A Rubicon Yet Uncrossed

I’m receiving dozens of pieces of mail from the Democratic Party and progressive organizations seeking donations to help fight elitist financial groups and corporations and of course, the Republicans and Donald Trump. In way too many cases the hypocrisy is not only disgusting but also insulting. How short a memory do they think I have? How short a memory do they think you have? The Clinton debacle just climaxed, and the Obama disappointment is still in progress. The stink of betrayal from Sanders and Warren still fills the air. And the insanity of a mainstream media evidently publishing from an alternative universe is stifling.

Are we really as stupid as they believe? Are we really so shallow and insecure that they can distort what we’ve lived through and because it’s printed or televised, induce us to ignore our own experience? Are we really as easy to manipulate as behaviorist psychologists advising them believe us to be?

The recent elections, when viewed in their entirety, starting with the unsuccessful left wing revolt against the Democratic Party establishment and the right wing Tea Party revolt against the Republican establishment, provide a basis for hope, especially given the failure of the corrupt concerted effort by the mainstream media to manipulate the election. But that mainstream media did succeed in limiting our options and shutting out the two best candidates. They succeeded because we permitted it, manipulated by the tried and true tactic of fear and lesser evils. The tactic that robs us of our decency and derails our consciences and leads us to where we find ourselves.

Perhaps that’s why the drums of fear are beating louder than ever, hoping to stampede us into panic and shattering mirrors so we won’t have to face our reflections there, won’t have to look into those eyes and see cowards stampeded into accepting dominion, not only for ourselves but for our progeny.

Is there a possibility we can repel those efforts? That we can look at each other and not see enemies but rather fellow travelers being herded on the road to Hell? That we can somehow find the will to change our course? That we’ll suddenly realize that we’ve been bound with emotional chains which we’re not bound to accept? That we’ll understand that if those who successfully revolted against elitist authority did not, perhaps, make the wisest choice, they at least let us know that despite our willing blindness, there was a choice?

Perhaps hope is based on a belief that anything is possible, obviously an erroneous belief. Some mistakes can’t be unmade.

But just possibly we’ve yet to cross that Rubicon.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2016; all rights reserved