I learned to love the USA from a very young age. I was 7 when World War 2 ended, and I remember very well how patriotic everyone was. From my earliest years, I learned to love America because it provided a safe haven for my family at a time when the Jews of Europe were targeted for mass extinction.
I was brought up in the 1940s and 1950s when our public schools taught only about our goodness and greatness, while leaving out the shameful chapters of our history.
Today, we are challenged to believe that one can study those shameful chapters and still love your country. Today, too many politicians—notably Republicans—are censoring textbooks and banning library books, anything that students may read, to ensure that they never encounter the ugly parts of our history or anything that includes references to sex or gender identity. Our schools confront a multi-pronged assault built on racism, bigotry, prudishness, and fear of the Other.
Too many Republicans practice the politics of hate and division. Instead of talking about their plans to improve the economy, they use their time in the public eye to demonize the powerless.
My wish is that we could strive again towards the Founding Fathers’ ideals of freedom, reason, equality, justice, and respect for the right of others to dissent, to practice their own religion, to live as they wish within a context of laws. The Founders enunciated these ideals but did not live up to them. It’s up to us to reclaim their vision.
Our Founding Fathers did not want to create a Christian nation. There are several clauses in the Constitution assuring that no one would have to conform to a state-sponsored religion, no one would have to pass a religious test to qualify for office. Whatever your religion or if you practice no religion, the Constitution protects you.
And yet, today religious zealots speak as if the nation belongs to them. It doesn’t. It belongs to all of us.
The greatest threat to our democracy at this moment is the Supreme Court, which seems intent on reversing every precedent and returning the USA to a time before the New Deal, when the government did not actively protect anyone’s rights. It is beyond my understanding that this Court ruled that one’s sincere religious views—no matter how hateful—gives you license to be a bigot.
Our ability to thrive as a nation depends on our ability to work with and value people who are not the same as us. We may be the most diverse people in the world. We cannot succeed unless everyone believes that this is their nation too and that they too can have a fulfilling life regardless of where they came from and when they arrived.
Whether we can keep our democracy rests on our shoulders. Trump and his passionate base have done their best to undermine the pillars of our democracy by questioning the legitimacy of any election they lose, by insulting the rule of law, and by assailing the free press.
The strength of our democracy depends on all of us to get involved. Join an organization that defends our rights and freedoms. Encourage others to do the same. Run for office. Democracy is not a spectator sport. 2024 may be an election that determines our future. Take action.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Our ability to thrive as a nation depends on our ability to work with and value people who are not the same as us.”
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I believe this to be the single most important aspect of our social contract. This value has allowed us to reverse our worse impulses while seeking the “more perfect union.” I only hope that it can pull us out of our current political quagmire.
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I want to comment on the increasing approach to follow FL and its “don;t say gay” law. Unless we are going to lie about history, we would have to eliminate our studies of much of the classical era – what do we do with the clear bisexuality and homosexuality of Classical Greece, the clear love in the Iliad of Achilles for Patrocles? For those who want to bar gays from military service, are they going to deny the facts of the life of Alexander the Great? In American military history, is there even a United States without what the Continental Army learned from Baron von Steuben? Do we eliminate study of perhaps the greatest genius ever because Leonardo was gay? I am a straight white male (of Jewish background) who for almost 3 decades has taught Social Studies including History, Government, and Comparative Religion. IF we are not honest about the past we distort how we got to the present, the advantages & disadvantages we see in society, and risk condemning our younger generations to decreasing equity.
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Bob put together a reading list for this a while ago. Bob?
