What to do about our panic. How to be in this moment. (by request)

[grasswire]

In another thread, where a DUer talked about her agitated state of mind about the state of our nation, I was asked to make this post of mine a separate topic. Here's the link to the other thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2639956&mesg_id=2640761


My response, which was developed in response to a Unitarian minister's prophetic sermon when her parishoners begged to be told what to do and how to live.


What to do. How to live.

In at least two previous times in American history, our people grappled with the same kinds of panic -- the American Revolution and the Civil War. Choices were made that split families and destroyed friendships. One path was liberty for all, even if it meant giving one's life, one's fortune, one's sacred honor. The other path was allegiance to power and privilege.

This is our moment. The reality is beginning to sink in. Families will be ripped apart by the choices. Americans will be jailed. Fortunes will be lost. Life will not be the same as it has been. The truth is that "normalcy" is slipping away. The choice is forced upon us.

We are panicked because we don't know what to do; how to protect our loved ones. I believe there are four steps that will empower us.

1. Name the evil. Face it. Call it what it is. We live under an elite oligarchy with increasingly tyrannical intent. Define it as you will, but name it truthfully.

2. Find your particular task in the struggle. Some can only roll bandages. Some can be leaders and speak in the public square. Some can raise dissidents. Some can write pamphlets that will shake the system. Some can make tea and provide comfort. Find your task and devote yourself to it.

3. If you cannot be on the front lines, provide support and comfort to those who are. Offer your resources and energies to prophets and warriors for truth, to help them with their work.

4. But even more: Come together intimately with likeminded people. Commit to the possibility of raising each others' children, sharing your home, offering passage, whatever is needed. Think back to the models of the Underground Railroad and the Sons of Liberty and the Civil Rights battles. Americans will protect liberty with solidarity.

It's a new day. We're needed, each one.

[katinmn]

1. Thank you, grasswire! We need some pragmatism around here!

:loveya:

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. And above all, keep peace in your heart.

Ever watched two people in an argument that led to fisticuffs? The one who was able to keep his cool emerged as the victor. Though I don't condone violence, I can see where some may be coming our way. Best that we keep our cool, so that we can be in charge.

[EST]

3. Thank you.

[rman]

4. best post ever

[Bonobo]

31. Best post ever. Agreed. K&R and I'm taking it to heart.

[petersjo02]

5. I feel that same sense of agitation

plus fear, despair, helplessness. I could go on and on. There are days I can hardly cope with the distress I feel about the future of our country, the country we're leaving to our children and grandchildren (I have two grandkids, 19 and 16). Maybe reading this will help--I sure hope so.

[otherlander]

6. Beautiful.

[Stinky The Clown]

7. This is the creepiest thread I've ever read on DU

Not for they way things were said, not for the sayer of what was said, but for the implications of what was said. The very weighty substance of it.

(K&R, btw)

The feeling of an impending Waterloo for one side or the other is palpable. Were the members of the junta **merely** wrong on the issues, we'd not be anywhere near this sort of feeling. That they are so clearly malevolent is more than sufficient reason for visceral fear.

The 'shiny things' being waved in our collective faces (immigration, consumer protection, health care, even the war) are no longer enough to keep us occupied in opposition or agreement. The very real issues mentioned in my parenthesis pale by comparison for what these people clearly have as their end goal.

[confuddled]

9. Think this is creepy?

Check out David Pollard's 5/14/06 "What To Expect When The Dollar Collapses". Not sure, but think it may have been a Salon blog offering. Also may be somewhere on DU. Very scary!

[sendero]

11. Here's a link to part 1 of 2..

... http://www.energybulletin.net/16061.html

[motocicleta]

17. Thanks so much

I hadn't read this piece yet, and it is truly amazing.

PS You have the finest sig line, AFAIC.

[sofa king]

27. ...and part 2 of 2

http://www.energybulletin.net/16113.html

[bdamomma]

19. if this happens with the dollar collapsing all hell will break loose

between the rich and poor. There will be a great clash between the rich and the poor.

[grasswire]

10. okay, H2S, you've scared me..

