Category Archives: Democracy in Crisis

I Want to Know Why

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“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.”

—George Orwell (1903–1950). British writer and essayist.

Two weeks apart. Thirteen or more shots fired. Two American citizens dead in Minneapolis.

January 7, 2026. Renée Good.
Three or more shots fired, including one to the head.
Bam. Bam. Bam.

January 24, 2026. Alex Pretti.
Ten shots fired.
Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam.

Both dead.

I can’t stop thinking about those thirteen shots.

Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam.

I hope you can’t stop thinking about them.

I am haunted by the shots. Not by the chaos of the moment. By the decision to use lethal force.

I don’t raise these questions lightly. I raise them because I feel an obligation to do so.

I am appalled by what happened to Renée Good and Alex Pretti. Not because I know all the answers—but because the answers offered so far do not begin to match the gravity of what occurred.

I am outraged by the shots.

Not that shots were fired—anyone who understands law enforcement understands danger. Threats are real. Decisions are made in fractions of a second.

But these shots.

A shot to the head. Ten shots fired after a man had been disarmed.

These are not details. They are the story.

I want to know why:

• lethal force was chosen where restraint appears possible

• a vehicle was not disabled if it was the threat

• a disarmed man required ten rounds to stop him

• “self-defense” is offered as a conclusion instead of the beginning of a serious public accounting

• we lower our voices when bullets have already spoken

Let me be clear: I would be asking these same questions with or without ICE involvement. This is not about immigration policy. It is not about partisan loyalties. It is about the use of lethal force by the government—any arm of government—against citizens, and the obligation that power carries with it.

When a gun is fired by law enforcement, intent matters. When a head is struck, intent matters more. When shots continue after a suspect is disarmed, intent becomes unavoidable.

We are often told that officers do not “intend to kill,” only to stop a threat. But bullets are not suggestions. Aimed fire is not symbolic. The human body understands intent even when language tries to soften it.

I want to know why the federal government can irreversibly take a life without the checks that define a democracy.

Not to inflame.

Not to prosecute from my keyboard.

Not to pretend that complex situations have simple answers.

But because a democracy that cannot answer why—plainly, fully, without euphemism—cannot credibly claim justice.

Silence is not neutrality. Deflection is not due process. Repetition of official language is not accountability.

I want to know why.

I think you should, too.

Never in My Lifetime. Why This Moment in the American Presidency Is Different.

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“If you see something that is not right, you have a moral obligation to say something.”
—John Lewis (1940–2020). Civil Rights leader and U.S. Congressman.

Ebenezer Scrooge I am not.

Ask anyone. Ask everyone. I’ll wager you won’t find a soul who has ever called me stingy, sour, or mean-spirited.

Yet, this holiday season, I’ve felt a bit of a Bah, Humbug mood creeping in, not about Christmas or the lights or the joy around me, but about something else entirely. It’s something heavier. It’s something I didn’t expect to feel at seventy-eight.

So make yourself a cup of coffee, tea, or hot chocolate, and pull up a chair beside me. Let me tell you what’s stirring.

It begins, I suppose, with the one clear advantage that comes with age: hindsight.

Last month, I turned seventy-eight. Candidly, I’ve been looking back at the past decades a lot this year, not from a personal angle, but a political one.

I’ve lived through a lot, and I have a vantage point that people younger than I simply don’t.

I grew up in the shadow of McCarthyism (the early 1950s), when suspicion was a national pastime.

I remember the shock of four assassinations—JFK in ’63, Malcolm X in ’65, and both Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy in ’68.

I watched the Civil Rights movement reshape the country through the 1950s and 60s.

I lived through the long, grinding years of Vietnam (1955–1975) and the protests that defined a generation.

I witnessed the unraveling of trust during Watergate (1972–74).

I saw Reagan confront the final act of the Cold War in the 1980s.

I watched America enter Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11, wars that stretched from 2001 to 2021.

I’ve felt the impact of multiple economic crashes—1973, 1987, 2000, 2008.

And I lived through the Obama years (2009–2016), a hopeful presidency during a time when the country’s political divides were hardening in ways none of us fully saw coming.

Looking back across all the turmoil, the marches, the reckonings, the wars, and the scandals, I’ve realized something I didn’t expect. Our protests have always had a focus: an issue, a cause, a policy, a war. They rose up around ideas that divided us or injustices that demanded attention. Even the most explosive chapters of my lifetime had a center of gravity that wasn’t a single person but the larger forces shaping the country.

