The Current Situation and the Challenges We Face
Our current situation is more and more extreme, but we always have options for leverage. We get to organize our minds toward a massive non-cooperation, non-collaboration campaign—a campaign to actually win.
There are patterns that keep pushing us into accepting and justifying the more and more outwardly desperate and oppressive system of governance. Clearly, we must all work to prevent more erosion of what is left of our U.S. democracy. We can’t remain silent. We must say what we observe as well as express our disdain for this kind of governance.
In sessions we can practice saying “no” as we scan all the times when we “gave in” [succumbed] or fell into the trap of remaining silent. I suspect we will all have to face the bullies in our young lives. We will have to face how we gave in and rationalized certain circumstances and institutions, including our educational systems.
What has been allowed to pass as education has been for the most part a massive co-optation and indoctrination of students. They are the passive recipients of the lies of the dying economic and social order that is our current system. Teachers do make valiant attempts to help students learn important skills and retain their inherent ability to think critically. But we have all been told so many lies about our country and its history and now about the challenges we face.
When opportunities present themselves for us to be catalysts for “good trouble,” I suspect we can be relaxed as we express our true sentiments and indignation.
Today’s world is heavily laden with distractions and pretexts that pull us back from one another, from modeling empathy, and from showing caring and concern. It’s easy to be overcome by the newsfeeds and distractions. However, we can turn off the devices. We can set a personal goal to limit our vulnerability to the distractions.
We are often tempted to hunker down and huddle amongst those who seem to be like minded. I think that is a mistake. There are many people we can reach out to in our families, our neighborhoods, and, if we’re lucky, in our workplaces.
Our hope lies in our individual decisions to not cooperate and to build collective agitation and conscience on many fronts. Working one-to-one is slow and tedious—and can succeed.
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
Reprinted from the RC e-mail discussion list for leaders of wide world change
(Present Time 201, October 2020)