The Coming of the Great Dissolution

 

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

The sad and failed state known as The United States of America is facing a time of reckoning.   The country is unable to live up to even the preamble of its constitution, let alone the body of laws contained within the constitution itself. 

First, there is no “we the people,” in The United States, and there is no hope of a “more perfect Union.”  

I’ve spoken and written for some time about the ways in which the so-called “United States” was not at all united.  I’ve watched over the course of my whole lifetime – over six decades now – at how this country has fallen more and more completely into the grip of some of the most base behaviors – driven by greed, by a zeal for a system of inequality, a lust for world domination.  White men with a sense of holy destiny have seized a blood-thirsty power which they’ve exercised to crush the well-being of all others, both at home and abroad.  This is what is defined as “leadership” in the U.S.  It is a leadership that is nourished by misery and disunion.  

Never has the wickedness of this country been revealed so clearly as in these last four years, under the presidency of a man for whom morality, decency, law, ethics, and honor have no meaning.  A man who has presided over a country where asylum seekers are abused, their children torn from them and caged; where economic inequality continues to create both obscene wealth and horrifying poverty; where hatred and violence are encouraged, and the most base behaviors are applauded; where racism, sexism, xenophobia, and homophobia are normalized and lauded as “morality”; where a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic is allowed to ravage an entire citizenry and devastate an economy; where science and knowledge are ignored and demeaned; where our environment is savaged for profit; where our role on the world stage has been turned into a vulgar circus performance.  Many of us have looked on in horror and humiliation as this America has been exposed to the world – a world which has known these truths about us for much longer than we have accepted these truths about ourselves.  

In such a country, how can true justice be established? 

There is no living in denial now.  The election which just took place, for many, held forth hope that all of what we’ve experienced and confronted in these last four years could finally be repudiated.  The possibility of hitting a reset button, albeit with an opposing candidate who promised little of what the majority of citizens wanted and needed, but who held out the pale hope that we could at least begin to lift our faces to the sun, could at least begin to address all the grievous wrongs made so obvious and undeniable since 2016, offered us hope.  

That hope was shredded last night, as the votes across the nation were tallied, and we watched, many of us in horror, as we saw that a very large portion of our population is just fine with what had taken place over these last four years.  They are so fine with it, in fact, that – in large numbers – they voted for more.  

There is no hope of “domestic tranquility” in such a country.  Neither is there any possibility of a “common defense,” when our laws are applied unequally, where our wealthiest are cloaked in protection despite their criminality. 

General welfare? 

There is no denying that we are not one people. There is no unified vision for how to define and manifest “general welfare.”  There is no denying that the vision and values of those who support the kind of country Donald Trump and his cabal are creating is not what at least 50% of the country wants.  This is not merely the difference of political opinion.  This is about morality.  It’s about decency.  It’s about honor and duty and ethics.  A group of people who think that the amorality represented by the Donald Trumps of the world is acceptable cannot live in harmony with those who believe the opposite.  A group of people who think that the countless number of black men and women who have been murdered in this country by racist police "had to be doing something wrong,” cannot live in harmony with those who stand for a system of justice that protects all people equally.  Those who don’t acknowledge the economic injustices that keep at least half of our citizens living at or near the poverty line can’t live equitably with those who want an economic system that provides more equally and generously for all.  

There can be no “blessings of liberty” without the protection of equality, without economic well-being for all, without health, learning, safety and security provided for all.  

It is time to acknowledge that there is an un-mendable schism among the people who live on this continent, and that we can no longer, and should no longer, be held together as one people.  

 All we have to do is look at the election map from last night to see where the lines are already drawn.  The “blue states” of the west coast are one region, the “blue states” of the northeast and New England are another region, where the majority of citizens are holding forth a very different vision of the kind of country they want to create.  

It’s time that we stop trying to convince the steadfastly unconvince-able, and to “turn the tide” of a tsunami of wrong.  We need to acknowledge that our vision has to be made manifest in the formation of new nations.  

For support of this position, we need look no further than the “Declaration of Independence” itself: 

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

While the 18th century world may well have been stunned by the actions of the colonies against the power of Britain, our own world will not be shocked at such a dissolution.  In fact, there is reason to believe that much of the world would be relieved and heartened to know that there are many people on this continent who refuse to condone or take part in the behaviors of the renegade country that calls itself The United States.  

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

There is no question that the current government of the United States has long been destructive to such ends.  It is therefore not only the right, but the responsibility of those of us who stand against this destruction of rights, to dissolve the “bonds” with such a government and lay the foundation not only of a new government, but indeed of new nations on this continent which are committed to the faithful commitment and vigorous enactment of such rights.  These new nations should also be faithfully committed to the protection and advancement of these rights around the world.  

There is no reason for those “red states” of the United States to try and prevent the dissolution encouraged here.  These people make it clear that they despise us and everything we hold dear.  They have made it clear that they would rather we disappear….even to the point of threatening us with guns and destruction, with the encouragement and blessing of this government.  They should, in fact, embrace any suggestion that we dissolve this unholy union and begin to reform the boundaries of the continent.  It is time to declare that we, in these blue regions, are free to form new nations, that we absolve ourselves of all allegiance to and political connection with the country calling itself The United States. 

It’s time to begin taking the idea of dissolution seriously, and to begin discussions in our “blue” regions about how to go about doing such enormous, but such essential work.