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And I thought of Texas, back in my textbook editing and writing days, where the local Christian version of the Taliban morality police had suggested at several textbook adoption hearings banning “queer authors” from all K-12 literature textbooks. Which would have made for some pretty thin literature textbooks. There would be in them, for example, and in no particular order, NO James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Oscar Wilde, Federico Garcia Lorca, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Carson McCullers, E. M. Forster, Gore Vidal, Horace, Walter Pater, Lord Byron, Harvey Fierstein, Paul Goodman, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Noel Coward, Willa Cather, Petronius, Thornton Wilder, Evelyn Waugh, Gertrude Stein, Christopher Isherwood, Susan Sontag, Jeanette Winterson, Nikolai Gogol, Hilda Doolittle, Edna St. Vincent Millary, Elizabeth Bishop, Sarah Orne Jewett, David Sedaris, Edith Sitwell, Maurice Sendak, Arthur Rimbault, Mary Renault, Plato, Plutarch, Audre Lorde, Paul Verlaine, Stephen Spender, A. E. Housman, Thomas Mann, Aphra Behn, James Merrill, Marguerie Yourcenar, Terrance McNally, Virgil, Lytton Strachey, Michel Foucault, Samuel Delany, Jeremy Bentham, Anais Nin, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Howard Sturgis, Catullus, Adrienne Rich, John Donne, Colette, Daphne du Maurier, George Santayana, Mary Sarton, Frank O’Hara, Joe Orton, Wilfred Owen, Fran Lebowitz, Andre Gide, Allen Ginsberg, Alice Walker, Sir Francis Bacon, Virginia Woolf, Lord Tennyson, Alan Locke, Jack Kerouac, Countee Cullen, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Yukio Mishima, F. O. Mattheissen, D. H. Lawrence, John Milton, Sara Teasdale, Patricia Highsmith, Angela Davis, Thomas Gray, Sappho, Edward Albee, Hans Christian Andersen, Jean Genet, John Ashbery, W. H. Auden, Honore de Balzac, Djuna barnes, Roland Barthes, John Cheever, Helene Cixous.
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Interesting comment, especially in light of the interest in the revolutionary and early national period about classical history and culture. What did the people who were voracious consumers of these stories think of the relationships that were in these stories? How did they deal with these ideas in schools, which certainly used them?
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As long as right wing religion (Catholic and protestant) coalesces around Charles Koch, American society can not advance. A recent example that corroborates the point is the amicus brief written by the USCCB in support Lorie Smith. Two other briefs filed for her were from the Koch-funded Cato and AFP.
The AFP and state Catholic Conferences co-hosted rallies for school choice in state capitols. The stand your ground laws were from Koch-funded ALEC, an organization founded by right wing Catholic, Paul Weyrich (Koch-funded). Weyrich’s political training manual is posted at Theocracy Watch.
Catholic power brokers have gained tax funding for Catholic organizations making them the nation’s 3rd largest employer. And, politicized right wing Catholics are responsible for the SCOTUS decision exempting religious school employers from civil rights employment law. The other organizations will be the next in line for exemption.
Leonard Leo who ushered in the right wing Catholic SCOTUS is Catholic with 9 kids. Pat Buchanan at his site has a posted interview conducted by Ryan Girdusky (founder of the 1776 PAC ). The plan for the alliance of the Catholic Church and politicized protestant right wingers can be deduced.
The executive director of the
Colorado Catholic Conference
was formerly with EdChoice and the Koch network. There are almost 50 state Catholic Conferences lobbying in state capitols. Georgetown reaffirmed its hiring of the Koch network’s Ilya Shapiro for a top administrative position in constitutional law even after public outcry. Catholic University of America is very cozy with Koch. Both schools are influencers in D.C., as is the EPPC and CNP.
The losing strategy by liberals has been to go along with the false narrative that the retreat from modernism is unrelated to religion. The narrative “culture war” (Buchanan popularized it) and, “moral disagreement” (Cardinal Dolan used it in the Lorie Smith legal brief) aims at distancing. It is a strategy that works for the right wing.
Jefferson warned that in all countries, in all ages, the priest aligns with the despot.
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As much as I agree with all in the post, distilling our history to “individualism vs. common good” has been used too long. It’s more complicated, the term is too malleable. Especially since language is increasing becoming meaningless. Fascists will use precisely the same language while meaning and transmitting the opposite, implicit message to the cult and its apologists. And they would claim of non-fascists do the same. So it is essential to take ownership and define new language or concepts. Let’s start with the perception of “individualism” as it is defined in this post. What are its components, what are we leaving out, what are we trying to imply? I think two essential things are missing. One is a serious discussion of religion and how it is incorporated into the cult’s fascism, as Linda does ceaselessly for our benefit. The other is understanding the fascist definition of “individualism” is mostly based on an idea of exclusivity for some, not free expression, opportunity, or an honest interpretation of history or the present (or indeed, what they see and experience).
As to the former, although Christopher Hitchens’s commentary is two decades old, it holds today as it did then. After specifically documenting many apologies and non-apologies of the Church, his comment beginning at around 12:12 sums up our problem when you include all forms of fundamentalism in the example of the Church:
“How can this Church say it has any moral superiority? It has difficulty in catching up to what ordinary people regard as common moral and ethical sense. And it still can’t make itself apologize properly. And I’ll tell you why.
