this time will be the kids who will have to watch their parents stuff social, political, economic and moral genies back into the bottles from which they have again emerged, while further polluting the minds of the same kids they say they are trying to save.

      It seems beyond hope that all of this avoidance of meaningful change and the vocabulary that enables that avoidance will engender an equal and opposite reaction. The reason is simple: Only the forgotten are seeking meaningful change while so many in the rest of the nation want nothing more than continued amnesia.

      *[A version of this article was co-published on the author’s blog, Hard Left Turn.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Squandered Resolve Puts Transformation at Risk in America

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      Now that the internationalists and their kindred neoconservatives have had their moment in the sun and reestablished America’s “greatness” on the world stage, it is time to get back to the domestic challenge of trying to bring the reality of America into closer proximity to President Joe Biden’s international version of an imperfect nation always seeking to be better and always better than other alternatives. While democracy versus autocracy has a nice ring to it on the outside, dysfunctional democracy at home is still dysfunctional democracy, hardly the poster child for an ideological confrontation.

      So, it was a little disconcerting that during my recent road trip, the Democrats pissed away another month without the courage to act on their stated convictions in the face of the continuing Republican assault on the notion of shared governance for the common good. Talk of progress, incremental change, consensus and bipartisanship continues to be a calling card among those too timid to embrace the national transformation that America’s institutions require to meet today’s challenges at home and abroad.

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      Even when not fulminating about rampant socialism, wounded white pride, voter fraud and defunding the police, congressional Republicans and those they seek to embrace continue to invent new fantasies to drive their message and excuse their obstruction. To make matters worse, a significant component of the messaging about a post-pandemic return to “normal” includes the continuing empty promise of positive change for a better future for all. Hello Juneteenth, goodbye the difficult challenge of doing something about the nation’s legacy that created Juneteenth in the first place.

      On the Road

      Out and about in part of the American heartland for a month, as the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to fade from view, I had the sense that many in America simply wanted to party, seeking some mystical freedom from thought, work and pain. Daily gun carnage, voter suppression, unemployment, pandemic worries, crumbling infrastructure and the like all seemed to blow away in the face of loading the bait, starting the engine and hitting the water. The only mention of climate change was the micro notion that the almost daily temperature fluctuations were mucking up the fishing.

      In the meantime, while the water beckoned, a federal judge in California was favorably comparing assault rifles to pocketknives, gun violence beat the coronavirus to the top of the death chart in many communities, the minimum wage was finishing second to not working at all, and heat, drought and wildfires began their annual march to increased human misery. Then just to show the country how best to ensure prosperity amid these evils, the great state of Texas added unregulated wandering wacko gunslingers to its list of model citizens, while doing everything possible to keep real model citizens from voting.

      Most disturbing of all, however, is the continued national resistance to public discourse that focuses on collective solutions to address the inadequacies of the present national response to even the most basic national needs. Think how much better off the nation would be if just about everyone got a COVID-19 vaccine. But no, not possible, because way too many people care way too little about the health and welfare of those around them. In its present incarnation as a cultural phenomenon, mindless adherence to non-critical thinking is America’s greatest barrier to collectively defining the common good and then acting to achieve it.

      Woke and Cancel Culture

      This same phenomenon finds its voice in every corner of the right-wing commentariat. In addition to the unexplained evils of some ill-defined socialism, “cancel culture” and whatever “woke” is supposed to mean are all the rage. As for “woke,” it is way past time for “woke” to be put to sleep. Its popular negative implication is aimed at those who rely to a great extent on an awareness of important facts and some capacity for critical thinking, often related to racial and social justice issues. Vilifying the “woke” surely suggests that those not “woke” are so proud of their ignorance that seeking knowledge is to be avoided at all cost.

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      As for all those terrorized by “cancel culture,” I have some breaking news. It is nothing new. It has been around for millennia. It is the foundation of virtually every organized religion in the world, as but one obvious example. Further, I imagine that each of us could come up with a list of people and concepts that we would like to see a lot less of, so I suggest we start by resolving never to buy a pillow made in America again and by pretending that TikTok is something special about clocks and nothing more.

      On the upside, it is good to see that Biden is still president of the United States, and Vice-President Kamala Harris can still laugh at the wrong time while continuing to work hard at the forefront of immigration reform and voting rights advocacy. But there is so much to do and so few of the institutional components in place to do much of anything.

      As if on cue, a condo building in government-resistant Florida “inexplicably” fell to the ground, killing dozens of people who had nothing to do with the decades of failed governance that permitted natural sand dunes to be turned into unnatural high-rise buildings. As hard as it to watch and as tragic as the final outcome is sure to be, the random human suffering that a pancaked condo building can bring to the fore is a vivid reminder that no one among us is immune if government consistently fails to act to ensure public safety.

      Vaccinations

      That continuing failure remains all around us. It was there before I went on my road trip, and it is there now that I have returned. Progress on COVID-19 vaccination rates has slowed because no one has the political courage to penalize those who fail to get vaccinated for the public good. The Republicans and their police allies still remain silent in the face of a gun culture in America that only grows, along with the stock of armaments in private hands and the unregulated access to those armaments. Bridges and tunnels are no safer today than yesterday. And, by the way, the right to vote continues to be endangered every day in America, just as it is in so many of those countries that we, in America, like to think of as “Third World countries.”

      As if to help me sort all of this out, one evening in a forested state park in Minnesota, a porcupine wandered into my campsite. It was a clear evening, but quite windy. The porcupine looked at me and my red solo cup and the campfire and opted to avoid confrontation. All good, as it moved away without damage to my tent or me. Then it made a major miscalculation and headed rapidly to near the top of thin tree, only to get stuck there dangerously swaying in the wind. It eventually got dark and the wind died down. I imagine that the porcupine breathed a sigh of relief, timidly climbed down from its precarious perch and resolved to try to avoid making the same stupid mistake again.

