We thought we’d do something a little different today. We know many folks are feeling sick to their stomachs seeing crowds cheering (and even one-upping) a U.S. President who spews racial and xenophobic ugliness and hate. And it will no doubt continue. One (just one) GOP Congressman said such fascist-sounding chants "would send chills down the spines of our Founding Fathers." No argument there.
Also no argument that these same Founding Fathers would be furious at the many “under the radar” moves by this government to systemically undermine the Constitution’s Seventh Amendment – the right to civil jury trial. Today, for example, the Trump administration finalized a rule allowing nursing homes to force abused and neglected residents into secret, rigged arbitration to resolve disputes, reversing Obama’s earlier pro-senior rule. This is just one of hundreds of public protections that this administration has eviscerated. It’s enough to make you want to go to sleep until January 2021.
For anyone who’s feeling that kind of way, especially anyone concerned that they might be witnessing the rise of Nazi-like facsim here in America, I thought I’d reproduce part of a speech that Winston Churchill gave in October 1941. Imagine what he was facing at that time, his country brutally battered and, many believed, on its way to defeat. He said this to students at his alma mater, Harrow School:
You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination.
But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period - I am addressing myself to the School - surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated.
Very different is the mood today. Britain, other nations thought, had drawn a sponge across her slate. But instead our country stood in the gap. There was no flinching and no thought of giving in; and by what seemed almost a miracle to those outside these Islands, though we ourselves never doubted it, we now find ourselves in a position where I say that we can be sure that we have only to persevere to conquer.
Here are a few more pearls of wisdom:
“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.” –Franklin D. Roosevelt (April 13, 1945)
“[W]e may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. It may even be necessary to encounter the defeat, so that we can know who we are. So that we can see, oh, that happened, and I rose.” – Maya Angelou
“Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.” – Will Rogers
Tomorrow’s another day, folks. And remember, there are more of us.
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