We are in an unimaginable crisis as a nation. Yet we have enormous strength. We were gifted with confidence that our democracy and constitution can rise to overcome the worst oppressions humans can suffer from each other. Now we have a complex conversion of crises. Martin Luther King’s birthday is a time to remember that the crises he said we shall overcome “someday” are not yet overcome. We need his vision for insight since the enemy, in different form, is back again.
It’s the biggest lie then and now, that some of us are less worthy than others, permanently unqualified for full protection of our constitution, for the best jobs, for leadership in our nation, or to simply live. The obvious lie of our mentally questionable president has been powerful to open a path ahead. Yes he did not lose because the election was rigged against him. He lost because the people voted him out. We can be thankful it wasn’t close. We as a people have chosen against the lie about the results of our election.
But there is this other lie. The famous Big Lie Hitler sold successfully to Germany was that Jews are enemies of all citizens of the “fatherland.” But more important, They were called bad people, and eventually far worse. Of course, the big lie had an unquestioned small truth: many Jewish families owned shares in German banks. And among them, as in all segments of human societies, criminality sometimes occurred. Unacknowledged was the truth that this criminality occurred, if anything, more often in the rest of German society. But the big lie led to rampage, rioting, “kristallnacht,” and genocide. The big lie remains, that humans are not endowed by the Creator with equal rights. But they are. It’s in our constitution. That’s truth.
We don't want our nation repeating the history of Germany’s holocaust against the Jews. Our democratic values are stronger. We will destroy an insurgency with patience and strength of truth. It depends on our capacity, now that the vote is clear, to keep valuing and nurturing any small voice, rational and legitimate, raised in protest to be heard and respected. The small true voice was hard to hear in the loud mob violence of that event. But Consortium News reports it January 16.
The demonstrators did plan the portrayal of a possible insurrection, but, Chris Hedges says. Their plans may really not have intended murder, kidnapping, or hostage-taking. The message clearly overstated was, “it can happen.” He quotes a demonstrator, “We gotta change it. They f…g abuse us. They laugh at us. They steal our money.” Last Thursday Hedges wrote further, “one can decry their politics, the racism among many, and their tactics, but their pain is real in a system that has shrunk the middle class and debased workers across the nation. What happened at the Capitol cannot be condoned. But unless Congress defies its oligarchic backers and serves the interests of (all) average Americans, who also fund them, a real insurrection may be inevitable. Instead of the reforms to defuse that and bring more economic justice, we are witnessing a crackdown that will only further inflame the country.”
There is no equivalency in the lies and the loss of voice, deadly violence, and generations of abuse between the January 6 White demonstrators and the Black Lives Matter demonstrators. But there is one common ground. Both sides are still set to lose, like they did as our president watched, hidden in cowardice, as the violence unfolded. An item not reported is the strength of American values stopping the carnage when a leader demanded “leave her chair alone, don’t mess up the papers” after forced entry into one of the congressional offices. The presence, regardless of how small, of respect for our constitution and our elected leadership can defuse our president-inspired polarity. The biggest lie is that some of us, any group of us, are more expendable, low life, too old, too young, wrong gender, wrong color, too poor, too addicted, too redneck, or not worth hearing or caring about. Unraveling that lie is our common need. And it oppresses both sides of the polarized divide.
The nation’s most visible enemy affecting us in Montana is not the visible lie about the election itself. It’s not congressmen like Cruz and Hawley who still promote believing the lie. In my home county, the battle against our Big Lie is carried by our Montana Missing & Murdered Indigenous People (see it on Facebook). It’s a more hidden form hiding in our good families across Montana, and in my very own family too.. It expresses itself in our souls, touched by singer Bob Marley’s words, as “mental slavery.” It defied and eliminated the fairness doctrine that used to guarantee dialogue and debate with civility on our media, voted out 20 years ago. And we can and will recover, as we define and excise our mental slavery, regardless of victimhood or perpetrator roles.
Black Lives Matter, and Missing and Murdered Indigenous People, are ahead of most of us past those lies. The “Proud Boys” and “Q-Anon” have members who can agree on this truth, seen by millions when George Floyd was killed. We need both sides helping unravel it all. It’s mental slavery at the root of job loss, unlivable wages, the pandemic, broken families, addictions and incarceration. These issues can now unite against our departing government gone awry with intentions to inflame and ignite our polarity into violence. We can build a new direction with careful Republican pursuit of the many ways Democrats can also misuse the power entrusted them by our votes. Republicans who continue the president’s false conspiracy theories should now start losing.
Let’s trust God and his way, the words and life of Dr. Martin Luther King, and the record of nations in our Bible. It culminates in the stories of Jesus. Let’s read it and follow it. That’s the best way forward for anyone claiming “Jesus Saves.” For us all, pray for courage to allow our religious traditions to cleanse us from any elements of mental slavery.
We in Montana can find God’s way for our nation together. We shall overcome.
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