      Like the porcupine, Americans have created their own perilous times, threatened mostly by their fears that have been hardened by willful ignorance. This leaves way too much of the path forward blocked by miscalculation and misinformation, followed by a breathed sigh of relief each time that the nation manages to escape disaster.

      The next time, however, the nation may not be so lucky unless more of us commit to making our world less reliant on good fortune and more reliant on the determined goodwill of those around us. Sadly, a nation so awash in willful ignorance is highly unlikely to nurture the requisite collective conscience.

      *[This article was co-published on the author’s blog, Hard Left Turn.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      The Next Surge of Trumpism

      by

      I went to a birthday party recently. The celebrants greeted each other with hugs on the patio. After an outdoor barbeque dinner, we stood shoulder to shoulder around the island in the kitchen, eating cake from small paper plates. We sang “Happy Birthday.”

      Ordinarily, an event like that wouldn’t be worth noting, but these aren’t exactly ordinary times. In this twilight world of ours, half-in and half-out of a pandemic, hanging around without masks and within spitting distance of vaccinated friends should be considered just this side of miraculous — a combination of luck, privilege and a stunning series of events on a national scale that would strain credibility in a work of fiction.

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      To get to that birthday party required, first of all, surviving the pandemic, which has so far killed somewhere between 600,000 and 900,000 Americans, while infecting as much as one-third of the population (including, months earlier, a couple of the guests at that very birthday party). No foreign enemy has ever inflicted such casualties on the US, and never in our lifetimes have American civilians faced such a catastrophic breakdown in homeland security.

      Nor has the international scientific community ever responded with such dispatch and efficacy to a global crisis. Less than a year from the date of the initial outbreak, not one but several COVID-19 vaccines had been developed, tested and approved. Then came the anxious wait for eligibility and the constant refreshing of vaccination websites to try to schedule an appointment. Only when enough people like me had gone through the extended regimen of inoculation and after the infection rate had begun to fall rapidly did officials in my home state of Maryland begin to lift quarantine restrictions.

      Even though everyone at that birthday party was fully vaccinated, I still felt uncomfortably vulnerable without my mask. I hesitated before hugging people. My hands itched for a squirt of sanitizer. It was, in other words, a celebration tempered by uncertainty. We were navigating new rules of social discourse. Handshake? Bear hug? Peck on the cheek? And no one dared jinx the celebration by saying, as we normally would have, “Next year, same time, same place.”

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      By temperament, I’m an optimist. By profession, however, I’m a pessimist. In my day job as a foreign-policy analyst and in the speculative realm as the author of the dystopian “Splinterlands” trilogy of novels, I’m constantly considering worst-case scenarios.

      So, yes, I’m well aware that COVID-19 infection rates have dropped to levels not seen in a year and that the United States may indeed be on track to reach a 70% vaccination rate among adults by July 4, which could, as the president has promised, offer us a new version of “Independence Day.” But this country is still experiencing the same number of infections (tens of thousands) and deaths (hundreds) as it did during the lull following the first outbreak last year. More infectious variants of the disease continue to emerge globally, most recently in India, where the numbers have been horrific, as well as in Vietnam. The current vaccines reportedly stave off such variants, but what about the next ones?

      T.2?

      My professional dystopianism extends to the political sphere. I’m grateful on a daily basis that Donald Trump is no longer in the Oval Office or blathering on Twitter. I now take for granted a Democratic Congress (however marginally controlled), which seemed like a longshot last Election Day.

      But let’s face it, politically, things could go south fast. Even though the Democrats are working overtime to inoculate this country’s economy with one stimulus shot after another, the Republicans could retake the Senate and even the House in 2022 and, three years from now, Trump could still prove to be a viable presidential candidate.

      By then, for all we know, an even more infectious strain of Trumpism — call it T.2 — might have emerged in the form of far-right challengers like Republican Senators Tom Cotton and Josh Hawley, or even (God save us all) Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. Their followers who lurched from reopen rallies to stop-the-steal protests were struck dumb by the failure of their Duce to cling to power in January 2021. In the months since President Joe Biden’s inauguration, with a majority of Republicans still proclaiming his election stolen, they’ve again become restive.

      Keep in mind as well that dystopia remains unevenly distributed around the globe. Trump is gone (for now), but other putatively democratic authoritarians remain in power. President Vladimir Putin is still effectively leader for life in Russia, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro cling to their offices, and rebel-turned-tyrant Daniel Ortega just arrested the woman challenging him this year for the Nicaraguan presidency.

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      Meanwhile, not only has India been overwhelmed by COVID-19, but the numbers in Brazil remain terrifying and Taiwan has recently been hit with a first wave of infections — and that’s just to begin down a grim list. Even the Seychelles off the coast of Africa, despite a world-leading vaccination rate of more than 60%, has recently experienced an unexpected uptick in cases.

      In other words, as I left that party, it just didn’t feel like the right moment to exhale. Human beings are adaptable creatures. We have an unfortunate ability to normalize worst-case scenarios. Rising temperatures? Guess it’s time to sell the beach house and move inland. Raging pandemic? A good opportunity to chill for a few months with Netflix and Uber Eats.

      But dystopias are not just about objectively terrible things. Dystopia is about losing control over your life. It’s about a faceless bureaucracy trying to evict you from your home. It’s about a virus evading all your carefully constructed defenses. It’s about right-wing crazies subverting democracy even as they claim to revere it. So, tell me the truth: In June 2021, do you really feel back in control yet? 

      The Insurrection Next Time

      The last scene of a horror film often elicits a gasp. The eyelid of the supposedly dead serial killer snaps open. A mad scientist, reportedly cured, is released from the asylum clutching a briefcase full of plans for his next planet-destroying invention. A puppy scampers into the kitchen with the telltale orange rash of a disease that was allegedly extinguished. Such scenes are obviously setups for sequels, but they’re also reminders that horrors seldom simply disappear. Instead, they mutate, hibernate and burrow into our everyday world.

