The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution<\/em><\/a> — explaining why the course of civilization has often been so tormented.)<\/p>\nWe in America today do not have the option we\u2019d prefer, of going on as before and have everything be all right.<\/p>\n
In plain sight, those relentless forces that have taken over the Republican Party are working against pretty much everything we believe in: justice to protect the weak, respect for the truth in our democratic deliberations, compassion for our fellow citizens, and care for the integrity of the living systems on which we all depend for our survival.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the nature of what we\u2019re called to fight and defeat. The stakes could hardly be higher.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re not the first to be required by the luck of the historical draw to be called to a duty we\u2019d not desired.<\/p>\n
In the 1940s, my father\u2019s generation had to set aside the lives they would have preferred to lead \u2014 lives richer and more humane than fighting their way across France or the islands of the Pacific \u2013 because it was necessary to defeat a destructive force that had arisen in Europe and Asia.<\/p>\n
The present generation of Americans has a moral responsibility to sacrifice our ease and comfort to defend the same values by fighting here at home.<\/p>\n
We should be thankful that ours is a different kind of battle from the one my father\u2019s generation had to fight. They had to put their lives on the line, while we just need to set our preferred lives temporarily aside. They had to fight with the weapons of war, while we get to fight with the truth as our weapon.<\/p>\n
It is our good fortune that we retain enough of our democracy that our battle will be decided not by seizing territory by force but by shaping the understanding of the American people.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve got a plan for how we can strike a meaningful blow in that battle of words and ideas.<\/p>\n
In the coming weeks, I\u2019ll be presenting here a series of articles dealing with both sides of our political pathology. This series, with the name \u201cPress the Battle,\u201d will make the case \u2014 and make it stick \u2014 against the force that\u2019s taken over the Republican Party, calling out its repugnant and destructive nature.<\/p>\n
And, at the same time, this series will confront the sources of Liberal America\u2019s weakness and try to light a fire in Liberal America, kindling the latent power of our moral and spiritual passions.<\/p>\n
With this series, I will ask not just for your attention but also for your help. It is my hope that you will work with me to find ways of getting our national conversation to focus on the true nature of what\u2019s gone wrong in America.<\/p>\n
Changing our national conversation is necessary for setting things right. Is it not a kind of insanity for this nation to treat today\u2019s Republican Party as if it were something almost normal, respectable, acceptable? That\u2019s not how you treat something that\u2019s trampling on all those values that made the nation great.<\/p>\n
I, for one, am determined that my grandchildren will not ask me someday, \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you trouble yourself to do something while America became a society that\u2019s ruled by greed and the lust for power, that\u2019s deceived by propaganda masquerading as news, that exploits rather than serves its people?\u201d<\/p>\n
I hope you share that determination.<\/p>\n
Watch this space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In America right now there\u2019s a battle that needs to be fought and won in our political arena. It\u2019s a battle over what kind of country, and what kind of planet, our children and grandchildren will live in. Although some people like waging battle \u2014 some even insist on it \u2014 most liberals I\u2019ve known […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13387"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13387"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13725,"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13387\/revisions\/13725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}