"Greatest Generation? Here’s Our Chance to Rise to the Occasion"

[GreenPartyVoter]

At times over the past year, I’ve felt resentful at having to deal with the terrible challenge posed by the rise of evil forces in America. Why can’t I just lead the life I want to lead, I’d ask myself at such moments?

Before late summer of 2004 –before I was awakened to the depth of this danger by those lying Swiftboat ads, and by the Republican National Convention (with its vitriol and its phony postures of righteousness)—I was focused on such lovely things. I was writing a book that explores those pathways that take us into our most deeply meaningful experiences, weaving together such elements as John Muir’s description of the “radiant beauty” he saw pouring out of the earth at Yosemite and as Beethoven’s spiritual vision in the first movement of his 7th Symphony.

But then the menace of these Bushite forces called me away from looking at the good, the true, and the beautiful, as I became aware that, for the sake of the future of America and of the whole planet, we had to confront the evil, the false, and the ugly—for these had taken control over the greatest power on earth.

Muir and Beethoven and all the rest of those who have shown us the way to what is wonderful in life then became for me like the scene depicted on the famous shield of Achilles in The Iliad—a scene of human life blessed by bounty and justice and wedding celebrations, a remembrance perhaps of what is worth fighting for, but of what one has had to leave behind to go off to battle.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1206-25.htm