      With that in mind, let’s revisit the final scene of this year’s most talked-about horror story: the storming of the US Capitol on January 6. Inflamed by the president’s lies and conspiracy theories, thousands of people overwhelmed the Capitol police, broke into what should have been one of the most protected buildings in the country, and launched a search-and-destroy mission against various politicians located inside. The noose set up on the West Front of the Capitol was an unambiguous indication of the insurrectionists’ intentions. Some of them had even brought bear spray.

      The story of the insurrection ended with order restored, legislators returning to their chambers to confirm the 2020 election results and a modicum of bipartisan horror at what had just happened. But the very last scene elicited a gasp from the audience watching at home. Even as they condemned the violence that had just taken place in their midst, a handful of Republican legislators continued to claim election fraud. Early on the morning of January 7, seven Republican senators and 122 members of the House refused to certify the election results in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

      Those votes were the sick puppy with the orange rash, the sign that the infectious horror of Trumpism had not been stamped out. At best, this country would experience a respite of unknown length before another surge captured the headlines. After all, Trump and his followers have been in the process of fundraising, assembling a cast and crew, enlisting thousands of extras and beginning to film their sequel, while promising even bigger thrills and chills to come. Their fans can’t wait.

      While most Americans go about their calmer post-Trumpian lives under the Biden administration, a significant number of their fellow citizens live in a different reality entirely. For them, a world of dystopian intensity has just begun. After all, those Trumpsters are now experiencing their worst-case scenario: a Biden victory in a “stolen” election and Congress in Democratic hands. They have no desire to normalize what they consider a socialist regime in Washington. Astonishingly, one-quarter of Republicans belong to the church of QAnon with its imaginary global syndicate of Satan-worshipping child traffickers.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Although it was the Trump administration that helped spur the creation of the COVID-19 vaccines, 41% of Republicans still say they won’t get inoculated (compared to 4% of Democrats). Against all evidence, they believe the vaccines to be unsafe, ineffective or even downright undemocratic in the way they subject their “victims” to nonstop surveillance through a supposedly injected microchip. Fixated on such imaginary threats, the anti-vaxxers are dismissive of a pandemic that is still a clear and present danger.

      In the good old days, people with such a tenuous connection to reality would retreat to their armchairs to listen to Rush Limbaugh. They’d live in their own private dystopias — stocking their bomb shelters, polishing their guns, muttering to themselves — with lots of fire and fury but little real-world impact.

      Taking Over the Republican Party

      Thanks to Trump, the Proud Boys and QAnon, however, the dystopians of today have turned their delusions into a political project even to the point of taking over the Republican Party. Mo Brooks, the Alabama Republican who still believes that the 2020 election featured the “worst voter fraud and election theft in history,” repeatedly incited his followers to post-election violence. Gun nut Lauren Boebert, a Colorado Republican, called President Biden a “tyrant” for his tepid gun-control proposals after a spate of mass killings this spring. Led by Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson, the party is now rewriting the events of January 6 to blame the violence on supposed left-wing agitators.

      Equally troubling, true believers of this sort are still attempting to overturn the results of the election, beginning with the vote “recount” in Maricopa County, Arizona. The outfit in charge of that recount, Cyber Ninjas, has been set loose in a basketball arena in Phoenix like the Keystone Kops on a mad caper. In the process, they’re violating all the rules of a proper audit, from tolerating a huge error rate in tally sheets to flagging ballots as “suspicious” for things like folds, Cheeto stains and suspected bamboo fibers (the result, supposedly, of having been sent from somewhere in Asia). According to Jack Sellers, the Republican chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, the Maricopa recount is “a grift disguised as an audit.”

      It’s not the 2020 election that hangs in the balance, of course, since no amount of imaginary bamboo fibers — in Arizona or any of the other states the Trumpsters are targeting — can overturn what Congress has already confirmed. What can potentially be overturned, however, is American democracy itself. After all, it’s now clear that the Trumpsters will treat every future election that doesn’t produce the results they desire as a globalist plot no different from a new vaccine or a new pronouncement by infectious disease specialist Anthony Fauci. Each contested election has the possibility of generating another potential insurrection, with the rioters perhaps chanting, “Remember January 6th!”

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      The nonsense now being spouted by the loony right would be grist for satire if we hadn’t seen all this before. Karl Marx once proposed (and Groucho Marx proved) that “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.” Trump has turned this dictum on its head, since many of the laughable things he said on his road to the presidency in 2016 — his paeans to his future “big, fat, beautiful Wall,” his white nationalism, his love of Putin — were indeed turned into tragic policy by his minions.

      We laughed when Barack Obama roasted Trump at the Gridiron dinner in 2011, but those jokes likely kindled Trump’s ambition to become president. We would be wise not to laugh at the antics of Greene, who has spouted QAnonsense and compared mask mandates to the Nazi treatment of Jews, or else she could ride similar waves of derision to even greater political heights.

      The Power of the Marginalized

      I have a great deal of empathy for many people in the Trump camp. I’ve never liked Washington, DC, and its obsession with insider politics. I share the distaste that much of Trump country feels for the arrogance of the power elite and its incessant jockeying for influence.

      After all, it wasn’t Trump who created our current mess. Sure, he turned up the heat under the pot and gave its contents a vigorous stir, but he didn’t assemble the ingredients or design the recipe. The climate crisis, the travesty of global military spending, the inequities of the global economy — these were created by the “adults in the room” backed by the mainstream political parties, Washington’s “Blob” and an ever-ascendant military-industrial-congressional complex.

