by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
We’re in a crisis. This weekend could be momentous. A process, a war, if you will against COVID19 may begin sometime in the next 48 hours. Our nations psyche will be torn open as millions grow sick and thousand die. We will enter an interregnum of the world orders.
Heroes will be made. Cowards will be shamed. All will be remembered.
And so we have to keep a calm mind. We have to realize that there will be battles won and lost. The fragile nature of human life, human existence will be shown more than once. Empire will fall. Empires will rise. A entire generation, the Millennial Generation, now know for “killing” this or that industry, may be know for saving civilization itself.
But it will take a concerted effort among individuals of all ages, genders and races to defeat this new foe that brings with it fear, hate, and death. The United States may be brought to its knees soon because of rank mismanagement on the part of the current administration. And our ruler, a would-be tyrant, may see this as an opportunity to finally strike a death blow to Columbia.
Whenever I have such doubts, however, I am reminded of my time in South Korea as an expat. One of the things I learned during my five years there, at a modern day Terminus, was great risk brings with it great opportunity as well. When an old order collapses, both the tyrant and the slave have opportunities they never had before. As such, if Trump, as I fear, comes completely bonkers and, at last, declares himself a king, I believe leaders from the common folk who will arise to defend Columbia from his threats. These “renagades of funk,” if you will, will use all their will to ensure that the covenant of Washington and Lincoln will, again, be renewed.
But such a renewal will not come easy. It will come at great cost. And just as Father Abraham lost his life at the end of his “fateful trip,” so, too, may new martyrs of liberty fly too close to the sun. But I am a man of peace. I would much rather have the power of rhetoric as my sword than any mere physical armament.
I am a man of peace. A man of ideas. And I am an American.