Never Forget 2020
Yep, 2020 just sucked, without question. But in my opinion it would be a mistake to want to forget it as things get marginally better, as now some people suggest they would like to do. On the verge of 2021, we would like to look ahead to better times and put the anguish and suffering that was 2020 behind us, but I don’t think we should and I don’t think we will.
Like the 1918 Pandemic, the Great Depression, the World Wars and 9/11 I am hopeful that the events of 2020 will indelibly change us as those events changed the generations of people that experienced those catastrophes. Because the suffering and deaths we’ve witnessed in 2020 must mean something to us.
What truths have we had confirmed or learned for the first time in 2020? There are many, but the principal ones seem to me to be these.
· Doctors, nurses, all health care workers and hospital staff have been horribly taken advantage of due to an historic degree of malfeasance in mismanaging the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.
· Science is critical to informing our societal decisions, is ignored at our peril and must be respected.
· Facts matter. The truth matters. Decency matters.
· The free press is essential to our liberty and must be protected from fascist attack.
· Systemic racism remains embedded in our social institutions and dangerously so in law enforcement.
· Seductive distractions and trivialities reveal themselves in crisis and give way to what is essential, e.g., the critical importance of family and friends, good health, putting food on the table, having a roof over our head and properly educating all our children.
· Teachers and service workers of all types are heroes, must be paid a living wage and receive the benefits of health insurance and paid time off.
· The social safety net (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment Insurance, SNAP and Affordable Health Care) is fragile and must be strengthened.
· Suffering in crisis preferentially falls on the poor, people of color, the elderly, the infirm, indigenous people and children.
· Many politicians are more concerned about being elected than helping the most vulnerable people when they are in crisis.
· The Republican Party has devolved into a snarky, cynical, greedy, cruel, racist, white supremacist zombie cult whose members must be replaced at every level of government by compassionate human beings.
· Democracy, too, is fragile and regrettably many Americans are quite comfortable with a racist, pathologically lying, authoritarian oligarch in a position of ultimate authority.
· We must all be activists for change now. Our existence as free people depends of our activism.
A few months ago when there seemed like a real possibility we could see another four years of the present administration, I started to write a piece that I was going to title, “Is this Hell?”
It just seemed to me like we had slipped into a state where evil was just winning at every turn, and the classical binary struggles and choices were falling consistently in the wrong direction. Good vs. evil. Haves vs. have-nots. Greed vs. compassion. White nationalism vs. multiculturalism. Rationalism vs. emotionalism. Facts vs. opinion. Science vs. conspiracy theory. Truth vs. lies. Love vs. hate. Light vs. dark.
But I shelved that article and just kept working to help prevent Armageddon. Now, with 2021 approaching and some hope that the tides may be turning a bit, it seems right to embrace what happened in 2020 and integrate the lessons we have learned and ACT OUT to never let it happen again.
It is going to take a lot of work. We’ve only just barely averted complete disaster, and the Dark Side is well entrenched. Bringing light to every aspect of our society will take time, but that is what we must do.
So, have a Happy New Year. It will get better, if we work at it. And never, ever forget 2020.
(P.S. If you’re stuck for a resolution, I have one for you: Resolve to Evolve!)