      The MAGA crowd was right to reject this version of the status quo. With his economic populism, Trump gave voice to those who felt shafted by Wall Street, transnational corporations and globalization in general. The wages of blue-collar workers, adjusted for inflation, had at best stagnated since the 1970s (while the incomes of America’s billionaires have done anything but). Because the mainstream parties abandoned these voters, economically speaking, many of them naturally basked in the attention Trump showered on them. They felt that their dystopia of economic marginalization might finally be on the verge of lifting.

      In challenging one pillar of the status quo, however, Trump consciously reinforced two others: the power of the wealthy elite and of white privilege. In the process, legitimate economic grievances became entangled with anti-immigrant, anti-foreigner and blatantly racist rhetoric. Trump’s electoral defeat has by no means silenced this white nationalism.

      Fortunately, other voices have come to the fore as well, as millions of Americans rejected the status quo in more productive ways. One year ago, the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin reignited the Black Lives Matter movement, triggering the largest protests in American history (as well as demonstrations in more than 60 other countries). In exercising their freedoms of speech and assembly, those protesters were also very deliberately trying to regain control of their lives by rolling back a dystopia of police terror that has disproportionately harmed black Americans.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Similarly, the #MeToo movement has been a reassertion of control by women over their own bodies and lives. Thanks to such efforts, the dystopia of rape culture and patriarchal authority has begun to recede, though not everywhere or quickly enough.

      Environmentalists are likewise standing up to the fossil-fuel companies, while economic justice advocates continue to challenge multinational corporations. Peace activists are protesting wars and military spending, while human rights demonstrators are rallying against authoritarian leaders. These efforts all contribute, little by little, to the possibility that we can regain control over our own lives. They are part of a long-term process whereby the powerless become subjects in their own stories rather than the objects of someone else’s tales. Such challenges to the status quo would become more powerful still if joined by some of the economically marginalized previously drawn to Trump (as long as they check their white privilege at the door).

      “Splinterlands”

      I’ve tried to describe such historic efforts in essays and in fiction. In my “Splinterlands” series of novels, I’ve done my best to peer into our future and consider the worst-case scenarios of climate change, unrestrained corporate power and nationalism run amok. However, in the standalone finale, “Songlands,” I let a little sunlight break through the dystopian storm clouds to tell the story of an international community of activists coming together in the face of a planetary crisis. (George Orwell, meet Greta Thunberg.) As I said, by temperament, I’m an optimist. Sometimes, that optimism even leaks into my professional life.

      Sure, I continue to worry about what the next wave of COVID-19 might look like. I fear both the continued lunacy of the Republican Party and the pallid incrementalism of the Democrats. But I’m heartened by the energy of people all over the world determined to beat back dystopia, take control of their lives and transform the optimists’ credo of “hope and change” into something a great deal more significant than a campaign slogan.

      *[This article was originally published by TomDispatch. John Feffer is the author of the dystopian novel “Splinterlands.” “Frostlands” is volume two of his “Splinterlands” series and the final novel in the trilogy, “Songlands,” has just been published. Feffer has also written “The Pandemic Pivot.”]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      America’s Moment of Reckoning on the Path to Justice

      by

      “Justice” and “accountability” are often used interchangeably in public discourse these days, whether in the immediate context of the trial of Derek Chauvin, a former Minneapolis police officer, or in the broader context of racial justice and social justice. It would advance both discussions to distinguish between the two concepts.

      Using the Chauvin murder case as an illustration, a just result for the deceased George Floyd would be if, somehow, he was restored to life. Justice would be served and society could go on to the issue of accountability for those who caused harm to Floyd in the first place. Justice for other people of color who remain alive would be a new world that does not put so many of them in constant peril.

      What Is Different About George Floyd’s Death?

      READ MORE

      Yet the word “justice” is often substituted for “accountability,” perhaps to give some grander notion to the fundamental concept of holding others accountable for their harmful actions. Justice also seems to imply a certain freedom from the retribution that is often a component of the demands of those seeking accountability.

      The Derek Chauvin Murder Trial

      In the Chauvin case, whether “justice” is served or “accountability” is achieved rests within a singular legal proceeding. We now know that some measure of accountability has been achieved with the guilty verdict just rendered. And we know that George Floyd is still dead. So, in this context, there will be no justice for Floyd or his family and friends.

      Not only did the trial itself fail to achieve justice for any of them, but the larger “system” also failed all of them and has not been significantly altered to ensure justice for others. On these broader issues, the distinction between justice and accountability may have a profound impact on the outcome of America’s racial and social conflict.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The “justice” at the heart of this discussion contemplates that which is equitable and fair and impartial. “Accountability” refers to being held responsible for one’s actions. It has nothing to do with equity or fairness, except to the extent that holding someone accountable for his/her actions may seem fairer than not doing so.

      Seeking justice seems to be aspirational, a goal. The point at which justice is actually achieved never seems to arrive. Some among us think of the search as a lifelong struggle. That struggle is for me — a lawyer and a progressive — very personal but not personal in the usual sense of that word. Like almost everyone, I want to be treated fairly. Generally, I have been. And that makes me and my view of justice very different from those who believe that generally they have been treated unfairly or that they live in an inequitable or partial world.

      The challenge in finding common ground rests at the juncture where my privilege meets the disadvantage and misfortune of others. My world looks pretty fair to me if I am only focused on myself. Not perfect but pretty fair. A black father living in inner-city poverty in today’s America probably doesn’t see his life in the same terms that I do mine and almost certainly questions whether society values his child’s life to the same extent that my child’s life is valued.

      Now, take a look at accountability. If someone walks up to me and hits me in the face or walks up to the black guy and hits him in the face, both of us will want some measure of the same thing to happen — that the person who hit us be held accountable.

      If justice is aspirational, that leaves it for accountability to act as a deterrent to reckless or harmful conduct. It is pretty clear that “justice” isn’t what America has. We have a justice system that too often administers justice unjustly and is way more suited for determining accountability if that can be done in a just manner.

