END the NIGHTMARE, START the DREAM!

57 years ago today, the words ‘ I Have A Dream’ were inserted into the legacy of a continual American nightmare punctuated by violence against people of color. The nightmare unfortunately continues, still having the central issues addressed by Martin Luther King of the need for justice and equality and the need for those principals to extend outward in terms of international policy. Today, the dimensions of the nightmare are like the multiple natural disasters inflicting wounds at our countries extremities, while the killing of citizens in the streets by police continues to strike at the heart. This is why so many diverse people spent the Summer of 2020 in the streets protesting. 

As I write this, the National Action Network is staging a ‘Get Your Knee Off Our Necks’ rally, in the spirit of MLK, George Floyd and now Jacob Blake, the young man shot in the back by police in Kenosha Wisconsin, only days ago. Jacob’s shooting is more acid in the wounds of the racial tension in America. I hope that in retrospect, I will be able to see this tragic event as a bottom from which America begins to finally rise to make the DREAM a permanent one.

The intransigency of racism and brutality, rooted in economic motive has been the plague from this country’s inception and was appropriately deemed ‘Covid 1619’, at today’s rally, by a very eloquent Baptist minister from NY. He was referencing the first arrival of Africans as slaves on the shores of Virginia. Another speaker shrewdly pointed out that those swallowing President Trump’s untruths are also unknowingly being made slaves.

The truth is, that the machinations of America’s original sin have  mutated and been made manifest in ways that affect everyone, not just those most visibly and physically impacted by the ugliness of systemic racism in policing. If this injustice is left unchecked on Election Day, it will finally destroy the American experiment and consign it to perpetual nightmare, a self fulling prophecy, represented most recently in four nights of incessant lying during the Republican National Convention. That convention ended last night, while residents of Louisiana a Texas surveyed the ‘American Carnage’ brought on by another nightmare, Hurricane Laura. Each lie spinning out of the eye of the RNC convention had laced within it, a certainty of potential for creating exactly what they claim to fear.

Instead of the ‘street violence’ they claim will overtake the country, meaningful police reform will bring peace to the streets and collaboration of communities with law enforcement and government. 'Funding' represents the public paying for services, and the public ought be able to hold services rendered by police to account.

Instead of an ‘continued economic meltdown’, embracing a new green paradigm has the chance of rebuilding a sustainable economy,  which if we’re lucky, will help mitigate the impact of climate change.

Instead of blocking the basic right to cast a ballot, voting ought to be strengthened and equalized so as to avoid Malcolm X’s warnings that ‘ballot must replace the bullet’ and of that ‘blood will run in the streets’ when factions are pitted against each other through disenfranchisement.

Instead of stoking abstract fears of ‘socialism’, figure out how to make this country livable for everyone including the basic right to healthcare. Not to do so, will only magnify the problems that are demanding collective solutions and resources likely in the form of ‘taxes’ which they have historically feared, unless they are in the from of the ironic specter of corporate socialism.

Instead of relying upon a myth of ‘Hard work’ that at one time, and for select people, enabled Americans to thrive, put everyone to work on the scale of the New Green Deal. There is no reason for such vast unemployment. The pandemic has inadvertently given us the opportunity to seize a new day and rally citizens to rebuild the country in a better way.

Instead of feigning ‘Cancel Culture’, recognize, acknowledge and cure the racism that has been the de facto policy of the ruling class towards people of color and other minority groups, from this country’s inception. We will otherwise 'cancel' each other out.

Instead of beating a drum of ‘greatness’ that rings hollow due to Americas many hypocritical sins and injustices, our country needs a renewal out of deep reflection. If we do these things, America still has a chance at replacing the NIGHTMARE with the DREAM and achieve ‘GREATNESS’. That greatness must then extend outward and help the world as a whole achieve the same. If we fail to make this transition, the power, reach, influence and what’s left of reputation of the United States, will otherwise be reduced to so much spent light an energy in the shadow of time....

I would rather see America LIVE ON.