What Could We Lose?

I live in a country grieving and vulnerable, falling under the influence of users. These are painful times. The country I loved is morphing. Once we were heroes who liberated concentration camps and sheltered frightened families. Now we create them. I hate that.

I counted the deaths that have touched me lately and there are eight. Stress and despair kill. One dear friend was stricken by the ugliness that’s now delivered using the taxes seized from middle class Americans. He had been maintaining his health for 15 years against cancer. But his stress drew the final line. I told him to stop agonizing. His time to be impacted was over. He died still mourning the country he had loved. Happily, he missed the worst of the recurrence of antisemitism and racial hate.

We who are determined to keep a bright horizon in mind sigh a lot. We demonstrate and sign petitions and donate savings and still the people who value power over their humanity vote to continue the darkness. Some of us are old enough that we’re unlikely to ever see a fresh version of the values we loved. We hate the thought of what it looks like we’re leaving behind for our descendants.

What are we losing?

1. An international flair that gave us variety and opportunities to learn about other lands and cultures even when we couldn’t travel. We need outside perspectives to keep us honest. We need outside talents. We need friends from other places—personally and as a country.
2. Extra helpers—enough skilled workers to guarantee we can count on fresh produce and other commodities and talents. Before the culling, businesses could more easily find employees who wanted to work hard and prosper. Many of the awards for achievement that have been credited to Americans were delivered by new Americans who brought fresh ideas and renewed ambition they modeled for youth who were distracted from dreams by corporate slight-of-hand, drugs, and games.
3. The love so many immigrants held for this country, reminding us of what our ancestors felt as they arrived. We lost that pride, the promise of a better tomorrow. We miss the respect we once commanded globally, to be replaced by scorn and fear. The Statue of Liberty lies.
4. The reverence for our true history in all its disgrace and glory as we struggle to grow as a society and understand how and why we preserved a dream of democracy and hopes for improving the future.
5. The literature we used to open our minds and charge our creativity. Instead, by media and rule, we’re fed a party-line that doesn’t inspire, only deadens critical thought and lures more vulnerable minds to accept being directed. The “spin” that manipulates conclusions replaces evidential logic.
6. A reverence for preserving our climate, our wilderness and the beings that make it sustainable, knowing we are a canker of creatures that destroy that which cannot be replaced in the service of temporary riches. Our young people anticipate the destruction of the world instead of joining the ranks of our best scientists and health researchers who work to comprehend and flourish within the universe around us.
7. Respect for compassion and kindness wherever it happens and regardless of the identity of the recipients. A comprehension that our world connects us all as occupants of this ship in space, making our differences trivial.
8. Confidence that our country will do its best to keep us safe, fed, and housed, instead of using citizens as fodder for the ultra-rich. Our courts have been infiltrated by those who work for the powerful.
9. Most importantly, we fear for our freedom. One of the most precious intimacies we have is the freedom to be honest and reveal our innermost selves. With a preponderance of deception around us, we tremble to identify who we can trust. We no longer have enough boundaries to protect us from abuse. Our children may be used according to the wills of the powerful. The country we loved has been compromised, and many of us are too intimidated to mention it. Others can’t see it. We’ve lost the four freedoms outlined by President Franklin D. Roosevelt: Freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. We fear one another.

What can we do? Refuse to cooperate. Have courage. Survive. Dare to love first.