      By any reasoning, accountability is an indispensable component of a system of justice. If America can just start there, those who most often suffer will begin to look at the justice system as a part of government that meets a most fundamental need. Meanwhile, those who are held accountable for their actions will provide a template for the likely outcome of similar misconduct and a deterrent to that misconduct.

      Are You Paying Attention?

      To highlight how critical the distinction is, it is surely hard to understand how any experienced white police officer, never mind one a scant 10 miles away from where George Floyd lost his life at the hands of a white police officer, could kill an unarmed 20-year-old black man after stopping him for an expired auto registration tag. This occurred while Chauvin was facing decades in prison for the unconscionable escalation of a small-time police intervention to what a jury has now determined to be the culpable disregard for the life of another human being.

      Officer Kim Potter, the white veteran police officer 10 miles away, had to be aware of what was going on in the Chauvin trial when she escalated a minor infraction to a deadly encounter. Did she not care? Did she think that she was a much smarter and better cop than Chauvin, or that her moral compass was somehow fixed somewhere differently than Chauvin’s? She shot a 20-year-old black kid at point-blank range after a traffic stop. I expect that she wishes that she had kept her weapon where it belonged and that, maybe even in memory of George Floyd, had told that young black man to go home and make sure to update his auto registration. And, oh, by the way, you missed a court date and you need to get that taken care of as well.

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      I don’t know if she will be held accountable, but she probably wishes she didn’t have to find out. While this was festering, the public learned that cops had killed a 13-year-old boy in Chicago and a 16-year-old boy in Maryland. Then, minutes before the announcement of the Chauvin verdict, a 16-year-old black girl in Columbus, Ohio, was shot dead by a cop. If you can’t see something terribly wrong here, you aren’t paying attention.

      The core of the problem is the justice part of the equation. Unfortunately, the justice system is working exactly as it was designed to work. Way too many police officers seem to believe that America’s justice system will protect them from accountability because that is how it is designed and how it has generally operated. It seems that the only accountability they fear is rejection by fellow officers operating within the same entitled system. Rarely do cops believe that another cop has gone too far.

      Is Justice Possible?

      In Chauvin’s case, fellow officers testified against him, some apparently believing that his actions were beyond what they could countenance. But what Chauvin’s trial did not include was any evidence about the seemingly lengthy record of official misconduct allegations against him. If he is a “bad apple” now, why did it take the agonizing video of George Floyd begging for his life for the supposed “good apples” to finally step forward?

      And more importantly, where are the good apples now that the Chauvin trial is over? Will we see them in other trials? Will we see them stand up publicly against the bad apples in their midst? Will they become vocal and visible advocates for serious gun control so that every cop on the street isn’t running around so fearful in the moment that whatever judgment and compassion they may have fails to engage?

      I know what the answers to these questions have been. I know there can be no justice if the justice system remains unjust. And I know that accountability is the only path to a systemic transformation that will begin to look like equal justice for all.

      *[A version of this article was co-published on the author’s blog, Hard Left Turn.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Seeking Truth and Reconciliation in America

      by

      After over 50 years in the US as an immigrant from the UK, of which 40 have been spent in Washington, DC, I thought I had seen it all. Clearly, I was wrong. The mob invasion of the Capitol on January 6 was a historic first. Thankfully, it was followed by President Joe Biden’s peaceful inauguration on January 20. Democrats went on to achieve a majority in both houses of the US Congress. With the change in the political wind, America has a unique opportunity to borrow from three previous truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) to bring harmony where there is discord.

      Will American Democracy Perish Like Rome’s?

      READ MORE

      The most famous TRC was instituted by South Africa’s 1995 Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act. The goal of the new TRC was to uncover the truth about human rights violations during decades of apartheid. The emphasis was on finding the truth from both victims and perpetrators, not on prosecuting individuals for past crimes. In this regard, it differed from the Nuremberg trials that prosecuted Nazis for their crimes.

      Societal Schism

      The events of January 6 have exposed societal schism to the world. Now, the US needs actions, not words, to form a fully representative, multi-party equivalent of the South African TRC to deal with enduring injustices across the nation. The current American social problem is complex, multi-generational and multi-dimensional. As such, it is not likely to be easily or speedily ameliorated. However, admitting the problem in the style of alcoholics anonymous is a necessary first step to avoiding a looming cultural and economic civil war.

      The fundamental problem in America is its broken education system. According to Pew Research Center, a large percentage of Americans still reject the theory of evolution. As per the National Center for Educational Statistics, 21% (43 million) of American adults are functionally illiterate — e.g., lacking the basic ability to use reading, writing and calculation skills for their own and the community’s development. The US may be the world superpower, but its poorly educated citizens often lack critical thinking and judgment. Seduced by demagogues, they have drifted into warring camps.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Many thoughtful Americans are worried about divisions in society. The December 2019 issue of The Atlantic was a special report titled “How to Stop a Civil War.” It examined “a nation coming apart.” The magazine brought together the nation’s best writers to confront questions of American unity and fracture. That issue has proved to be prescient.

      Since the 2020 elections, the rhetoric in the US became increasingly toxic. Disinformation was rife, calls for insurrection came right from the top and the pot of anger boiled over on January 6. It may not be 1861, but disunity reigns in the United States. A TRC that digs out the truth might be exactly what America needs in a post-truth world.

      Truth and Reconciliation Commissions

      There have been three significant TRCs since 1990 in South Africa, Chile and Canada. The results of these appear to be mixed. In balance, they seem to have had a positive impact on the arc of the history of their respective societies.

      The story of South Africa’s TRC is too well known to be told in full here. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, investigated crimes during apartheid to record the truth. The TRC offered amnesty to perpetrators of many crimes and rehabilitation as well as reparations to the victims. It might be fair to say that the work of the TRC allowed South Africa to make a peaceful transition from a horrendously unjust apartheid regime to a plural, democratic society.