“Because, and I’ll quote again from the Encyclicals, it is said of the crusades, of the complicity with the Holocaust, of the political and diplomatic alliance with fascism, of all of these things, it is said, well, violence was committed, but I’ll stress this, I’ll underline it and quote directly, “in the service of the truth.” So how is an apology possible? How is any understanding or undertaking, or firm purpose of amendment allowed when the original sin, so to say, the Radix malorum, the fons et origo, the problem in the first place, is the belief, on the part of this Church, that it does possess a truth we don’t have, it does have a God-given right, a warrant, a mandate of heaven, to tell other people what to do, not just in their public, but in their private lives. And until that has changed, till that fantastic, and sinister, and nonfounded (sic) claim is changed, these crimes will go on repeating themselves, being partially denied, partially admitted when it’s too late to do anything else, and covered up.”
This statement can be paraphrased to fit any issue the cult professes to “believe” today. Add that to an “individualism” defined as the exclusive right to do whatever one wants regardless of any outside influence and actually believing they have done so throughout their lives and should be able to live that way forever it it pleases them, and even Houston can detect we have a big problem.
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Whoops, was reading Linda’s comment and meant to post this on Democracy post after this. Will leave it.
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Stephen Fry’s “then what are you for?” is the best line in that debate.
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Dear GregB,
I do hope you watch the documentary on John Trudell and read my article ‘Building Happiness’ found on the comments to Diane’s article.
To be forthright I was hoping Diane would do something like she did for this day. I prepared my response yesterday, July 3rd with the hopes of this.
When you read, watch, and after certainly walk, or in my case I hit the highway and cycle for a few hours to gather it all in.
This content I’ve provided alters one’s existence.
It’s that heavy.
And thus, it really requires some time, even weeks will go by before commenting.
And much of my writings are created like this as a human being develops and comes back to it and reads it again, they pick up on certain aspects they missed the first time. And they’ll come back to it 5 years later, 10 years later and again it is the same as the transformation of a cocoon-bound caterpillar, to the gorgeous striking wing patterns of a fully developed butterfly is occurring within that human life.
People that lived before 1500 A.D. believed that the world was flat. Because that was what they were told. That is what the scientists believed. Can you imagine?
A false truth. Are there other false truths occurring now? Just look around at your world. Look at what we are doing to one another.
So, GregB, others, please watch the John Trudell documentary, read ‘Building Happiness’ you’ll see what I’m up to.
As always, love is the way,
Miles Patrick Yohnke
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I honestly appreciate your message, Miles, but I’m not into happy, happy, joy, joy these days outside of Ren and Stimpy and Andy Griffith reruns. While your message is good for you, I suggest you try that line anywhere in rural, suburban or manyh upper middle class and higher neighborhoods in cities in the U.S. Hate and resentment is the prevailing political motivation for just under half of our population. I can talk to them until I’m blue in the face about living with love and happiness and they will agree and say they found it in Christ or some such “reasoning.” I had a friend recently send me this clip because he knew I would never find or look for it. Since I’m not watching yours, I’m not expecting you to look at this one. But if you do, just how would either of us get our points of view across to these people and what does it say when about 50% of our population relates to it?
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Dear GregB,
I greatly appreciate your honestly for without it there wouldn’t be a reply from me. All the walls would have been built around you and there would be no way of reaching you.
My heart goes out to you. It goes out to everyone. It’s a hard world to navigate. There is so much hate. So many people hurting.
It’s a real simple world. In fact, so simple people lived off of the land you rest your feet on for thousands of years. They lived off of the land. They led simply, joyous, happy lives.
GregB, I do hope you watch the John Trudell documentary and go back and read ‘Building Happiness’ but for now I greatly appreciate your honestly, telling me how you feel currently, for that’s huge. A huge step. Thank you for taking that step.
As always, love is the way,
Miles Patrick Yohnke
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To them individualism is a longing for unaccountable hedonism.
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Greg: as you probably know, it was individualism that the first Fascists attacked. The individual was meaningless within history. Only by hitching your individual wagon to the great mass of people following a truly great man could the individual become part of history. I have always thought it a great irony that this message was not far from Bolshevism, the bugbear of The European conservatives that brought us to Mussolini, Franco, and Hitler.
