Today President Jimmy Carter's Remains Will Be Transported to The Capitol Where He Will Lie in State Until his State Funeral on Thursday. A Video Reminder That His Remarkable Life Made Time for Joy.
Unfortunately all this is marred by the events of the last decade or so. Many of us have come to be deeply disappointed and horrified by the apparent desire of some one-third of our citizens to return to some very bad tendencies that our country has always fought against, but seemed to be overcoming. For whatever reason, the very things, (racism, misogyny, xenophobia, hatred, greed, hubris), that evil men used to kill millions of our fellow beings, and that our parents fought a world war to defeat seem to be back and here in our own country. Even after the warnings of the administration of 2016 to 2020, these citizens have seen fit not only to nominate a regime for their party that extols these things as worthy, under the false excuse of a post Covid economy or inflation or a misguided nationalism, but then managed to elect truly evil people and will try to impose autocracy and oligarchy on all of us. Worst of all for me at least is that the core of these people seem to be Christo-religious nationalists who seem to have forgotten the words of the Sermon on the Mount. I can only hope that as this next year goes on and they see the suffering of their fellow human beings as families are torn apart, and the blow to our freedoms that is almost unavoidable, that they will remember their faith and the promise of our Constitution that they seem to have forgotten.
Barbara and I are struggling to cope with this. We are trying to stay reasonably sane by avoiding media and negative news. Unfortunately it also means avoiding as much as possible those who brought this misfortune on us all by either voting for evil and hate, or not caring enough to vote at all. We will be working to do all we can to reverse this, though we fear that even two years more of this may do irreversible damage to the country.
So….This is a very negative letter for a new year, but we feel very strongly that it is the duty of citizens to speak out, as standing by and saying nothing is not an option. We are sorry if this is painful and may offend some of you. I find that I get some comfort and hope from reading “Notes on Freedom” by E.B. White and “What I Believe”, by EM Forster, both easily found on the Internet. There have been other bad times and these two authors were there at the beginning of the last time the world had an authoritarian crisis. Their optimism about the goodness of man prevailed. They had much to say about it that both of us agree with now. We can only hope that the goodness and promise at the heart of our Republic will see us through this and that we will come out of it an even better country at the end. On a positive note, we have been through bad things before, and our best instincts seem to be a dominant force that can overcome our worst ones, but it doesn’t happen on its own.
Messed up pasting in the above comment, but this was the last page of a letter to friends and family for the New Year. We may have lost some of them by sending it, but this needs to be said to anyone who supported the evil of the new regime.
Unfortunately all this is marred by the events of the last decade or so. Many of us have come to be deeply disappointed and horrified by the apparent desire of some one-third of our citizens to return to some very bad tendencies that our country has always fought against, but seemed to be overcoming. For whatever reason, the very things, (racism, misogyny, xenophobia, hatred, greed, hubris), that evil men used to kill millions of our fellow beings, and that our parents fought a world war to defeat seem to be back and here in our own country. Even after the warnings of the administration of 2016 to 2020, these citizens have seen fit not only to nominate a regime for their party that extols these things as worthy, under the false excuse of a post Covid economy or inflation or a misguided nationalism, but then managed to elect truly evil people and will try to impose autocracy and oligarchy on all of us. Worst of all for me at least is that the core of these people seem to be Christo-religious nationalists who seem to have forgotten the words of the Sermon on the Mount. I can only hope that as this next year goes on and they see the suffering of their fellow human beings as families are torn apart, and the blow to our freedoms that is almost unavoidable, that they will remember their faith and the promise of our Constitution that they seem to have forgotten.
Barbara and I are struggling to cope with this. We are trying to stay reasonably sane by avoiding media and negative news. Unfortunately it also means avoiding as much as possible those who brought this misfortune on us all by either voting for evil and hate, or not caring enough to vote at all. We will be working to do all we can to reverse this, though we fear that even two years more of this may do irreversible damage to the country.
So….This is a very negative letter for a new year, but we feel very strongly that it is the duty of citizens to speak out, as standing by and saying nothing is not an option. We are sorry if this is painful and may offend some of you. I find that I get some comfort and hope from reading “Notes on Freedom” by E.B. White and “What I Believe”, by EM Forster, both easily found on the Internet. There have been other bad times and these two authors were there at the beginning of the last time the world had an authoritarian crisis. Their optimism about the goodness of man prevailed. They had much to say about it that both of us agree with now. We can only hope that the goodness and promise at the heart of our Republic will see us through this and that we will come out of it an even better country at the end. On a positive note, we have been through bad things before, and our best instincts seem to be a dominant force that can overcome our worst ones, but it doesn’t happen on its own.
Sincerely and with love,
Messed up pasting in the above comment, but this was the last page of a letter to friends and family for the New Year. We may have lost some of them by sending it, but this needs to be said to anyone who supported the evil of the new regime.
Ron