      Chile’s TRC predates the South African one. It operated from May 1990 to February 1991. The mandate of the Rettig Commission, as Chile’s TRC has come to be known, was to document human rights abuses that resulted in death or disappearance during the years of military rule from September 11, 1973, to March 11, 1990. Notably, investigating torture and abuses that did not result in death did not form part of the mandate of the Rettig Commission. Nevertheless, there is a strong argument to be made why Chile’s TRC was the first step that led to last year’s referendum in which Chileans voted to rewrite the military-era constitution.

      Canada’s TRC emulated the Chilean and South African ones. Between 2007 and 2015, it provided those directly or indirectly affected by the legacy of the Indian residential school system with an opportunity to share their stories and experiences. The TRC spent six years traveling to all parts of Canada and recorded experiences of 6,500 witnesses. It recorded the history and legacy of the numerous injustices perpetrated by the residential school system to the indigenous peoples. Its six-volume report with 94 “calls to action” has been accepted by the Canadian government and marks a watershed in the country’s history.

      An American Truth and Reconciliation Commission

      Unlike South Africa, Chile and Canada, America’s injustices and even its divisions are messier. There is no equivalent of an apartheid or military regime to investigate. Investigating only the injustices against the indigenous Native Americans or formerly enslaved African Americans would be too narrow a remit to renew the American social fabric.

      America’s schisms include, but are not limited to, those in education, culture, geography, politics, religious beliefs, skin color and immigration. Just as Catholics and different Protestant sects interpret the Bible in various ways, Americans have radically different interpretations of the Constitution and its amendments. Like many reports, articles and documentaries have now recorded, social media has exacerbated the fractures in American society. Truth itself is in question and distrust in institutions is dangerously high.

      The purpose of establishing an American TRC is to slow down, and potentially reverse, the steady rupturing of a fundamentally decent society espousing equal opportunity for all. To avoid the growing risk of a dystopian cultural war, the US needs to identify the problems it faces. If social media is exacerbating divisions, how exactly is it doing so? Is polarization in America based on resentment of the white working class against metropolitan elites, or is it the rural versus urban divide? If so many Americans are functionally illiterate, what exactly is going wrong in the education system? If social mobility is now below that in my home country of the UK, why is that so?

      For a truth and reconciliation commission to be credible, it must not only identify problems but also provide solutions. Like its Canadian counterpart, it could come up with “calls to action.” Members of an American TRC must come from all walks of life, different political, cultural and religious philosophies, and have a reputation for integrity. In a partisan democracy with tribal political loyalties, they must not belong to any political party. Their core task must be to diagnose what ails America and what can heal it. Only then can this nation, which I have made my home, can be restored to its much-haloed promise.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      The Time for a Just and Equitable Society

      by

      While keeping a wary eye on the Republican Party bloodbath from a safe distance, it is probably time to get a grip on the Democratic Party, shake really hard, and hope that what comes pouring out is a commitment to the progressive policy agenda that so many in the party have worked so hard to define. This is not the time to cave in again to the nonsense about the perfect being the enemy of the good, a phrase that so quickly drips off the lips of those who promise a good game but are never willing to risk anything to realize that promise.

      It should be easy to start with two simple propositions, each of which by now must be considered essential to any principled American social order after having been fully exposed like never before by the pandemic lens. It is way beyond time for universal access to meaningful health care to be the law of the land, not some dumbed-down public/private partnership, but the real thing. And it is way beyond time to double the minimum wage because no one can be expected to meet even the basic necessities of life at a pay rate of $7.25 per hour. That amounts to $15,080 per year, generally without benefits or paid leave, so don’t get sick, feed your kids from a real grocery store, live in a decent place or go anywhere.

      Will Biden Overturn Sanctions on the ICC?

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      I don’t care about handwringing, I don’t care about the national debt (only raised as a problem when America tries to spend more on social programs), I don’t care about compromise, and I sure as hell don’t care about sanctimonious talk of incremental change where these two issues are concerned. The only people in favor of incremental change are those who already have access to meaningful health care and those making a whole lot more than $7.25 an hour. If you want to see what unanimity looks like, take a poll on these issues among those working for minimum wage pay with no benefits.

      Moreover, even with respect to these two most fundamental components of any moral and just society’s collective response to those in the community writ large, there will be no Republican Party legislative support at all. So, Democrats, sit down and have a meeting, draft legislation to address these two priorities now, and then ram it down the legislative throats of anyone in the way. President Joe Biden will sign the bills, and then we can move on to other priorities, having finally demonstrated that Democrats can promise what is right and deliver on that promise.

      There will be a lot more because there is a lot more that needs to be done and because progressives have long studied the problems, have responsible solutions, and they and their constituencies are really tired of waiting. With the COVID-19 pandemic still raging and causing continued disease, death and economic disruption, it goes without saying that a broad range of public health and economic relief measures will be an overarching priority in these early days of the Biden administration. However, these are mitigation and relief measures seeking to restore a way of life for many that is always secured at the expense of weaker others.

      “Build Back Better”

      That is another way of saying that it is impossible to restore a balance that never existed in the first place. As we watch the battle play out in America for something as fundamental today as vaccine distribution equity, try to project your view onto the daily lives of those who almost always are on the inequity side of the balance equation. Many of these people aren’t even on the vaccine playing field because they are too busy looking for food for their family, affordable housing, enough education to give their kids a chance in life and enough wages to meet basic needs. When they get that taken care of by the end of the day, they can go online to check out the latest vaccine opportunities and the multiple bus routes needed to get there.