But what we’re witnessing now feels different. In fact, it is different. In nearly eight decades of watching this nation rise, fracture, heal, and reinvent itself, I’ve never seen sustained nationwide protests aimed not at a policy or a war, but at a president himself. The center of gravity has shifted. The outrage isn’t about an issue—it’s about the individual. It’s about the president.

Don’t get me wrong: we’re still seeing the familiar issue-driven protests that have always been part of American life. People are marching about immigration policy, climate change, book bans, economic strains, reproductive rights, and a dozen other concerns that flare and fade as the political winds shift. That part hasn’t changed.

What has changed—what stands apart from every era I’ve lived through—is the scale and persistence of the protests aimed not at a policy but at the president himself. The “No Kings” movement isn’t fighting over legislation; it’s rejecting the idea of one man placing himself above the laws that govern the rest of us. And in my lifetime, that is unprecedented.

The protests I’m talking about aren’t the usual disagreements over taxes, foreign policy, or legislation. They’re about the president’s conduct, his rhetoric, his legal troubles, and the fear—spoken openly now—that democratic norms cannot hold under his influence. People are marching about character, about fitness, about the very idea of what the presidency should represent. That’s new. In my lifetime, no president has drawn this kind of personal, sustained, multi-city repudiation simply by virtue of who he is.

It matters because when protests shift from policies to personalities, the stakes change. Policies can be debated, amended, reversed; they live in the realm of argument. But when millions of people focus their alarm on a single leader—on temperament, on truthfulness, on respect for institutions—that signals a deeper fracture. It means the country is no longer arguing about what we should do, but about who we are willing to trust with power. I’ve never seen that question asked so loudly, or by so many, in the streets.

I’ve seen my share of turbulence. I’ve watched this country reinvent itself more than once. But this moment feels distinct, and I find myself wanting to name it before history reframes it for us. Not to alarm, but to observe. Not to predict, but to remember. For all my years watching this country rise and falter, I’ve never seen a presidency provoke this kind of personal outcry. Saying so feels like the least a witness can do.

Maybe that’s the real value of hindsight. It’s the quiet ability to say, “This is new,” without shouting and without shrinking from it. I don’t claim special wisdom, but I do claim a long view. From that view, this moment stands out.

If this moment truly is different—and it is—then it cannot be met with habits borrowed from easier times. Recognizing what is new is not enough. Witness alone does not stabilize a democracy. A moment like this places demands on those who live through it, not as spectators, but as citizens. It asks more than opinion and more than outrage. It asks for conduct.

This moment requires attention that is disciplined rather than entertained. It requires tracking what actually changes—laws altered, norms broken, power consolidated—instead of reacting to spectacle. It requires noticing patterns rather than isolated scandals and refusing to look away simply because we are tired. Exhaustion is not neutral; it benefits whoever gains from our distraction. Paying attention is labor, and right now that labor is necessary.

This moment requires honesty that refuses euphemism. It requires naming corruption as corruption, authoritarian behavior as authoritarian, and cruelty as cruelty, even when doing so makes conversations uncomfortable or costly. It requires resisting the urge to soften language so others can remain disengaged. It also requires self-examination, asking whether silence, politeness, or a desire to avoid conflict has quietly become moral retreat. Democracies do not fail only because of liars; they fail when too many people choose comfort over truth.

This moment requires steadiness that is grounded in self-command rather than denial. It requires rejecting panic, resisting despair, and refusing the addictive churn of outrage that leaves nothing behind but fatigue. It requires consistency—staying informed when the news is grim, voting every time, and continuing to show up after the drama fades and only responsibility remains. Strongmen thrive on chaos. Steady citizens deprive them of that advantage.

This moment requires participation that goes beyond holding opinions. It requires voting in every election and helping others do the same. It requires supporting institutions under pressure—courts, schools, libraries, journalists, and election workers—because they slow the abuse of power and protect the rule of law. It requires showing up locally, where power is quieter but more reachable, and where absence carries consequences. Democracy is not sustained by commentary alone; it is sustained by persistent, ordinary involvement.

This moment requires refusal to normalize what would once have shocked us. It requires refusal to excuse behavior simply because it has become familiar and refusal to accept that “this is just how things are now.” It requires refusing to let fatigue become permission. Refusal is not negativity; it is boundary-setting. Democracies collapse when citizens gradually accept what they should never have agreed to tolerate, and refusal is how those lines are held.

Whatever comes next, I’ll keep trusting the clarity that age has sharpened rather than dulled. Though the season might tempt me to climb the nearest chimney and holler Bah, Humbug into the cold mountain air, I won’t. Scrooge may have needed three ghosts to find his hope again, but I’ve lived long enough to know where mine comes from. It comes from the stubborn resilience of ordinary people. Like you. Like me.