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One thing, Miles. I don’t hate. OK, I hate hate. But I don’t hate people. My overwhelming emotion about the cult and our world today is one of frustration. Which has its source in, I don’t know how else to express it: we know better. The original sin of the U.S. is racism. Speaking VERY generally, the majority of white Americans have never come to terms with the historical and current advantages afforded them because of the color of their skin. Denial and justifying it with indignation has become a political credo. This does not mean other factors of success and failure exist, sometimes among substantial populations. But the pools of opportunity differ. Whites have always been able to swim in the deep pool whenever they want and many of them are not able to for various reasons. Many of them become members of the cult whose frustration turns into political capital. The mistake they make is thinking they are building political capital for themselves for a more prosperous future because, as an intellectual has termed it, they think they have “the hollowed collegiality of shared skin”. But they haven’t figured out that they are pawns. Rather than support broad-based policies benefitting all, they hold for the possibility of winning the lottery of an unimaginable world. And if they can’t get that, they just want to stay ahead of the ni- – – rs; that will be enough, just so long as we don’t fall behind “them.” So when “they” claim things like environmental racism, for example, it’s not a matter of justice or fairness, it’s a matter if they should be “better” than me and “get more advantages” than “us.”
We have others who have benefitted through less competition for school and jobs, better housing, and genuine opportunity who deny they ever had advantages. “I wasn’t personally responsible for any bad things that happened in the past, so I shouldn’t be held responsible in any way.” But they never admit, “I had advantages that I could access that others never had, never knew they had, and never will have.” People who crow about the land of opportunity make sure it is very limited. Others with differing advantages say, “I inherited this house and the value that came with it because of the hard work of my parents and ancestors.” Or, “Why is it that my forebears could do what they did and those Black rabble-rousers who always complain when they had more advantages and have the government ‘give’ them everything.” And at least 45-50% of Americans believe this. I can’t be happy when I am living through and witnessing the end of the American experiment and have no idea what will await my sons and their children should they choose to have them. Or ever have the opportunity to do so. It’s hard for me to be overly happy for the sake of being happy in the world in which I live.
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Dear GregB,
I didn’t state that you hate.
With your response you’re certainly going to enjoy the John Trudell documentary and what he fought for. There is a part in the film that is very hard to bear, and I can’t imagine how John Trudell kept on.
It is essential for everyone to watch it and experience John Trudell’s world and really take a hard look in the mirror.
GregB, the rest of your response I know it isn’t nothing new to me and I’d imagine most followers of this blog.
We must stop these random outbursts for they get us nowhere. That time you spent writing it, others writing their random outbursts could have gone to helping others for that is the only reason anyone of us are here.
GregB, Diane, everyone our energy needs to be channeled in helping others. Lending a hand. Lending an ear.
Together we can mend the hearts of others and in the process mend our own.
GregB, Diane, everyone, thank you for your time. For reading. For watching.
We must think of Richard Ravitch and Diane for Richard was here last July 4th and now he has gone on to be with our Heavenly Father.
We think about Diane Ravitch’s mental state and yet here she is for all of us. She shows us you put others needs before your own.
R.I.P. (Rest in Paradise) Richard Ravitch
As always, love is the way,
Miles Patrick Yohnke
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This was not an outburst, it was an explanation.
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GregB About individualism vs the common good . . . I think we shouldn’t throw out a good distinction merely because fascists come along and turn it into turkey soup for their own nullified benefit.
Was it you who earlier said something about individualism as an excuse for hedonism?
I thought the juxtaposition was brilliant precisely because it points to the fact that, without education of the character, the moral life, and a general maturing of INDIVIDUAL human beings, presented regularly as part of the educational system of a multi-persons and diverse culture, a democratic culture cannot maintain the vibrancy of its political and social base, and so its “common good,” which includes a sense of common decency. (Any particular people come to mind here?)
My view is that we (in the United States at least) are presently suffering from having left citizens/people to develop on their own . . . from their families’ haphazard moral, social, and political upbringing mixed with television and tech input, and with the catch-as-catch-can absence in early education itself as “we” have moved away from systematically developing thoughtful human beings, to education as training and for ONLY obtaining object knowledge and a healthy bank account.
Now, the “idiots” who didn’t get the human developmental memo, and whose own developmental horizon flattened out a long time ago, are in charge of what is slowly turning into an asylum stocked with dirtbags, ring-kissers and cartel mentalities, technofascists, and Nurse Crachets.
Maybe not so oddly, some make it through well . . . a testament to our inborn potential . . . despite the predictable turn to a neo-ignorant tribalism by too many of us, and so to an anti-democratic, anti-civilization, anti-cultural, spiritually defunct and so to a hedonistic my-way-or-the-high rise mentality; and where anything that looks like love and care is thought of as either (it must be) tacitly self-serving or relativist, crybaby, sentimentalist slop.