      Embed from Getty Images

      It isn’t just that inequities exist — it is that way too many among us seem to believe that to be an acceptable norm. I don’t know why this pisses me off so much, but it does. For how long and through how many pitiful iterations of America’s “greatness” have Americans of supposed goodwill noted the poverty and hopelessness in their midst and bemoaned racial and social divides that dehumanize, all while happily building monuments to consumption and unregulated capitalism that always attempt to give greed a good name? No more. Ya no más.

      There is so much to change for the better and so little apparent political will to change much of anything that it is hard to imagine what Biden means when he says he wants the nation to “build back better.” To my ear, that sounds a lot like a slogan to inspire Americans to create little more than a glossier version of whatever the nation looked like “before,” maybe even something like making America “great” again.

      To many people of color, the poor, the homeless, the hungry, the undereducated and the sick, what it looked like “before” will take more than a catchy slogan to fix. In the weeks ahead, watch the public discourse, the constant reference to an undefined return to “normal,” and most importantly, how quickly any broad consensus about the need to confront long-neglected fundamental reform gets lost in detail and division.

      More Than Words

      Beyond the pandemic’s public health and relief measures lie critical commitments to invest now in America’s failing infrastructure, to implement comprehensive and humane immigration reform, to develop a meaningful and likely inconvenient national and international response to climate change, to address the nation’s epidemic of gun violence, and to renew and reinvigorate regulatory frameworks for the financial, energy and communication sectors. Then, if any of this is to be truly transformative, it will have to be done with racial justice and economic equity at the core of meeting each of these critical commitments.

      The challenges are great and the moment may be fleeting. Democratic Party leadership and its progressive allies have to actively drive each other to take advantage of this moment to give birth to another round of renewed hope in America. That having been said, it will take more than words to do so, after so many failed promises.

      The place to start is with those two simple propositions mentioned earlier. Demonstrating that universal access to meaningful health care can be realized now and that the dignity of work and economic participation inherent in a living wage can be realized now could do much to convince those in need that the rest of the progressive policy agenda is possible to achieve.

      In a political world filled with hyperbole, credibility is a good foundation on which to build the long-term political power necessary to deliver on the promise of a more just and equitable society.

      *[A version of this article was co-published on the author’s blog, Hard Left Turn.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      The Fringe Feeds a Familiar Narrative

      by

      Finally, it has come to pass in the land of the free and the home of the brave that the cancerous core of America’s Republican Party is in full metastasis, spreading its poisonous tentacles far into the body politic. There is so little substantive pushback from Republican Party “leadership” that the spread of the disease threatens not only the party but the institutional integrity of the nation as a whole. The only good news is that unchecked cancers usually destroy the host.

      In this case, it might just be the best outcome. The fringe has morphed into the identity of the Republican Party so completely that somewhat hinged used-to-be Republicans don’t stand a chance of turning this around. But they don’t deserve another chance, having previously sold their souls to Ronald Reagan’s vision of undermined governance and unchecked capitalism as a means to a better end. Many Americans are just now beginning to figure out how poorly that has actually worked out for them.

      How Tough Is Biden Prepared to Look?

      READ MORE

      The spectacle of the Republican Party dancing around their new poster child, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, is a bit like watching some moron taking a selfie at the edge of a cliff only to realize as she falls that the rope around your waist is tethered to her waist. Republicans should have known that they would be in trouble when their old Uncle Mitch warned them that that rope was a bad idea.

      Since Greene is no ordinary moron teetering at the edge of a cliff, she has been empowered to drive the Trump narrative as a creed for both the party and the nation. Then there is the newly crowned “conscience” of the Republican House leadership, Representative Liz Cheney. She covered herself in “glory” by voting to impeach Trump for sedition and inciting an insurrection, and then a few scant weeks later covered herself in dung by failing to take the minimal step of removing Greene from her committee assignments. I can only guess, but maybe she used up her family allotment of “conscience” on that first vote.

      If you are wondering about the top guns in the Republican congressional orbit, you would be wondering about Mitch McConnell, now Senate minority leader, and the wannabe speaker of the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy. These two supported the whole Trump national trauma for four years and then, faced with armed insurrection inside the Capitol, still can’t say never again. And they still can’t clearly and unequivocally hold Trump responsible for his incitement of the mob.

      Republican Frauds

      Let me be clear about one thing: Even though there are those trying to proclaim themselves newly-crowned “heroes” of the Republican Party, they are all frauds of one kind or another. This includes the Lincoln Project crowd and the host of “former” Republicans trying desperately to resurrect their right-wing version of their right-wing party. Today’s self-proclaimed Republican heroes did everything they could to torch the Affordable Care Act, have for decades pushed scandalous tax relief for the wealthy, and have promoted some version of unregulated capitalism through which their personal greed could thrive amid the economic distress of so many others.

      And that doesn’t even reach the infamy of a political party and its adherents who have for those same decades fueled racial animus and anti-immigrant sentiment in the country for political and personal gain. Before trying to find virtue amid the wreck of the Republican Party, remember that the party and its minions are now, and have for those decades, promoted the delusional “American exceptionalism” so comforting to their white base and so destructive of a meaningful confrontation with the nation’s past that is rooted in the truth.

      Embed from Getty Images

      As with the racists in their midst that Trump legitimized and encouraged, any welcome unmasking of these new Republican “heroes” is long overdue. Some of them served a useful purpose in giving voice to the national disaster that was the Trump presidency. But none of them has given us any reason to believe that the recent past has engendered a new and truly inclusive vision for a policy partnership with Democrats that could begin to legislate a better future for those who have watched and waited for so long.

      The coronavirus pandemic has done more than even a close reading of history and outraged truth telling could have done to lay bare the moral and institutional bankruptcy that is America today. Systemic racism is finally on the lips of a US president because it has to be. Huge health care, housing, educational and economic deficits are everywhere to be seen, and now so obvious that ignoring them again would be yet another epic betrayal.

