Just Read that Article on Texas Seceding, and It Sparked a Whole Cascade of Thoughts

(Where are we going? Why are we in this handcart?)

Yesterday Mother Jones featured an article titled “Texas Republicans Inch Closer to Secession.”

Of course this is all a bit bogus. Yes, secession is a part of the imaginary life of Texas. But as they like to say in Texas this tends to be all hat and no cattle. And as a bit of a reality check, it does say in the article that since President Obama came into office the “nationalist” party has added hundreds of new members. Emphasis on hundreds.

And. Stranger things have happened.

So, Texas voting for secession? Sure. Could happen.

Should that highly unlikely thing happen, a bit of a constitutional crisis, of course, follows. The issue of whether states can in fact secede was resolved a bit more than a hundred and fifty years ago. Still, in the unlikely event of them wanting to try again, I can imagine other Southern or Sunbelt states following, with that motto “We don’t need all that blue state money pouring in to support us as it currently does, we will be pure in our,” well, whatever it is they want to be pure about. That has become increasingly unclear to me. But I think it has something to do with guns, and a particular version of a well known religion wanting to be unencumbered by constitutional constraints on its alliance with the government. Oh, and allowing the pure to return to those other cherished traditions of racism, sexism,and homophobia without the PC police calling them out.

Fantasy time. And. But. However. The big thing this article triggers for me is that discontent racing across the collective heart of the Republic. And that’s something real.

My friends on the left are allowing themselves fantasies of a seventy-five year old Socialist Jew sweeping into office at the head of a youth revolt. While my Facebook feed is filled with explanations of how the senator will in fact win the nomination, as at this writing it would take the senator winning all remaining contests by eighty-five percent margins, it seems fair to see the majority of Democrats are holding fast for the secretary. Although there also seems no doubt in my mind she will come out of this campaign and start into the national election wounded. And with a lot of people bitter and resentful, and absolutely sure the election was stolen. Some going so far as to suggest a third party run, and appear to actually believe they would prevail and not deliver the election to the Republican candidate. Or, that there would be no particular difference between the “establishment” party candidates, so no harm no foul. That could seem crazy, but those on the right are going even farther and actually have now delivered the Republican nomination to a television huckster of no known principles who has run on a pretty straight neo-fascist anti-immigrant, anti-muslim platform. In fact it might not be too early to pronounce the Republican party that has existed for a good part of the twentieth century is now dead.

(Where are we going? Why are we in this handcart?)

So. So, what?

With all the prescience of polished memory, I recall declaring to our television when the Soviet Union collapsed and with it pretty much the entire communist world (China has managed to retain Party control, but has neatly shifted from being communist to being fascist) excepting Cuba and North Korea is gone, and, said, I: the capitalist world will follow soon after.

I think that wasn’t near nuanced enough. But, there should be little doubt there is a restructuring going on. And mixed up in it are the consequences of our world shrinking, and with it a cohesive if not coherent world economy is emerging, and winners and losers are beginning to appear. And, of course, as it has always been, the rich continue to get richer, and the poor, well, that club just seems to be getting bigger.

Add in climate change and the beginnings of massive population disruptions, further complicated in frightening ways by the exponential growth of our human population, hard to say which is worse, and in combination, well, it isn’t a pretty picture.

What is coming?

Okay. I haven’t a clue.

However, it does seem we’re in that handcart, and it is rolling downhill.

And. Gotta have a word of hope. And I genuinely feel there are possibilities for directions not so dire as we are currently romancing.

We need, desperately, need a new song, a true seeing of how we are all of us connected, we are all of us interdependent, and not caring for each other will in the end doom us all.

Okay, at some point we’re all doomed.

But, we really need to see the differences as complementary to the unity, and allow an ethic, a spirituality rooted in that body-knowing its place of primacy in our hearts.

We do that, and the ride will continue to be wild, but at least it will be together, and we might even find ways to steer it away from perdition and toward green pastures.

Maybe.

Maybe…