Even now—especially now—I choose to believe in our power to bend this country toward something better. We’ve done it before. Whether we do it again will depend on what we’re willing to notice, to protect, and to refuse.

I Am Afraid

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We can be fearless in proclaiming that we are afraid—afraid of what is happening, afraid of what might come, afraid of becoming numb to it all.

It could be any morning up here on the mountain. Any season. The light spills over the valley like it’s been rehearsing for centuries, finding its way to the deck that I sanded and painted myself. Ruby’s already made her first round of the yard, nose to the wind, tail announcing that all is well in our little dominion—hers and mine and Gary’s.

From the outside, it might look like the middle of nowhere. But to us, it’s home. It’s our mountaintop oasis. It speaks peace. It speaks love. It knows both.

And yet—I am afraid.

I’m not afraid of dying.

I’m not afraid of the questions at my annual doctor’s visit—how’s the sleep, how’s the balance, any falls lately? I know the drill, know the tone. It’s the small talk we make with time itself.

I am afraid of more than that. Much more.

I am afraid of living.

I am afraid when I watch our nation take one step, then another, back and back and back toward what too many call the “Good Ole Days.” Days that weren’t always that good in reality—at least not for everyone. I’ve seen real progress during my seventy-seven years, hard-won and deeply felt. But now I know what it feels like to watch it slip away.

I am afraid when I see the National Guard deployed to American cities—unbidden, uninvited—storming in under the cloak of “security,” while local leaders protest and courts rule against the deployment as unconstitutional.

I am afraid when I see streams of homeless men, women, and children forcibly cleared from our Nation’s capital—not relocated, but shamed off the sidewalks, invisible again to the people who run the city.

I am afraid when masked men wearing ICE uniforms sweep through neighborhoods in unmarked vans—when people are grabbed at early hours, dragged from their routines, as children watch from windows.

I am afraid when I see our public health agencies bend—when the CDC overturns or ignores scientific consensus, issuing guidelines that feel political more than medical, eroding trust in what should be shields, not targets.

I am afraid when I see older Americans treated as burdens instead of blessings—when Social Security and food programs are cut under the banner of “efficiency,” when Medicare oversight is weakened and the sickest lose coverage, when senior housing programs vanish from federal budgets as if aging were a mistake. When growing old becomes a liability instead of an honor, a nation has lost its sense of inheritance.

I am afraid when I see poor and working families once again blamed for their poverty—when SNAP and WIC are gutted, when rent assistance dries up, when wages shrink while profits soar. Poverty is being rebranded as personal failure again, as though the system itself weren’t tilting the table.

I am afraid when I see classrooms and libraries turned into battlegrounds—when teachers are monitored, words are banned, and curiosity is treated as defiance. When education becomes indoctrination, the light that should guide us turns inward and burns.

I am afraid when I see our museums stripped of independence—when curators are told which histories to showcase and which to hide, when funding depends on keeping donors and politicians comfortable instead of keeping the record honest. When museums are told what stories to tell, history itself becomes propaganda.

I am afraid when I see the earth itself crying out—when wildfires, floods, and droughts speak the truth our leaders refuse to hear. When those in power in Washington call climate change a hoax, mock science, and dismantle what fragile protections remain—treating the planet not as inheritance but as inventory. The soil, the rivers, the air—they are not ours to own. They are the breath of every living thing that will come after us.

I am afraid when I see our history books rewritten—when the ugliness of our past is softened or omitted altogether, as if truth were a stain to be scrubbed away. I am afraid when textbooks trade context for comfort, when children are taught pride without responsibility. That’s not education. That’s amnesia dressed as virtue.

I am afraid when I see books banned from shelves—works of art, witness, and imagination stripped from students’ hands because someone decided fear should be the curriculum. A nation that fears its own words is a nation already forgetting how to think.

I am afraid when I see faith itself being rewritten—when those who hold the Bible high forget the heart of its message: love thy neighbor as thyself. When “the least of these” are ignored or condemned, when compassion is replaced with control, when the name of Christ is used not to comfort but to conquer.

I am afraid when I see the Department of Defense renamed the War Department—as if we’ve abandoned even the language of restraint, as if the goal were not defense but dominance. Words matter. Change the name, and you change the story. Change the story, and you change what we become.