<grin>

I think the moment of realization our predecessors faced, when the scales fell from their eyes and they called their situation what it was, was no different, really, from the "moments" humans have faced throughout history. Perhaps our moment IS more difficult simply because of our relative comfort and safe homeland all these recent decades. Perhaps it's been easier for a peasant with a hungry belly to identify a despot.

When does the moment come when we start to convert any assets, make real plans, dare to talk to neighbors about mutual protection, make hiding places, take things seriously? I don't know the answer to that.

The contradictions of our current life are constant. One moment I'm chopping cilantro and Vidalia onions, the next I'm sitting at my computer talking about tyranny. One moment I'm celebrating over an ultrasound of a nephew's baby-in-womb, the next I'm reading about unthinkable encroachments by our government against its citizens.

No wonder we're all on edge. We are neither in it yet nor not in it.

[Stinky The Clown]

14. There are two events that will presage the end ......

... and they may well be separated by days ... or decades.

The first may already have happened for some.

Realization.

The next is when it happens to everyone else - which is often too late. But there will be a more or less long transitinal period. And that's when we need to have our realization embodied in actual plans for self- and self's-own-preservation.

the 'shiny things' will placate the masses for a time. And as that continues to hold true, those who've arived at realization will be safe .... mostly.

[marions ghost]

15. yes

"visceral fear" is entirely justifiable in light of what we have seen. It's hard not to panic. Yet the chaos they have created, where distraction issues don't work as expected anymore, can be a time of opportunity.

We are heading toward the battle on the beach IMO, but what form it will take is anybody's guess.

[GuvWurld]

8. Peaceful Revolution Is Necessary, NOW!

We Do Not Consent (.pdf)

[stevedeshazer]

12. What a fabulous panic-busting post

You've really put your finger on what's going on here, not just on DU but all over the nation and the world. People don't know just what to do, they just want to do something because they feel it all slipping away...RIGHT NOW.

What you've posted here is really good advice. :thumbsup:

[JudyM]

13. Good advice: solidarity now. I just joined a group that's lifted my hopes

about taking back the country from the religious right: the Network of Spiritual Progressives.

Idea is to talk values right back at the religious right. Our values, though - compassion, environmental sanity, peace, etc. Then let the middle of the road voters decide whose values they really like better.

www.spiritualprogressives.org

Based on the wonderful, insightful ideas in Michael Lerner's new book "The Left Hand of God -- Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right" Click link below if you'd like to buy it and have part of the profit go to DU:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=democraticund-20&path=subst/home/home.html

[grasswire]

16. wow, thanks

With two Unitarian ministers in the family I should have already run across the group Spiritual Progressives. I do know about Lerner's new book, although I haven't read it yet.

[JudyM]

26. The NSP group was just formed in '05 so it's not yet well-known.

Although it grew out of concepts explored by the magazine "Tikkun" , the group leaders just started the movement a year or two ago. It's picking up supporters quickly since the ideas are so on target.

They just held a 'spiritual activism' conference in DC last week that was highly effective: 1200 of us paid visits to our congresspeople/senators armed with talking points. So empowering, and now folks on the Hill are aware of the group's existence. Next step is to have them start walking the talk. The more of us that are out there urging them to do so, the quicker change can happen. They should not be afraid of talking about our real values, however 'unrealistic' these values sound in this *world. We can change the reality and make the country's policies more compassionate again if we appeal to enough voters' hearts and minds.

:hippie:

[BrklynLiberal]

18. kicked and recommended!

[Senator]

20. TO DO LIST: Any thing. No matter how small. 1 email, 1 call, 1 dollar...

...1 petition, 1 local rally, 1 loud comment when you'd usually not "ruffle feathers."

It is after all a single strand of straw that "breaks the camel's back."

Your strand is just as important as that last one.

Just don't bystand. Silence is complicity.

--

[ReadTomPaine]

21. Bravo!

K&R

[pdxprog]

22. You've hit it.

This is precisely the channel in which my mind has been swimming lately. Every morning I wake back up into acute awareness of this national nightmare we're living in and feel the panic start to rise again -- but yes, exactly these sorts of plans have also begun to take shape, in my head and my house and my wallet, and increasingly in my network of friends as I find myself saying things out loud I never, ever thought I would hear coming out of my own mouth. We have to. As much as we don't want it to be so, as clearly as we see how it didn't have to be so, right now I believe these are the right things for us to be thinking, to be doing.

