{"id":301,"date":"2021-07-17T21:51:47","date_gmt":"2021-07-17T21:51:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pilgrimsj.unitingchurch.org.au\/?p=301"},"modified":"2021-07-17T21:59:47","modified_gmt":"2021-07-17T21:59:47","slug":"we-will-be-known","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pilgrimsj.unitingchurch.org.au\/?p=301","title":{"rendered":"We will be known"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Parker J Palmer writes (in the context of the USA but so applicable more generally):
40 years ago, Ronald Reagan, with his winning smile, headed our Ship of State toward an iceberg. First, he uttered words that became all the rage with half the country: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.\u201d (Ed note: Uh oh, didn’t KRudd make that his campaign mantra?)<\/em>. Second, he began hawking the myth of \u201ctrickle-down\u201d economics: \u201cRelieve the very rich of their *unfair* tax burden, and they will create jobs and make everyone richer.\u201dUnfortunately for those of us aboard the Titanic, trickle-down has never worked for the common good\u2014it just makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. https:\/\/tinyurl.com\/ja9u637k<\/a> And Reagan’s anti-government rhetoric morphed into the rage of Jan. 6, when white supremacist terrorists, egged on by The Former Guy with his losing scowl, did their worst to bring our government down.Now Republicans have all hands on deck to take us to our Titanic moment ASAP. They keep insisting that the last election involved massive fraud, for which there is zero evidence. And they claim that federal support for financially strapped individuals, families, and businesses equals \u201csocialism,\u201d which it does NOT.Socialism is \u201can economic and political system where the community or state OWNS the general means of production (i. e. farms, factories, tools, and raw materials).\u201d I dunno about where you live, but we ain\u2019t got none of that in these parts.Of course, the subtext of all of this is white supremacy: \u201cPoor people of color don\u2019t deserve federal support, it will only make them lazier. But the rich have earned it thru hard work. And the fact that people of color will soon be in the majority means that we must impede their ability to vote. Of course, we must also stop educating white Americans about race and poverty, lest they get a clue and start voting against us.\u201dThe change of course Reagan plotted 40 years ago has taken us to a moment of peril in American history. It\u2019s long past time for more of us to realize where we are headed, and find nonviolent ways to turn this massive ship around. If we don\u2019t, there\u2019s more than one iceberg ahead: first comes authoritarianism, then comes fascism, then come the deadly deeps. When Mary Oliver says, \u201cWe WILL be known” as a mean- and hard-hearted country, she\u2019s suggesting that history is not through with us yet. May all who love democracy get behind every effort to turn our Ship of State toward the light and new life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Parker J Palmer writes (in the context of the USA but so applicable more generally): 40 years ago, Ronald Reagan, with his winning smile, headed our Ship of State toward an iceberg. First, he uttered words that became all the rage with half the country: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":306,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-publications-and-resources"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pilgrimsj.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pilgrimsj.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pilgrimsj.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pilgrimsj.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pilgrimsj.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=301"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pilgrimsj.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303,"href":"https:\/\/pilgrimsj.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions\/303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pilgrimsj.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pilgrimsj.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pilgrimsj.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pilgrimsj.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}