I’ve lived long enough to see this nation inch closer to its promise, step by hard-won step. I watched the Civil Rights Movement force open doors that had been locked for centuries. I watched women claim the rights and respect they were long denied. I watched same-sex marriage move from silence to law, from whispers to weddings. I watched a Black man take the oath of office as President of the United States and felt, for the first time in my life, that maybe—just maybe—we were learning what equality really means.

And yet, I’m watching so much of that progress being undone in plain sight—rolled back by men who smile as they sign the papers. That’s what eats at me. We came so far. We proved we could change. And now I fear we’re proving how quickly we can forget.

I have one more fear—one that hits closer to home for me than any of the others, and yet it reaches out and encompasses them all.

I am afraid when I see LGBTQ freedoms stripped away in bill after state bill—protections withdrawn, rights revoked, marriages questioned, school policies reversed—while the rhetoric whispers “return to order,” but the victims are many.

It hits me hard, like a gut punch, because I know what it feels like to live quietly on the margins of acceptance. I had a place at the table—as long as I behaved. As long as I laughed at the right jokes. As long as I didn’t speak the truth of who I was. I was welcome, yes—but only in disguise. That was the unspoken bargain: conformity in exchange for belonging. A seat, but not a voice. Presence without personhood.

It took me years to understand that silence isn’t peace—it’s erasure wrapped in politeness. And acceptance that depends on pretending is not acceptance at all. So when I see hard-won freedoms for LGBTQ people being stripped away, I don’t see politics. I see people—people like me—being pushed back into the shadows we worked so long to escape.

I am afraid, too, of the silence that wears love’s disguise. Of families who say they accept us—so long as it’s private. Who love their gay brother or their trans child quietly, behind closed doors, but never speak that love out loud. Because public love takes courage, and private love costs nothing.

I am afraid that if the reckoning comes—and it may—some of us will look around and find that the people who said they loved us privately will deny us publicly.

And I am afraid that the ground is shifting for all of us—that what’s being erased is not just rights, but recognition of value.

I am afraid that we are being bombarded deliberately with so much chaos and confusion that we are forgetting what lies at the core of who we are—as Americans, yes, but more deeply, as human beings: the value of the individual.

The gay and the straight.
The trans and the cis.
The believer and the atheist.
The refugee and the citizen.
The imprisoned and the free.
The Black and the white.
The immigrant and the native-born.
The woman and the man.
The poor and the privileged.
The child and the elder.
The body that moves easily, and the one that cannot.
The mind that remembers, and the mind that forgets.
The one who speaks, and the one who has no voice.
The one who is seen, and the one who is invisible.

Each carries the same sacred value.
Each bears the image of us all.
Leave one behind, and the whole is diminished.
Forget one, and the soul of the people forgets itself.

I am afraid that this forgetting has already begun. It’s not just in Washington, though Washington leads the charge. It seeps into pulpits, classrooms, living rooms—into the quiet corners of our own decency. It’s in the news we scroll past, the cruelty we explain away, the silence we call “staying out of it.”

I am afraid because I see what happens when the faceless stay faceless—when the homeless become numbers, when the refugee becomes a threat, when the trans child becomes a talking point. I am afraid because I know what happens when we stop seeing each other as sacred.

And I am afraid because I’m not sure what I can do.

But I know I have to do something. We all do.

We can vote. We can write. We can reach out to those in power and to those who believe they hold it. But maybe more than any of those things, we can be fearless in proclaiming that we are afraid—afraid of what is happening, afraid of what might come, afraid of becoming numb to it all.

We can name it.
We can put a face to it.
We can be the moral engine of one—
each of us reaching further than comfort,
further than tribe or label—
to hold on to what makes us human,
to reclaim it before it slips away.

One human being girding up another.
One hand extended.
One voice saying, I see you.
That’s where resistance begins.

We can show, by the way we live, that each person matters—every single one. The forgotten, the dismissed, the weary, the silenced. Because the measure of a democracy—like the measure of a soul—is not how it treats the powerful, but how it protects the powerless.

So yes, I am afraid.
But fear, spoken aloud, can become light.
And light, once shared, can become strength.

Maybe that’s where our healing begins:
in the courage to care out loud,
to stand with the one beside us and say,
You are not forgotten.

Because the next person erased could be someone we love.
Or it could be us. You. Me.
But if we stand together—if we keep standing—
it will not be all of us.

⸻ ✦ ⸻ ⸻ ✦ ⸻ ⸻ ✦ ⸻

If this essay speaks to your heart, please like it. Please share it.
Let it travel further than fear—and bring us closer to hope.

Rise Up with Words. A Declaration for Our Troubled Times.

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THEN. July 2, 1776: The Continental Congress stood up to a king and voted to declare independence.