I’m going to bed; but my glass is raised . . . here’s to our anti-hedonistic inborn potential . . . to our ideals that some, even in our Congress, still manifest in themselves in the public square . . . that presently is being left behind by way-too-many, in the dust of a disappearing history, that is, if Moms for Liberty and the book burners actually have their way. CBK
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GregB– It is impossible to tease out the human tendency to violence/ barbarism from its advances in civilization. Every single move forward is accompanied by destruction and cruelty by the powerful over the powerless. Moves backward, equally. There are no velvet revolutions.
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What is the definition of a successful person?
My article: “Building Happiness” provides the answer. Today is July 4th. My 2016 article explores why the white person did what they did to the Indigenous person and so much more.
“‘Building Happiness’ pushes the readership out of their comfort zone and into that deep consciousness that you write of and speak of. Way to go!”
– Dr. Jacqueline Marie Maurice
Sixties Scoop Healing Foundation CEO
https://www.sixtiesscoophealingfoundation.ca
Please click on the link to read:
https://salmonstudio.wixsite.com/yohnke/post/building-happiness
I also strongly suggest watching ‘Trudell.’ Trudell is a 2005 documentary film about American Indian activist and poet John Trudell. Heather Rae produced and directed the film, which took her more than a decade to complete. Trudell aired nationally in the U.S. on April 11, 2006, as part of the Independent Lens series on PBS. It also stars Robert Redford, Kris Kristofferson and Sam Shepard.
Trudell:
“It is time that we start loving one another, no matter of race, gender, national origin, religion, physical or mental disability. It is time that we stop all this discrimination. It is time that we build a place where we are all equal. It is time that we put down our firearms and open up our loving arms.”
– Miles Patrick Yohnke
As always, love is the way,
Miles Patrick Yohnke
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Thank you. If only we could all come together and live these ideals.
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Dear Diane, Everyone,
What is the definition of a successful person?
My article: “Building Happiness” provides the answer.
Today is July 4th. My 2016 article explores why the white person did what they did to the Indigenous person and so much more.
“‘Building Happiness’ pushes the readership out of their comfort zone and into that deep consciousness that you write of and speak of. Way to go!”
– Dr. Jacqueline Marie Maurice
Sixties Scoop Healing Foundation CEO
https://www.sixtiesscoophealingfoundation.ca
Please click on the link to read:
https://salmonstudio.wixsite.com/yohnke/post/building-happiness
I also strongly suggest watching ‘Trudell.’ Trudell is a 2005 documentary film about American Indian activist and poet John Trudell. Heather Rae produced and directed the film, which took her more than a decade to complete. Trudell aired nationally in the U.S. on April 11, 2006, as part of the Independent Lens series on PBS. It also stars Robert Redford, Kris Kristofferson and Sam Shepard.
Trudell:
“It is time that we start loving one another, no matter of race, gender, national origin, religion, physical or mental disability. It is time that we stop all this discrimination. It is time that we build a place where we are all equal. It is time that we put down our firearms and open up our loving arms.”
– Miles Patrick Yohnke
As always, love is the way,
Miles Patrick Yohnke
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Dear Diane, Everyone,
I’m from Canada and we celebrate ‘Canada Day’ on July 1st.
In the fall of 1977, when I was 13 Canada got cable television. This provided us with all the American channels. NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, etc.
Canadians watch as much American television as they do Canadian.
When I wrote an article in 2016 titled: “Building Happiness” I was grasping to reach not just Canadians, Americans, but everyone.
In my talks throughout the years, I’d ask professors, all demographics of people what is the definition of a successful person?
And everyone looked at me like it was such a heavy question. That it was so vast, complex, which all saddened me even more.
My article: “Building Happiness” provides the answer.
Today is July 4th. My 2016 article explores why the white person did what they did to the Indigenous person and so much more.
“‘Building Happiness’ pushes the readership out of their comfort zone and into that deep consciousness that you write of and speak of. Way to go!”
– Dr. Jacqueline Marie Maurice
Sixties Scoop Healing Foundation CEO
https://www.sixtiesscoophealingfoundation.ca
Please click on the link to read:
https://salmonstudio.wixsite.com/yohnke/post/building-happiness
I also strongly suggest watching ‘Trudell.’ Trudell is a 2005 documentary film about American Indian activist and poet John Trudell. Heather Rae produced and directed the film, which took her more than a decade to complete. Trudell aired nationally in the U.S. on April 11, 2006, as part of the Independent Lens series on PBS. It also stars Robert Redford, Kris Kristofferson and Sam Shepard.
Trudell:
“It is time that we start loving one another, no matter of race, gender, national origin, religion, physical or mental disability. It is time that we stop all this discrimination. It is time that we build a place where we are all equal. It is time that we put down our firearms and open up our loving arms.”
