Moving forward in America
I’m not normally a cable news viewer, but the last few days - like many of you - I’ve stayed up late glued to my TV. I don’t want to repeat anything that has been more eloquently said by others, but I can’t help thinking that this is what demagoguery looks like. And this may be what our future will look like if we can’t find ways to heal and evolve as a nation.
I was particularly struck this morning by New York Times columnist – and long-time conservative – David Brooks’ words, “There are dark specters running through our nation… They have the stench of Know-Nothingism, the hot blood of the lynchers, and they ride the winds of nihilistic fury. Read the history books.”
It’s true: at many turns in history, certain leaders and factions have sought to inflame and invoke racism, xenophobia, and privilege to justify all sorts of destructive and murderous rampages. And this week, history repeats.
We must find ways to move forward as a nation and to learn to see each other as neighbors again – to forge a new social contract that seeks to truly lift all people up and to come together on the issues of our time. As a non-partisan environmental organization, UPSTREAM will continue to work for ideas that balance the urgent needs of our planet home reeling from climate change, pollution, deforestation, habitat destruction, and widespread species extinctions – with the pressing needs of our people, to be safe and protected equally, to have meaningful work and opportunities, to have healthcare and housing, and the promise of a better life through hard work.
These are not Democratic or Republican issues or aspirations. They are human ones. And I believe we can silence the “dark spectres running through our nation” by seeing and treating them as the phantom hatreds that they are, and by charting the next course of our nation’s history together.