NOW. July 2, 2025: I’m standing up to the costume drama unfolding in our Capitol—my words against their charades, my truth against their power.

ACTION NEEDED. This is the most important piece I’ve written all year.

Please read. Please share. Please TAKE A STAND.

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

—Martin Niemöller (1892–1984), Lutheran minister and former U-boat commander who became one of Hitler’s most vocal clerical critics. Imprisoned in concentration camps from 1937 to 1945, Niemöller’s words became a timeless warning against silence in the face of tyranny.

We all know that words matter. But in these politically charged times — when so many people feel hopeless, unheard, and unseen — words matter even more. Words have always been more than sound or scribble; they are lifelines—tied to truth, tossed to the drowning. They can carry us from despair to resolve, from silence to solidarity, from helplessness to empowerment. They can become the bridge that carries us across the moments when our spirit grows weak. In moments like these, words aren’t just language. They are lifeboats we cling to, rallying cries we raise, and sparks that illuminate a path forward.

I have no doubt in the world that some of you are nodding in agreement while at the same time saying to yourself:

“Yes. Words matter, but I’m not good with words, and I’m certainly not good enough with words to build a bridge from here to anywhere.”

I hear you. Loud and clear.

But here’s the good thing: In times like these, when every nerve and muscle of our being is tested, we can turn to the famous words of history—words spoken or written in moments that felt just as dark as these—and draw strength from their resonance. At a minimum, we can be uplifted toward a more hopeful place. And perhaps—just perhaps—those words can fan a flame strong enough to make us stand, to speak out, to let our voices ring forth with all the conviction and courage we can muster, even if they aren’t as eloquent or melodious as we’d like them to be.

When our hope wanes as we witness an overwhelming litany of decisions made in the highest office of our land—unleashed overnight without consulting Congress—our hearts can still swell as we remember: this is not who we said we would be.

Colonial Americans didn’t stay silent. They made their grievances known in the Declaration of Independence—taxation without representation, abuse of power, the erosion of rights, power wielded like a whip, the slow strangling of liberty. And they didn’t just grumble. They declared. Boldly. They named the wrongs and named their remedy: a clean break from tyranny.

When our hope wanes as we witness the word “diversity” being rebranded as dangerous, when “equity” is twisted into an accusation, and when “inclusion” is weaponized to divide, our hearts can swell as we remember: this is not who we said we would be.

Our Nation’s Founding Fathers, for all their inconsistencies, still struck a promise into the air—a promise capacious enough to grow. And others carried it forward, naming the vision in clearer, bolder language.

In his 1782 essay What Is an American?, J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur offered a radical vision of unity through difference:

“Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labours and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world.”

This was not a call for sameness, but for a shared becoming—a future rooted in diversity, not afraid of it.

And even earlier, in 1774, America’s first published Black poet—Phillis Wheatley—penned a letter to the Reverend Samson Occom that reads like a quiet trumpet blast.

“In every human breast,” she wrote, “God has implanted a principle, which we call love of freedom; it is impatient of oppression and pants for deliverance.”

And then, with the same clarity, she penned the line that shames us in today’s politically charged times:

“How well the cry for liberty, and the reverse disposition for the exercise of oppressive power over others agree—I humbly think it does not require the penetration of a philosopher to determine.”

She wasn’t just America’s first great poet of color—she was its first great poet of conscience. And her words, like Crèvecœur’s, echo louder now than the noise trying to drown them.

When our hope wanes as we witness emergency decrees, loyalty tests, and watchdog purges—all pointing to a dangerous concentration of executive power, monarchical behavior parading around in a republic’s clothing—our hearts can swell as we remember: this is not who we said we would be.

Our Founding Fathers didn’t fight a king just to crown another in modern garb. They resisted not just a monarch, but monarchy itself—the idea that one man’s will should outweigh the people’s voice.

In 1776, as the revolution took hold, John Adams captured the essence of the American project with unwavering clarity:

“A republic is a government of laws, not of men.”

James Madison, writing in Federalist No. 47 (1788), took the warning further:

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands… may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

And Thomas Paine, never one to soften the blow, wrote in Common Sense (1776):

“A king hath little more to do than to make war and give away places; which in plain terms is to impoverish the nation and set it together by the ears.”

He cut straight to the danger of one man’s whims becoming national policy. Our founders knew what unchecked power looked like. They didn’t whisper. They shouted. And like the NO KINGS protests rising across our land today, they made it plain: we were never meant to be ruled.