– Miles Patrick Yohnke
As always, love is the way,
Miles Patrick Yohnke
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Happiness, as Jefferson used it in the Declaration, was almost certainly a nod to the Greek word Eudomonia, which meant “the happiness derived from self-governance “. It was a usage that survived past the days of John Stuart Mill, and reflects the mentality that participation in one’s overarching government was an essential part of the social contract. By the time of our founding, social contract was an idea that was imbedded in political discussion, Jefferson surely had a purpose in mind when he echoed John Locke in the Declaration, for Locke was held in high regard in Britain. By that day, of course, Hobbes had invented the idea of social contract, Locke had discussed his view of the idea, and Rousseau had written his treatise by that name.
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Roy Turrentine The other potential interpretation of the ground of “happy,” as in “pursuit of happiness” in the Constitution, is well-being which probably better-speaks of the Greek world view . . . which was not so hyped about isolated, “leave me alone,” or adolescent individuality as we are, or as (falsely) isolated from being, for that matter. Changing the “pursuit of happiness” to the “pursuit of well-being,” however, makes a huge difference in how that phrase can or should be interpreted.
But that’s a long dialectically dynamic story such that: individuality is not necessarily identified with untutored, undeveloped, and unchecked hedonism (per GregB?), though it can be. On the other hand, cults, families, or community are not necessarily identified with the horrors of fascism, though they can be. CBK
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Dear Roy Turrentine,
I greatly appreciate you taking the time to read my article Building Happiness.
I can tell by your response you’re a person of peace, love for all. That your sole purpose is to assist all others for this is our only purpose. I can only imagine the time you have placed each and every day in developing your brain freeing yourself from the trappings of a fake empire. I’m just so inspired by your labor to truly know thyself.
I do hope others follow. That they watch the John Trudell documentary and learn about the land that most of your feet rest on.
“Be up-beat, not beat-up.”
– Miles Patrick Yohnke
As always, love is the way,
Miles Patrick Yohnke
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“Democracy is not a spectator sport.”
This resonates with me. I am beginning an older history of the Revolution and constitution period. The Creation of the American Republic, by Gordon S Wood (UNorth Carolina Press 1969).
Wood begins by commenting on the pervasive interest in political affairs that was a part of the revolutionary period. This bolsters my picture of the New England farmer, who plowed by day and read Greek and Latin by candlelight at night, supplemented by people writing about politics. Even their fiction, often mythology from the classical period, was didactic in nature and fundamentally oriented toward social ideas in a way.
While I am thinking of it, thank you so much for providing a place where we can all say things to each other. Nothing is more valuable to a government of the people than the discussion that develops among the people.
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Absolutely! The electorate has got to show up in 2024.
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Just like every election since 2016 until we die, every election will be about motivating like-minded people to turn out and vote. Very little, if any time, should be spent on trying to convert one person who has any sympathy for cult-based public policies. Read josh’s messages, he speaks for at least 45% of the electorate. They will not change, maybe we’ll have luck and their children will. As long as people turn out, fascism loses. If not, fascism wins with or without divided government at federal and state levels. The first test will be in Ohio in August, when republicans scheduled a single issue on the ballot to cement their power in perpetuity. If that’s not sexy enough for 50% plus one vote in Ohio, start shopping sales for black and brown shirts to better fit into our eventual futures.
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Wonderful post, Diane. It’s nice to see the vision of our framing documents referred to as transcendent “ideals,” rather than cynically as “myths,” which seems increasingly to be the way people talk about them.
Happy 4th!
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I did not know there was another purpose for mythology.
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Bible alert! I am going to make reference to the expulsion from the garden, but not in the religious context. A number of years ago I read Yuval Harrari’s “Sapiens.” It was in this context that I began to understand the meaning of the garden myth (aside from the obvious excuse to oppress women). Humans came out of hunter gathering into agriculture in our unending search for the better. I often reflect on Voltaire’s missive to not “let perfection be the enemy of the good.” Most human failure, both social and individual, has been the result of our desire to do not only do better, but seek perfection. The agricultural revolution resulted in economic caste systems, city states, ironically mass starvation, and the age of empire. Religious fundamentalism can be attributed to this human failing along with monarchy, totalitarianism, and fascism. I often stop and marvel at the intellectual access that allows me to listen to recorded music, read books, research concepts, and live in comfort that could not have been imagined even 100 years ago. All of this comes with a price. The Age of Enlightenment revived the possibility that we could govern ourselves, but because that is not good enough for so many, such utopian governance remains out of reach. Yes, utopia is a bit problematic as well. In this age of Nuclear proliferation, climate change, and A.I. we appear to be in an existential struggle brought on by this search for perfection. What the Preamble of the constitution gives us is this possibility that comes with turning to one another. Yes Miles, love is critical, but we make it so complicated.
