Leadership
Crisis
“Standing
firm on principles and doing the right thing even when there may be a high cost
to doing so, are qualities that anyone should aspire to—no matter whether they
are male, female or reject binary gender categories altogether.”
John
F. Harris (“Liz Cheney Wins the GOP’s Manhood Contest,” Politico, July 7, 2022)
Former
President Dwight D. Eisenhower summed it up when he said, “A people that values
its privileges above its principles soon loses both.” Sounds like a line straight
out of the Tao Te Ching, doesn’t it? The truth is, as a nation we are there—we’ve
lost both. Because we are so busy fighting amongst ourselves, we’ve lost standing
in the world. It’s not honest debate, it’s mud wrestling. And now it seems we
would rather see weekly, almost daily, incidences of mass murder of children
and teenagers than give up our desire for assault weapons. We prefer to take
away the freedom of women to make choices about their own bodies than to take
away the freedom of men to tote automatic weapons in public. We feel entitled
to criticize other nations over their human-rights violations when we ourselves
have a terrible history of slavery, entrenched multi-generational poverty, and
oppression. It’s hypocritical and simply wrong-headed.
Henry Kissinger
said there is a dearth of great leaders in America today. I couldn’t agree
more. We have very few elected representatives who are willing to lead by
example—who are willing to sacrifice their own career and reputation to do what
is right. We have too many who protect their own assets, who get in step with
the skewed party agenda, and remain silent in the face of corruption and
outright crime. Ella Wheeler Wilcox had something to say about that: “To sin
by silence, when they should protest, makes cowards of men.”
There
is a moral crisis in America today. We have lost our way. We have succumbed to
our greed and our unfounded notions of superiority and exceptionality. Until we
remember the principles of our Constitution—including “that all men are created
equal,” and separation of church and state—we will languish and flounder. In a
nation that was intended by its founders to be a unique example of democracy, are
we willing to sacrifice it all to the gods of capitalism?
It is
my great hope that we will wake up in time to keep more innocent people from
being shot dead by angry young white men. This is a travesty that should cause
a deep sadness and soul searching in the hearts of Americans of all ages and
genders. We could use a day of mourning—for our county, for ourselves, for all
the souls we’ve lost to gun violence and covid, and for our democratic and
moral principles.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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