When our hope wanes as we witness the slow dismantling of institutional independence—over 160 officials purged from agencies like the EEOC and NLRB, watchdogs replaced with loyalists, courts straining to hold the line—our hearts can swell again as we remember: this is not who we said we would be.

James Madison, in 1788, understood that power itself isn’t evil—but left unchecked, it becomes so.

“Wherever the real power in a Government lies,” he wrote, “there is the danger of oppression.”

He wasn’t warning about nameless bureaucrats—he was warning about any one person or faction gathering too much control, silencing dissent, and bypassing the balance that keeps liberty alive.

And Patrick Henry, fiery and fearless, stood on the floor of the Virginia Convention in 1775 and made no apologies for confronting tyranny:

“Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third… may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.”

Henry wasn’t inciting violence—he was demanding vigilance. He knew that loyalty to country means resisting those who betray its principles.

And now, as the Justice Department targets political opponents, journalists, legal voices, and civil society groups, we know without a doubt. This isn’t democracy defending itself. It’s power consuming dissent.

When our hope wanes as we watch protections rolled back—clean air, safe water, wild land handed over to those who see only profit—our hearts can swell again as we remember: this is not who we said we would be.

From the very start, we claimed a promise—not just to ourselves, but to our posterity. That word wasn’t filler. It meant something. It still does. Climate justice is that promise in action—seen now in rising seas, poisoned wells, and forests burning faster than we can name them. When leaders silence the science and gut the safeguards, they’re not just changing direction. This isn’t a policy shift. It’s a broken covenant.

Thomas Jefferson, a farmer before he was a Founder, believed that the land was not merely a resource but a shared inheritance. He wrote in 1785:

“The earth belongs…to the living.”

But even that came late. Native nations understood long before we put pen to parchment that land is not a prize—it’s a trust. They signed treaties in good faith. We broke them.

And now? We’re breaking faith again—not just with those who came before, but with those still to come. The damage isn’t distant. It’s here. The question isn’t whether we can fix it. The question is whether we will rise and demand that our leaders honor the covenant: to preserve the land, protect the future, and remember—this earth was never ours to ruin.

When our hope wanes as we watch truth itself come under siege—journalists threatened, teachers silenced, libraries politicized—our hearts can swell again as we remember: this is not who we said we would be.

Thomas Jefferson, in 1787, didn’t hedge:

“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

Even in their disagreement, our founders understood the power of a free press not just to inform, but to guard against tyranny.

Benjamin Franklin, both printer and revolutionary, warned us plainly:

“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”

And it isn’t just the founding generation we can turn to. In 1949, Harry Truman, no stranger to press scrutiny, said:

“Once a government is committed to silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go—and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens.”

These weren’t sentimental niceties. They were warnings. We don’t need to like every headline or trust every journalist. But when we allow the press to be painted as treasonous, we’re not protecting freedom—we’re abandoning it.

When our hope wanes as we watch universities bow to political pressure—when scholars are silenced, curriculums censored, and the pursuit of knowledge reshaped to please the powerful—our hearts can swell again as we remember: this is not who we said we would be.

Harvard, our first university, wasn’t founded to flatter authority. It was founded in 1636 to train ministers, yes—but also to nurture thought, sharpen conscience, and elevate public understanding. In 1650, its charter affirmed that the ends of education were not just knowledge, but wisdom.

And yet now, we see calls for partisan oversight of hiring and research. Ideological litmus tests. Attempts to turn places of learning into arenas of political control. Harvard, so far, has stood its ground—but the pressure is mounting. And the lesson is not just for Harvard. At Columbia, at UVA, across campuses nationwide, faculty and students are being told to speak carefully or not at all.

Academic freedom isn’t a fringe privilege. It’s a cornerstone of democracy. John Adams, educated at Harvard, warned back in 1765:

“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right… to knowledge as they have to liberty.”

He knew: take away knowledge, and liberty won’t be far behind. That’s what’s at stake now—not just tenure or textbooks, but the freedom to think without permission. A nation that punishes thinking is not preparing its future. It’s protecting the throne of a wannabe king.

When our hope wanes as we watch even the Library of Congress—the nation’s repository of truth—reduced to a partisan pawn, our hearts can swell again as we remember: this is not who we said we would be.

Established in 1800, the Library of Congress was created for one reason: to serve all members of Congress, regardless of party, with nonpartisan, factual information to guide legislation and uphold the public good.

It wasn’t designed to serve the president. It wasn’t created to chase political favor. It was built to anchor democracy with facts, scholarship, and shared access to knowledge.

