Turning Back - Where to begin?

 Sometimes I wish I could get to the root of where we have gone wrong as a society and work backwards from there. Clean up the logic, clear up the confusion, sew up the broken threads of humanities morality. We have, after all, gone through many era's of brutality and enlightenment and scholars of history can point out turning points where brutality retreats and enlightenment grabs hold once again.

This epic of the American tale is going to be studied in classrooms some time in the future when they value learning again. People will shake their heads and wonder how we could have been so deceived. 

The answer many times seems to be that people are led down paths of ignorance when they give up their power and autonomy for what seem to be simple answers.

This story is one that I saw unfolding but didn't realize the import until it was too late.

When Rush Limbaugh came on the air I detested listening to his aggrieved and angry rants. I would tell my father to turn them off, because I wanted to protect my peace.

Then TV personalities started to appear in turn, telling folks what they wanted to hear, stirring up the anger and hatred that lay dormant in their souls. 

This turned into a cycle of aggrievement and manufactured outrage over things like "Christmas being canceled." 

I've turned away from that over the years because it was too toxic and I've never been one for manufactured outrage. 

I like many others of my generation have sailed along with the idea that politics don't matter all that much because both sides lie. I didn't want to get too involved, I already had overwhelming issues to deal with in my life. 

I counted on the canceling out of each political ideology by the other when they got into power. But that isn't happening any longer. The extremists are in charge and we're being pulled in so many anti-democratic directions that it's not possible to sit on the sidelines if we want to keep what our Grandparents fought for. 

Mark Twain wrote in "Letter from Earth", letter VI: Each of you, for himself or herself, by himself or herself, and on his or her own responsibility, must speak. It is a solemn and weighty responsibility and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government or politician. Each must decide for himself or herself alone what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man, to decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor. It is traitorous both against yourself and your country. Let men label you as they may, if you alone of all the nation decide one way, and that may be the right way by your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country, hold up your head for you have nothing to be ashamed of. 

J. Michael Straczynski wrote:

It doesn’t matter what the press says. It doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mobs say. It doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. Republics are founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe in. no matter the odds or consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move. Your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth and tell the whole world: No, you move

It is imperative that we become aware of our duty to determine truth from error through study that takes us beyond the surface of what is presented in the news and popular entertainment. We are all threads that make up the fabric of this country and we abdicate our responsibility to the peril of the whole. 

SG