Once We Break the Bonds Committing Us to Truth, All the Beasts of the Human Mind Can Be Released: The Shot that Rang Out from the Golf Course

I was unnerved, so very disturbed by the shot that rang out yesterday (9/15) from a Florida golf course.

 

And it wasn’t only because the shooter seems to have intended to aim at, and kill a fellow human being, and a presidential candidate, but was thankfully thwarted by a Secret Service agent. That intention is despicable enough. But the whole context was shocking, the timing, the election. Just when a shift in people’s perception of DT was being reported, from the polls, and the debate⎼ just when so many more people had been coming to recognize the craziness he spreads to all of us, the threat, and then this happened.

 

And now, this newest example of intended gun violence is sharing the media news cycle with how DT would lie, say or do almost anything to get his way, no matter who he might hurt. How he used racist lies about Haitian immigrants to rile up his base, to shock and destabilize our nation and spread anger, hate, and the sense of continuous threat. And the result of his comments? Bomb threats and other violence are being aimed at those he maligned and hurt, and the city they live in. He and his VP were just beginning to be held accountable in many media sources when the Secret Service agent’s shot rang out.

 

But the mere attempt to kill a political leader in this country is shocking.

 

DT has continuously, from 2016 to today, viewed our nation through a dark lens, describing us as a crime-ridden, failed, “third world” country. He talks about not being able to go out for a loaf of bread without being raped, mugged, or shot at. Most of us go out every week without getting mugged or raped or shot at. Despite FBI statistics showing a historic 26.4 reduction in murders and similar reductions in rape, robberies, and crime overall in 2024, we might still fear violence due to the anger, hate, and sense of grievance DT stirs up. He helps create the division and violence he describes and attributes to others.

 

For example, his violent rhetoric has helped turn compromise into a dirty word, helped  turn people who have different viewpoints into enemies. He undermines political cooperation by turning discussion from a way to share viewpoints and create a greater understanding, to a way to destroy opposition. He thus undermines democracy itself.

 

In a specious manner, he makes claims that the violence he incited was caused by those who have revealed his role in said violence. For example, he said President Biden was trying to overthrow the United States by saying DT was a threat to democracy. Meanwhile, on Jan. 6 it was DT who actually tried to overthrow the constitution and the will of the American people (and then continued to lie about it ever since). His statements misrepresent the facts and the blame is his own.

 

His constant lying undermines not only the specific facts he distorts, but a general sense of truth, or reality. Once we break any commitment to truth, all the dark, imagined, feared beasts lying dormant in our minds can be released….

 

*To read the whole article, please click on this link to The Good Men Project.

Perceiving Ourselves More Clearly So, We Can Perceive the World Around Us More Clearly and Act More Powerfully

A wonderful friend wrote a powerful and frightening article about the situation we humans face right now. I can’t share it here because he’s sent it out and it hasn’t, yet, been published. But I would like to share its central insight.

 

Most of us already know how difficult the situation is now, between climate change, the threats of autocracy, hate-manipulated gun violence, war, etc. We might be consumed by so many concerns that we get lost in fears and retreat to the usual, the safe. But what we face is not usual and not at all safe.

 

I sometimes wonder if we can even conceive of the challenge we face. We need our rational minds to evaluate all the evidence. But maybe we need to feel it even more than grasp it. We certainly can imagine what a small town looks like after a massive tornado; or what a city like New Orleans looked like after the flooding of Katrina. Or what burned out towns in California look like or cities when sidewalks and streets melt from the increasing heat. This is the face of the climate emergency. And whatever we’ve seen in the past, we’ll probably be seeing worse in coming days and years.

 

We might read about what it was like living in cities like London before environmental regulations were passed, when people couldn’t go outdoors without getting sick due to torrential smog. Or we can imagine a world without any wildlife outside zoos, no lions, tigers, and bears, no elephants, no eagles and ravens, no owls. Or no honeybees. Without bees, no honey, no fruit, no crops.

 

Or what happens to a nation when increasing hate fueled violence, like in Buffalo, NY fills the streets. The number of hate crimes has more than doubled since 2015, when DJT first ran for office. Or what a dictator like Putin is doing to Ukraine or what would happen if a white nationalist or Nazis became president or Dictator.

 

Or what happens when children are forced to read or learn about only what people driven by hate, bigotry, and lust for power want them to read. Or when women are no longer allowed to control their own healthcare options or how their bodies are treated.

 

My friend feels the terrifying frustration of seeing a threat so clearly yet also feeling powerless to stop it. I think he speaks the fear and concern that a majority of Americans feel. But for him, only dramatic changes will be noticed. Little changes can get lost in the storm clouds of images of what might be coming. Crying out to the world, “Why can’t anyone stop this?” can drive anyone crazy.

 

Yet, a democracy is all about many people doing relatively small actions together. The wheels of law and change can move with painful slowness.

 

A few close friends talked with him about not obsessing over these awful possibilities. And he knows this. But words do not reach deep enough to lift us out of an image of oblivion.

 

He spells out or shouts out a clear line of action we can all take….

 

*To read the whole post, please go to The Good Men Project.