Fear & falsehood will not win
King called for a future of optimism, justice, and freedom. Trump wants wealth for himself and threatens revenge. The American people can still choose to make the future better for all.
Today, we grapple with the weight of all that we have, as a nation, left unresolved. It is the day we honor the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Junior, a leader whose life was ended far too early but whose voice has never been silenced. His call for a transcendent moral endeavor still resonates; it echoes off the acts of kindness and grace we sometimes see or hear of, or deliver, and it echoes off the debilitating division and rancor that gnaws at the foundations of our democracy.
I write today with a heavy heart and a heart full of hope, with a message for the moment and some important news. I offer some views I hope will be of value to you, and to others you work with and care about.
My heart is heavy, because we find the American democratic republic fraught with an atmosphere of fear and frustration, made worse by disinformation and broken trust, and because this same crisis is spreading around the world.
My heart remains full of hope, however, because fear is a poor competitor. Those who wield it to empower themselves may succeed for a time in holding back their critics, or that decency that holds the life force of every human soul, but they do not persuade.
Fearmongers seek to blind others as they blind themselves, to weaken our collective resolve to work for a better world, together, in good faith, for the benefit of others we will never know. They may succeed in blinding many, or diffusing our sense of urgency about resisting what is morally inexcusable, but they cannot persuade any honest person that our values should be shredded or that our most decent and humanizing aspirations had no legitimate foundation and no worthy way forward.
Today, it seems most important to remember the hopeful command of Dr. King, that we must "adjourn the councils of despair and bring new light into the dark chambers of pessimism".
As I noted in my annual Geoversiv letter:
"To make the future we hope for more likely, we must continue to seek, imagine, learn, connect, and cooperate. Big problems don't get solved by bluster; they get solved by cooperation."
This is why, with planetary crisis deepening, it is so essential that we have robust, ongoing, everyday civics focused on solving big problems. Climate Civics International is setting a tone for 2025, in this spirit:
"In this new year of worrying trends and spreading threats to human security and wellbeing, we invite our friends and allies to put aside despair and disinformation, in favor of responsible civics to shape our world."
This is also why we are now building a new publication called The Navigator, in recognition of the fact that:
"Regardless of your political perspective, regardless of whom you hold responsible, you have an interest in knowing as much as you can about the state of our world, and in understanding how sweeping trends affect what is possible to you locally."
Through The Navigator, a community of writers, journalists, and collaborating publications, will report on the evolving landscape of planetary emergency and the quest to sustain human freedom and wellbeing. We aim to deliver the kind and quality of information that can help individuals and the wider society steer through this time of converging crises.
Please explore and share it with those you feel would be interested to follow this path of discovery with us.