      To understand the depth of that betrayal and the Republican Party’s role in it requires a clear understanding that the kind old Republican “hero,” Ronald Reagan, cravenly gave white America a clear path away from the promise of the civil rights movement. That same national “hero” told the nation that government was the problem, not the solution and then set about to prove it on the backs of those most dependent on good government to realize a share of America’s bounty. Other Republican Party “heroes” willingly followed in those soiled footsteps.

      This is not to say that there is a purity of vision or spirit in the Democratic Party. Rather it is to say that America’s way forward cannot depend on either the cooperation or the acquiescence of Republicans. If you doubt this, the spectacle of the Trump impeachment trial in progress will again demonstrate the depths to which the Republican Party has sunk in its drive to regain power at all cost. A disgraced former president with the blood of hundreds of thousands of citizens already on his hands who delivered insurrection to the Capitol will continue to command Republican loyalty and get it.

      A Message for Biden

      So, President Joe Biden, don’t waste a minute on them. Don’t repeat the mistakes you and Barack Obama made from 2008 forward. Go all in this time. With those same Republicans already at work legislating new voter suppression measures where they can, your time to act may be short. In doing so, remember every day that closing the human value gap in America is essential to any attempt to reach for a better nation.

      And whatever else you do, President Biden, remember every day that systemic racism is the original sin that begat today’s deeply flawed America. Telling the truth about that is America’s irreplaceable first step forward.

      *[This article was co-published on the author’s blog, Hard Left Turn.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      America Is Not Done Yet

      by

      Some of us have known for a long time that eventually the rest of the world would catch up with the lies at the core of America’s notion of itself. That we would be found out, exposed. Well, here we are. After decades of selling “democracy” at the point of a gun in other people’s lands, America’s capital city was secured by those same guns in order to ensure the “peaceful” transfer of power. All those guns were likely made in America.

      For a moment, watching Trump skulk out of the presidency to the tune of a 21-gun salute that he ordered for himself was too poetic not to enjoy. Then, it fell quickly to the new president, Joe Biden, to pick up the pieces of a nation in turmoil. Every commentator and pundit, including me, has a long list of what is wrong and a shorter list of how to make it right. So much was wrong before Trump, and four years of Trump and his cabal have made so much that was wrong so much worse.

      Will American Democracy Perish Like Rome’s?

      READ MORE

      President Biden has one big immediate advantage going forward — he is not Trump. And for a nation watching its soul die a little more each day amid the pandemic, just having a national leader with a heart that beats and a moral compass that projects empathy and understanding will lift the nation on its own for a little while. To sustain the advantage, Biden will have to prove that he and his administration can deliver a national plan for confronting the pandemic.

      The sad truth is that Americans, lots of them, have done their part to make the nation what it looks like today. I cannot help but remember all those unmasked boobs who shouted about their freedom as they took away mine, all those callous young people who thought “their” party would be just fine and then went home to spread disease and death to loved ones and anyone else who got in their way, and all the people who still don’t want to pay those “essential” workers a living wage after seeing what they did for us every time we made it to the grocery store or put out the trash.

      America Is Not Done

      The nation is not done with its turmoil, not by a long shot. The allure of “normal” can be a prescription for a return to normal. However, what was normal to the fortunate can never again be allowed to overwhelm the reality for so many for whom “normal” is defined by poverty, racism, poor education, substandard housing and limited access to limited health care. If you are comfortable with that normal for so many, you are likely to continue to be unmoved by the image of hungry children on your next journey to the spa, country club or suburban church.

      It was easy to be hopeful for a day as a beautifully choreographed presidential inauguration unfolded. On January 20, President Biden gave a galvanizing inauguration address and then immediately set to work undoing the symbols of as much of Trump as he could touch with the stroke of a pen. But, amid the pomp and celebration, here we are again, where we have been so many times before — seeking unity, seeking a moral response and seeking justice.

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      Every “renewal,” almost every protest march, and almost every Martin Luther King Day, someone reminds the nation that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Now, yet one more time, America is beginning the long journey with that first single step. How come we have to do this over and over again? What about the steps that follow if the journey is ever to be completed? It remains so disheartening that Americans need to take that first step again in the fight for a nation that is finally unchained from the fundamental lies that stain its collective soul.

      Some of these lies are old lies, some are as new as yesterday. America is a shining beacon on some hill to some because it has loudly proclaimed itself to be. America is the world’s last best hope to some but only because it has loudly proclaimed itself to be. And Americans have always been ready to indiscriminately kill others for our nation’s honor or cause, without ever making the connection between them and us.

      While this discussion needs to be about more than systemic racism and racial justice, the homegrown lies about race in America are so profound and so undermine any moral high ground that those lies have to be collectively addressed before addressing any of the other lies will be taken seriously by those who understand the pernicious impact of the lies. When all is said and done, white Americans can only be freed from the burden of the lies by moving far beyond their continued repetition.

      Racial Reckoning

      Much will be said in the months ahead about “reckonings” in both the racial context and the accountability context. Racial reckoning has long been a subject of fierce debate in America, and now, with pandemic negligence, corruption and insurrection leading a parade of official misconduct, accountability will need to be reckoned with as well. Centuries of failed racial reckoning can serve as a guide to the difficulty of national reckoning in any context. Lies have been allowed to overshadow history when repeated over and over again, when believing them seems so much easier than confronting them.

      While it is hard to define a formula for success, reckoning is not a process — it is an end result. The journey to reckoning is the hard part, with racial reckoning and accountability among the most difficult journeys to complete. While neither may require the full journey of a thousand miles to be achieved, neither will ever be achieved after only one step and a few more to follow.

      To escape the past, Americans have to seize the present moment and finally take something more than those first steps on the long journey forward. It would be a good start to simply commit ourselves to the truth.

      *[A version of this article was co-published on the author’s blog, Hard Left Turn.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More