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Dear Paul, Diane, Everyone,
I do hope you take the time to watch the John Trudell documentary and read my article: ‘Building Happiness.’ As I mention in my article are you crying as you read this? Ashamed? I sure am as I write this. It has to be written. Discussed. It has to change. How we are living, and what we are doing to each other is simply wrong.
Thank you for your time, for your lives.
As always, love is the way,
Miles Patrick Yohnke
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Agree with the praise for Diane and for “joining organizations that defend our rights.”
I will add thanks to those who make it very difficult for the people and organizations who take away our rights. Some examples include Project 65, a group that brings disbarment proceedings against lawyers who denied the election results, those like George Conway who promote anti-Trump ads and videos, the SPLC which tracks groups like Moms for Liberty, the late night comedians who expose the hypocrisy of men like Ted Cruz, Ron DeSantis and Josh Hawley and, those who, if they choose to be religious, join churches that aren’t spending the church’s money and influence on anti-gay, anti-woman laws and policies and who aren’t promoting school choice.
For every group joined that defends rights, there will be members at other organizations that undermine democracy.
Is it short-sighted to omit the success that isn’t about “bringing together” but, that is about carving out from the right wing, those who are the base for anti-gay, anti-woman organizations?
The right wing sowed division and now control most of the state leadership positions. What can be learned from their strategies?
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In my later teaching years, each morning the students were told to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I tried my best, but many of the students sat and would not recite the pledge (of course I could totally concur with their feelings, but as typical ‘why didn’t you MAKE THEM stand Mr. Charvet? Blah, blah, blah.” I did an entire lesson on the Pledge, its creation and what not. I always said, “Well, let’s educate ourselves and then formulate your own ideas; that’s why I am here — teach you how to think, not what to think and most of all not to believe crap on social media.” I remember a student said, “I will not stand until there is JUSTICE FOR ALL. When I taught American Government things like “…pursuit of happiness, domestic tranquility, freedom for all…” stood out to me. Freedom for whom? Go back to the “good ol’ days” for whom? And of course, “United we stand, or divided we fall.” And if you think education is expensive, try ignorance. Far too many “sound bites” and “Dunning-Kreuger Effect” going on nowadays. A sports reporter told me, “It isn’t about the real story anymore; it’s about how fast wrong information can go viral.” I enjoyed his articles, but he decided to retire and move on. And, yes, the Founding Fathers. Many of the founding fathers—Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison and Monroe—practiced a faith called Deism. Deism is a philosophical belief in human reason as a reliable means of solving social and political problems. I digress, but you all should watch this person tell it like it is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dYJMZ6MR68 Please be safe today.
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Good morning, RC,
You always find the best videos. I hope everyone watches it, reads my article ‘Building Happiness’ and watches the John Trudell documentary.
RC, I exposed you to the life of John Trudell last summer. Would you share with Diane, everyone what you shared with me?
I greatly appreciated your views and I think everyone on this blog will find it insightful and empowering.
RC, thank you again for your comments and this video.
As always, love is the way,
Miles Patrick Yohnke
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I have been to a game or two (now I can’t afford them), but my mind would observe the masses as they chanted our National Anthem while “beers sloshed in their hands” (not all) as the “bombs burst…” I loved being able to hear O’ Canada when my home team played a Canadian team. I really enjoyed the lyrics. But that’s me. I found this poem you all might ponder. https://poets.org/poem/new-national-anthem?mc_cid=9815c49871&mc_eid=794ece3989
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Hello Rick, or ‘RC’ as I like to call you.
That’s a great poem.
You know I shared this below with you this past Friday as Canada geared up for our July 1st Canada Day. It was sent out to the largest television outlet in Canada which has been very kind to me throughout the years. But I would like to share the contents below with Diane, and the followers of this beautiful blog.
And I’d like to add another aspect with our Canadian Anthem. Canadian singer Jully Black altered one word in it at the most recent NBA All-star game. See how that aligns with the content found below.
Jully Black Performs the Canadian Anthem:
Dear Mr. Adam Sawatsky, Everyone,
“Only when the last tree has died, and the last river been poisoned, and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.”
– Cree Indian Proverb
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
“The rivers of human dignity and compassion lead to the ocean of peace.”
– Miles Patrick Yohnke
“You are the writer, director, and producer of your own life’s work. You premiere it to the world every waking second.”