And yes, it's creepy.

Some days I cry. My country, dammit. Mine too. Make the bad people go away.
But that's just it: we don't get to be the scared kids. Sorry, but we don't. It's been thrust upon us to be the grownups.

Regarding #3, I too believe that those of us who aren't so much on the frontlines today (not after some future perceived tipping point, but right now) need to take stock of who is, and we need to have their backs -- quite possibly at unavoidable risk to our comfort at the very least, if not worse. I'm sure that risk has held a lot of us back; I know it's held me back, since it feels in a very real way that keeping one's head down and mouth shut makes all the difference between goons at the door or nobody at the door, between continued employment or joblessness and a blacklist. However, time and bitter experience have proven that this is most assuredly not a spectator sport, and that trying to appear inoffensive will not make it go away... and there is indeed that snowballing sense of urgency about it, isn't there.

It may be that some of us are stronger than we think.

-pdxprog (delurking somewhat, under a spiffy new nick)

[Bonobo]

32. About that list of people we should support:

Maybe we could have a daily or weekly "Patriot Who Needs our Support".

We could have organized campaigns to focus our support via DU. That, I believe, is how the fundies get it done (organized through their mega-churches).

[nashville_brook]

33. welcome pdxprog! i'm on this channel too

we are prey.

[grasswire]

35. welcome, and thanks

You've voiced that particular angst -- that realization of the choice at hand between the path of liberty and the path to despotism. No person is spared that choice when tyranny threatens. I would venture to guess that every person who has been forced by events to make that choice has fought against that moment.

We could boil it down to a few sentences. "I must finally admit that my liberty is in jeopardy. What is my task -- my talent, my capability? Does it involve danger? How can I survive? I can prepare myself. I can secure my loved ones through cooperation and associations. I can hope for the best and plan for the worst. I am not alone."

[Usrename]

23. Outstanding post.

I have not been a member here for very long, but this is the most relevant post I have ever seen here. Thank you for sharing this. Yes, this is not a drill.

The depths of their depravity knows no bounds, the monstrous acts that they are capable of have no limits, but they cannot still the heart of the people.

God/Goddess Bless

[Greyhound]

24. And I'll thank you over here too.

"4) Come together with like minded people. Commit to the possibility of raising each others' children, sharing your home, offering passage, whatever is needed. Think back to the models of the Underground Railroad and the Sons of Liberty"

If I may add; Develop alternate methods of communication, establish contact places/times should members of your group become incommunicado.

It is absolutely vital that we form these associations, privately, with each other while we still can. "They" are deadly serious about what they're doing and if we hope to survive, we had better be too. Not only can it happen here, it is certainly starting to look like it is.

[tavalon]

25. I was that person

I'm glad you did it and not the least bit surprised to see it at the top of the Greatest Page.

Bookmarked.

[NJCher]

28. panic

I think some people must be more prone to panic and fear than others. I, for one, have never felt panic even over the worst of these idiocies that bushco has come up with. Somehow, I know I will find a way to deal with it, whatever it is. This may come from the self-confidence from having dealt with matters successfully in the past.

Even when I was a little kid, I recall the red scare they tried to put on us. My mother is one of these panic people and I tried to explain to her how pointless it is to work oneself into an emotional panic.

When I think of this visually, I think of logs floating downstream and how the loggers would jump from one to the other. That's how I think of this time. Tricky, yes. Impossible, no.

Anyway, terrific post, Grasswire. There is much wisdom in those words.

And with that, I think I shall go out to my garden and smell the roses.




Cher

[donsu]

29. kick

nt

[GreenArrow]

30. plant a garden.

Read a book. Write a book. keep a journal. Spend time with your family and friends. Turn off the TV. Lay off the computer. Go for walks. Listen to music. Build something. Learn to cook. Remember to breathe. Get to know your neighbors. Volunteer. Turn off the TV.

[Greyhound]

34. Kick for a very important thread

:kick:

[robinlynne]

36. Thank-you for this post. you made me cry.