When Jefferson sold his personal library to rebuild the collection after the War of 1812, he wrote:

“There is, in fact, no subject to which a member of Congress may not have occasion to refer.”

That was the point: to ensure no lawmaker, from any district or ideology, would be left without the resources to govern wisely.

Today, that founding principle is under siege. Efforts to reshape the Library’s leadership along partisan lines don’t merely politicize a post—they betray the institution’s very purpose. When the branch meant to inform all of Congress begins answering to one man, we haven’t just weakened an agency. We run the risk of surrendering our intellectual compass. Library of Congress leadership—and Congress—must stand strong against the whims of power.

When our hope wanes as we watch a president bypass Congress and drop bombs in secret—our hearts can swell again as we remember: this is not who we said we would be.

James Madison, in 1795, saw the danger long before drones and bunker-busters:

“The executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it… It has accordingly, with studied care, vested the question of war in the legislature.”

On June 22, 2025, under the name Operation Midnight Hammer, U.S. bombers struck three Iranian nuclear facilities—Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. No congressional debate. No formal authorization. No imminent threat. Just one man, acting alone—bypassing the branch meant to check him, using our military not to defend, but to declare.

This wasn’t war by necessity. It was war by fiat—a president bypassing the branch meant to restrain him, using our military not to defend the nation, but to flex unchecked power.

And here’s what should keep us up at night: presidents no longer need troops on the ground to wage war. All it takes is air clearance, a press team to spin the story, and a public too stunned or exhausted to object. When war becomes a solo act, democracy becomes a stage—and we become the silent audience. This isn’t national security. It’s autocracy with attitude and altitude. And if we shrug it off now, we may not recognize the next war until it’s already being fought in our name—with no one left to ask for permission.

And so, to every American who feels the ground shifting beneath us—hear this:

Our liberty was not built for silence.
Our independence was not meant to sleep.
Our democracy was not handed down to be hoarded or hollowed out.

It was meant to be lived—fought for—spoken into being.

So we rise.

To take a stand against leaders who crave loyalty but abandon law.
To take a stand against forests felled and futures stolen.
To take a stand against truth trampled beneath propaganda—and the politicizing of the Library of Congress itself.
To take a stand against teachers gagged, reporters threatened, watchdogs replaced.
To take a stand against bombs dropped in secret and power seized in silence.

We rise with our voices—
not to plead, but to proclaim.
Not to whisper but to roar.

Because words are not ornaments. They are weapons—sacred ones.
They are how a free people sharpen their resolve.
They are how we mark the line: This far. No further.

We will not go quiet.
We will not stand down.
We will not forget who we said we would be.

As we honor the liberty and independence that define who we are, who we were, and who we still must become—

Let us remember, on this Fourth of July:

Take a stand with words.
They matter now more than ever.

What Could $40 Million Do—Besides Fund a Parade? A Love Letter to Priorities (with a Side-Eye to A Spectacle)

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“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

–Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968). More than a civil rights leader, Dr. King spent his life demanding justice for the marginalized and calling out moral silence wherever it lived. His words still hold us accountable.

We’ve had a lot of rain lately here in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, in the shadow of the Nation’s Capitol. And with it, a whole lot of fog—literal and metaphorical.

It’s put me in a reflective mood.

It started one morning when I was scrolling casually through the headlines. I sat up and took notice when I saw:

“Estimated Cost of Trump’s June 14 Parade? $40 Million.”

Not as bad as the $95 million that had been projected.

But still.

Forty. Million. Dollars.

For a parade.

Let’s be clear. My reflections aren’t a swipe at the military or the veterans who’ve served with honor. I respect them deeply. I always have.

What leaves me flummoxed—furious, frankly—is that we dropped forty million dollars on smoke and swagger.

● Not for healthcare.
● Not for housing.
● Not for education.
● Not for the aging.
● Not for the homeless.
● Not for the hungry.
● Not for climate justice?
● Not for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Not for [inhale, Dear Reader, and name one or two things that you would add to the chance to spend $40 million well and wisely for the benefit of humanity].

Not one penny went to any of those things.

Instead, we spent it on a parade. And not much of one at that.

Mind you, I’m not against a little razzle-dazzle. I’m not even against a lot of razzle dazzle. I love a marching band. And I’ve been known to twirl a dish towel like a drum major when I think no one’s looking. But this wasn’t Macy’s Thanksgiving. This was missile-forward, masculinity-on-wheels, smoke-and-flag showmanship—aimed at impressing whom, exactly?

And all I could think was:

I could do a lot with that.

I started Googling some numbers. These aren’t fantasy figures that I’m about to share. They’re ballpark estimates based on real programs already out there doing the real work.

