2017 photo from Ocean Beach near San Francisco, via Unsplash
By Ashley Herndon
OCEANSIDE, Calif. | We must counter corruption, inequality, false faiths and thievery. Fear is not a viable mechanism. Corruption is unsustainable as the wolf chases its tail. The snake will devour itself, so we must avoid the pitfalls of bogus populism. True populism is people power, not hateful corporate demagoguery.
Herndon
Look around. Two-thirds of this world practices democracy, yet we are moving away from its best qualities here and elsewhere, back to the dark times preceding our Civil War and the two World Wars. Thousands died to get us here out from under dictators. We cannot allow their deaths to be in vain.
For a government to survive, it takes faith and trust, that is, the faith and trust of the citizens and all of its people. First, we must learn to recognize some office holders have simple emotions. Pleasure at adulation, anger at rejection. They ran for the job. To succeed, all that they have to do is buck up and do what is right for the people.
Goebbels said: “People can be destabilized by marketing campaigns,” that is, by propaganda. Goebbels…we all know who he worked for.
The decline of a government or the glory of a nation can arise from a single source.That source is Agape, or “unconditional love, meaning you are loved more than you know.” Force and violence are ineffective for survival.
We are currently faced with the preservation of our country – not preservation of a “self.” These times are like Reinhold Niebuhr said, “The Dramas of History!” Neither opportunism, force, nor terror, nor fear, generate respect or trust. Partnership and mutuality are the proven strategies and tactics.
Stupid, selfish, and petty men and women are trying to destroy our country. They cannot use democracy to generate hate. We must not allow it. Release the forces of egalitarianism or live under the burdens created by “Plantation Capitalism.”
You have heard it before: “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is for good people to do nothing.” Edmund Burke said it over 100 years ago. John Kennedy quoted it in his inaugural address.
The next 18 months will be as important as Appomattox, Midway, the Beaches of Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge and Iwo Jima. Fascism must be buried once again.
So, as the adage advises: “Let all good people stand up and be counted.”
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