After The Gold Rush

“I was lying in a burned out basement

With the full moon in my eyes

I was hoping for replacement

When the sun burst through the sky”

-Neil Young

In the totality of Civilization, there has been many types of government/ruling structures/concepts which we have wrestled with and developed. It has been a struggle between good (enlightened) practical governess and the those who want to seize this power for their own selfish gain. It’s been a long and winding road through history, fraught with violence and death that brings to the present reasonably functioning free society we have now.

But currently we have a reactionary government with many in far right who want to, in some cases, bring us back to era of religious fundamentalism or at least the good ol’ days of the 1950s, when white Protestants had more power. These were all discarded systems because of the inherent lack of democracy, rule of law and discrimination, not to mention the predatory oligarch-controlled capitalism.

The rise in popularity of the above in America is made possible by a fascist-leaning, cult-of-personality, similar to that of Mussolini’s movement in Italy, the charismatic father of fascism. That insane lock-step devotion to one man is very hard to break until it runs its destructive course.

We will see how much destruction it will cause in the next several years. The question is not if it will happen but how we go about picking up the pieces to build back better in a possibly new and better system. I’m starting to turn my eyes away from the horror of seeing my beloved country being destroyed to how we can do just that, find the things that weren’t working and try something new, even more enlightened, more democratic and more progressive, not to mention more practical and smart. I feel this helps me left my heart knowing the rein of these evil people who are gleefully trashing our great country now, like a rock band trashing a hotel room, will have their day but will also quickly have their just demise soon. But it the end, back in our collective consciousness, we all know better. History teaches us that.

The pendulum will swing and we can recover in a better way. Ise this destruction and find meaning in that it’s actually an opportunity for good, not the evil.