Education

I spent twenty-three years in the community-college classroom. I know what $40 million could do when it puts on a blazer of determination and joins hands at a table that includes all the diverse stakeholders waiting for their lives to be transformed:

● Two years of community college for around 15,000 students. That’s 15,000 young folks trading fear for futures.

● Salaries and benefits for 500 new public school teachers. The ones fighting ignorance and inequality every day.

● After-school programs for 100,000 children. Imagine safe spaces, hot meals, books, and someone who actually listens.

● $20,000 for every public school in Virginia. For libraries. For music. For classrooms without walls.

● 400 endowed scholarships that would change entire family trees. Can you imagine such a forest of hope?

Or, How’s This? Give It to Me.

That’s right. Just hand it over, every copper penny of that $40 million. I promise to use it wisely—and a little wickedly.

I’d found a rural writers’ residency here in the Shenandoah Valley—where ideas blossom, meals come with flaky sourdough biscuits, and the only uniform required is pajamas and nerve.

I’d start a learning center for older adults who want to tango with AI rather than fear it. There’d be cakes, cakes, and more cakes. And, yes, I’d teach the class. For free.

I’d fund free college courses for anyone over 70. I know firsthand that curiosity doesn’t age—and neither should opportunity.

I’d create a cozy grant for storytellers who need time, space, and soup. You bring the plot twist; I’ll bring the pot and the lentils. And the mic. And the computers with printers and some really good paper. Maybe even some vellum. Everyone has a story to tell. And everyone’s story deserves to be shared.

And yes—I’d upgrade my Wi-Fi. But I’d pay for that perk out of my own pocket. I can’t possibly imagine a future on a buffering screen like mine.

But Let’s Go Bigger. Let’s Go National. Let’s Get Serious.

What else could we buy with $40 million?

HEALTHCARE

● 13,000 diabetics could get insulin for a year.

● 8,000 people could have cataract surgeries to restore sight and dignity.

● 4,000 new therapy slots could be created for those in need of mental health care.

● Mobile clinics could motor in to rural Americans who don’t have a doctor, let alone a parade.

HOUSING

● 800 tiny homes for unhoused veterans.

● 6,500 rental assistance grants to prevent families from being evicted into the street.

● Thousands of critical home repairs for aging Americans clinging to the roof over their heads.

Or simply this: $40 million could give dignity back to the people living in tents and doorways.

People say we have a housing shortage. We don’t. We have a compassion shortage.

FOOD & NUTRITION

● Feed 60,000 families of four for a month.

● Provide 20 million school lunches.

● Stock rural food banks for a year.

CHILDCARE & EARLY LEARNING

● 1,500 toddlers in full-time childcare for a year.

● 4,000 Head Start slots—the kind that change lives before kindergarten.

INFRASTRUCTURE & JOBS

● 20 miles of roads resurfaced.

● 1,000 community clean-up and green jobs created at $40K/year.

● 1 million trees planted in urban neighborhoods, providing shade, oxygen, and hope.

ADDICTION & PUBLIC SAFETY

● 100,000 naloxone kits to reverse opioid overdoses.

● 500 addiction recovery beds funded for a full year.

And that’s just the start.

$40 million could fund addiction clinics, community gardens, clean drinking water, and elder care.

It could stock classrooms with books, shelters with blankets, neighborhoods with trees, and rural towns with Wi-Fi.

It could buy wheelchairs, job training, clean clothes, bus passes, internet hotspots, warm meals, and cool air in heatwaves.

Forty million dollars could meet people where they are—and remind them they matter.

Instead, $40 million gave us a parade of tanks.

And flyovers.

And swagger.

I suppose there’s a place for showmanship. But if you ask me—when you’ve got $40 million to spend and a nation full of potholes, potholes in minds and hearts and homes—it might be time to fund possibility instead of parades.

You know what else? I’ll bet that if you asked the uniformed troops who were supposedly being honored, they too would vote for funding a world of forever possibilities instead of one day with a parade.

Because the real power? It isn’t missiles or marching.

It’s in meals, and music, and morning classes.

It’s in someone whispering, “I believe in you,” with a scholarship check in hand.

It’s in turning the lights on in places that have lived too long in the dark.

But we didn’t choose any of that.

We chose a spectacle.

We chose to posture for the world—while the world watched a nation that can’t feed its children waste millions playing dress-up with its military.

It wasn’t patriotism.

It was performance.

History saw June 14, 2025, for what it was—a flag-wrapped, reality-show distraction from the real work of freedom.

And history will remember.