My Turn: The time of our lives

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By ALAN HARRIS

Published: 10-30-2024 4:28 PM

 

How vain our perceptions of what is real and what is illusion. I’m taken by how casually we can disregard suffering and how blithely we assume things to be true that are false. We’re in a moment of light vs. dark, and its magnitude is overshadowing our sense of order in the universe. The order is ours to create and the tools needed require guidance from clear heads and hearts that are not fooled by trickery and sleight of hand.

I say wake up! Wake up to those lulled into passivity and indecision. This is the moment when the demagogues and deniers have descended in full force.

Fictions masquerade as a means to lull the unthinking into forgetting who they really are and what they’ve stood for. The fools they become will have little to do with the persons they were or are. But fools die by their own hands. And it would be tragic.

This is a play we’ve seen before being performed in real time with real villains who wish the common values we’ve so long cherished be replaced with a dictator’s tyranny, the narcissist’s mirror. They’re tired of democracy. They’ve been taught to be salesmen. Con art is Donald Trump’s skill.

Be not fooled, folks. You who think this is a game. Who think the order this man will bring is other than chaos and tragedy. There are no boundaries, no principles, no reconciliations that should allow anyone to assume that this liar will do less than he says.

Don’t be mad at me because I dare to paint facts the way they are. Look at history! The cycle of foolhardy and egotistical tyrants litters the pages. The results have been always the same. Suffering! Those who believed in the con artists became their most unfortunate victims. The wealthy knew they could survive, even prosper. After all, these are they who guard the wealth accrued through the tyrants’ policies.

They care only about their profits. And it’s as much their businesses and services that demand it. But the profiteers know the game. You out there who turn the cheek to the violence that Trump threatens are his enablers and will never be the beneficiaries of any policy he enacts. Sorry. You lose, too.

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The idea of democracy will suffer the most. The jackals he will install to replace the Mattises and the Tillises are the most inept, least qualified people to perform the unfamiliar tasks they would be assigned.

If that scares you, I suggest that you step back and reassess what real dangers are. There are two kinds: those that are naturally caused by what the environment threatens, due or not due to human misjudgment; and those that are strictly the product of selfishness and stupidity.

These last pose also a danger to the first. But why do people allow this to exist? I ask how anyone can vote for a man who tells us in broad terms what he intends to do: the elimination of democracy.

Turn on the TV, go online. The lines are drawn. Fascism is death to democracy. Death. Not just a word bandied about. War and chaos are the result. The laws of the land will be annulled on many levels, and we know the Supreme Court will oblige him. They’ve become fools.

“Harris is being off the wall apocalyptic.” Wrong. We have less than a week to improve our chances of this outcome. Kamala Harris clearly understands the stakes and by every account has your and my best interests at heart, knows what we’re up against, and believes enough people will come to their senses and prevent a wholly unqualified candidate to repeat and greatly expand the evisceration of the Constitution.

Remember what it took to rise to where the U.S. stands today? A Revolution, a Civil War, a depression, two world wars, and unfortunately some wars of adventurism. Looking back there is a trail of tears, the blindness and the self-interests that clouded our history, and worst of all, the suppression of African Americans!

When we look at this world, what do we want? Everything points to family, work, and friends for most people, love of all life. Control and oppression comes from weakness of spirit, lack of trust, and isolation. Survival has taught us to covet, hold onto our self-adjudicated identity that the world would like to mold and manipulate. Play games with who we are.

But we imperfectly move forward. To imagine even the slightest chance of losing our Constitution must stir our hearts to action. Take that away and ask yourself what will we have? This is every generation’s fight: Our chance to preserve and continue honoring those who stood up, sacrificed and died that our great experiment would survive.

“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” Janis sang.

Alan Harris lives in Shelburne Falls.