– Miles Patrick Yohnke
“It is our responsibility to take care of the eARTh. For it is God’s artistic masterpiece.”
– Miles Patrick Yohnke
“Disability does not mean inability.”
– Fiorello La Guardia
Mr. Sawatsky, I was deeply inspired by your latest feature, your story with Pat Savola. My hope is not only will people watch your feature on her but to really take stock of their lives, how we live, operate as a society as we enter Canada Day long weekend here in Canada, July 4th in the U.S. and a weekend in other parts of the world.
My hope is that people will watch it, ponder the opening quotes and read and watch the materials below Pat Savola’s feature that I’ve assembled below as it adds to the discussion.
Duncan, B.C., woman overcomes adversity by giving away trees:
https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/duncan-b-c-woman-overcomes-adversity-by-giving-away-trees-1.6463602
Bruce Cockburn – To Keep the World We Know (From 2023)
Bruce Cockburn – If a Tree Falls (From 1989)
Willie Dunn – O Canada!
Willie Dunn – O Canada
O Canada
Our home and native land
One hundred thousand years
We’ve walked upon your sands
With saddened hearts
We’ve seen you robbed and stripped
Of everything you prized
While they cut down the trees
We were shunted aside
To the jails and the penitentiaries
O Canada
Once glorious and free
O Canada
We sympathize with thee
O Canada
We stand on guard for thee
And please read my article: “The Grey Owl Challenge” with supporting videos.
The Grey Owl Challenge
https://salmonstudio.wixsite.com/yohnke/post/the-grey-owl-challenge-1
As always, love is the way,
Miles Patrick Yohnke
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I love Canadian comedy. It’s not vicious, it’s accepting of people for who they are. More recently, Schitt’s Creek, Kim’s Convenience, and Letterkenny have a serious humor with decency that does not exist in the U.S. Gay characters are human beings who act like human beings who happen to be gay and people treat them with respect. Same with Asian, indigenous, and French Canadians. There is an inherent respect for others and decency that has never taken hold in the U.S. Plus in music, they gave us The Sadies, one of the greatest, most versatile live bands in history.
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https://www.ucc.org/synod-takes-stand-for-public-school-educators-academic-freedom-and-equity-efforts-in-schools/
[Public-Schools-story-WP-Feature-Image.jpg]
Synod takes stand for public school educators, academic freedom and equity efforts in schools – United Church of Christhttps://www.ucc.org/synod-takes-stand-for-public-school-educators-academic-freedom-and-equity-efforts-in-schools/
ucc.orghttps://www.ucc.org/synod-takes-stand-for-public-school-educators-academic-freedom-and-equity-efforts-in-schools/
YAY, UCC.
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Thanks for the links.
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https://www.ucc.org/synod-takes-stand-for-public-school-educators-academic-freedom-and-equity-efforts-in-schools/
Yay, UCC.
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America was founded on lofty ideals. We hold these truths to be self evident, that some men are created more equal than others. The 1st Amendment gives us the right to free listening, so if someone less equal speaks freely, those created more equal can tell the less equal to shut up and die. Freedom! Also, the 1st Amendment says no one is allowed to put anything over their nose and mouth when they sneeze. No masks allowed. It’s our right to sneeze in our neighbors’ salads. Freedom! 2nd, a well regulated militia is needed for free states, so again, those created less equal can shut up and die. You should have hired a team of armed bodyguards. 3rd, no quartering allowed; only quarterbacking. Go team! USA! USA! USA! There’s more, but you get the idea. Happy Tuesday.
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leftcoastteacher In your note about the First Amendment, you miss the distinction between ideal and real-politic. Big difference. But you probably know that. CBK
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Casserin, ze korrrrekt zpelling ist realpolitik. 🧐
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Oh, God. CBK
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Zett iss, ach Gott!
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Dear Leftcoastteacher,
I do hope you watch the John Trudell documentary and read ‘Building Happiness’ that is found on this page, within the comments.
As always, love is the way,
Miles Patrick Yohnke
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rob schneider and jim breur are hysterical!
Trudell was absolutely right about the FBI. Now the FBI and CIA works with the left
election was stolen. What don’t you understand about mail in ballots and drop boxes?? 2000 mules , fbi interference and much more.
if 2016 was stolen why Clintondidnt clinton contest it?
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^^ RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION ALERT ^^
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Dear Callisto,
Did you watch the John Trudell documentary and read my article: ” Building Happiness” found on this page in the comments?
As always, love is the way,
Miles Patrick Yohnke
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