Bill Clinton discussing a soliloquy in
Shakespeare's McBeth said:
the danger of blind ambition, the
fleeting nature of fame, the ultimate emptiness of power disconnected from
higher purpose…
This is out of context but seems to
describe Donald Trump and the resulting situation we find ourselves in today.
This is a
volatile time, but in my eighty-plus years, I have seen many volatile times.
I was alive
during the Second world war. Men were
away fighting. Star flags were in
people’s windows to denote the number of loved ones at war; gold stars meant a
father, a son, or a daughter had died in action. Women were working in defense plants and basic
goods were rationed. People were
planting Victory Gardens.
I was six
years old when the world defeated fascism and the war ended.
I was eleven
when the Korean War started. It was a brutal war, but for some reason was
quickly forgotten.
I lived in
the segregated South during my teen years and had just joined the Navy when the
violent desegregation of the South began.
We thought the world was going to catch fire during the race riots in California during the 1960s.
And then the
Vietnam War.
The twin
towers.
Iraq and
Afghanistan.
Now after eighty years fascism again rears its
head, but this time it is here in the United States led by an ex-President.
To me, this
is the most dangerous time since the Second World War.
During the
Second World War Europe, and consequentially our nation, was in danger from a
foreign power. The war was ‘over there’, yet people here
were willing to sacrifice to save democracies.
This is
different. Our very democracy here in
the United States is now in danger from within, under threats of anarchy and
civil war, seeded and fed by a dangerous demagogue.
Our future
history will be decided over the next six years.
The entire western world is in a battle for the soul of our democracies.
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