in·di·vis·i·ble
/ˌindəˈvizəb(ə)l/ adjective : unable to be divided or separated.
When we envisioned the “Indivisible” issue at the beginning of 2020, the world was a different place. “Indivisible” has been an important word in the Trump era, helping us to have hope for the Union. There has been a lot of divisiveness in recent months, as evidenced by the prompt for this issue (below). But in the last few weeks of protests, a truly American voice has risen — cross-cultural, multi-generational, multi-ethnic, multi-racial, and crossing economic boundaries. The voice of the ethical and moral ring out through the darkness and we will shake off an administration of corruption like a bad case of fleas.
In this issue, we visit environmental policy in the Trump regime (“Seeing 2020”), income inequality (“We Are Not in the Same Boat but We are in the Same Storm”), species similarities (“Animal Strangers”), complexities of race issues (“The Problem with The Problem with Apu”), Other-ness (“Seeking Protection from Those We Most Fear”), generational musings (“Yellow” and “One Last Dream Come True”), and living in times of national crisis (“Assassination”). There are poems about culture, family, fear, environmental crises, injustice, and beauty.
The artists may speak for themselves. I have left the links from the prompt at the bottom of this post. There have been many observations of hope and unity, from Congressmen John Lewis to President Barack Obama, but I will let the inspirational words of John Mattis begin the issue.
IN UNION THERE IS STRENGTH (General James Mattis, The Atlantic)
I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled. The words “Equal Justice Under Law” are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.
When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.
We must reject any thinking of our cities as a “battlespace” that our uniformed military is called upon to “dominate.” At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false conflict—between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.
James Madison wrote in Federalist 41 that “America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat.” We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law.
Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that “The Nazi slogan for destroying us…was ‘Divide and Conquer.’ Our American answer is ‘In Union there is Strength.’” We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics.
Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.
We can come through this trying time stronger, and with a renewed sense of purpose and respect for one another. The pandemic has shown us that it is not only our troops who are willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of the community. Americans in hospitals, grocery stores, post offices, and elsewhere have put their lives on the line in order to serve their fellow citizens and their country. We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln’s “better angels,” and listen to them, as we work to unite.
Only by adopting a new path—which means, in truth, returning to the original path of our founding ideals—will we again be a country admired and respected at home and abroad.
INDIVISIBLE PROMPT
When director Marshall Curry accepted his award for the documentary short, A Night at the Garden, he made this statement: “We’d like to believe that there are sharp lines between good people and bad people. But I think most humans have dark passions inside us, waiting to be stirred up by a demagogue who is funny and mean, who can convince us that decency is for the weak, that democracy is naïve, and that kindness and respect for others are just ridiculous political correctness.” Maybe he is right, but maybe it’s also time to stop pandering to our basest natures, to embrace enlightened humanity over tribalism. Martin Luther King Jr.‘s estate posthumously published a call for an economic bill of rights that is unfortunately just as relevant today as it was in 1968.
Just watching the dichotomy between MSNBC and Fox News during the latest impeachment trial, it becomes more obvious everyday that that America is no longer “United” States. And we have exported this peculiar brand of economic divisiveness and neoliberal inequality worldwide. “We are now truly at a break-glass-in-case-of-fire moment,” a former Justice Department official wrote on Twitter.
Robin Wright writes in the New Yorker, “The protests of 2019 have also altered the tactics, tools, and structure of civil resistance. Many have been loose-knit and leaderless and have drawn in people… neither political nor civil-society activists. ‘They all represent a crisis of agency—of people who feel unrepresented [author’s italics],’ [Carne] Ross, the author of The Leaderless Revolution, says …‘We represent ourselves’ is a common feature….It’s simplistic to think of these movements simply as protests.’ When that kind of energy is mustered, he said, it’s difficult for governments to resist unless they use repression.”
2019 had more protests worldwide than any year in history. “You have not seen anything yet,” said Swedish activist Greta Thunberg to 10,000 protesters in Lausanne, Switzerland, ahead of the 2020 World Economic Forum at Davos. And I gather we haven’t. And, just like any clean-up project, it is likely to get worse before it gets better. “Our house is still on fire. Your inaction is fueling the flames by the hour. We are still telling you to panic, and to act as if you loved your children above all else.”
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