Almost every culture had a story, a myth, a mandate, to remember the tales of people who would resist a lie. Wilhelm Tell, Sarah and the Rabbi, Sir Galahad, all the poor, doomed Irish heros whose stories always ended in bravery and sadness.
My son's favorite were the Aesop's moral tales. One that I'm remembering today involved a mother lion who allowed her cub to be raised with rabbits. He forgot his lion nature when the hunters came.
When she told him he must roar even if it meant his death, she reminded him, "Rabbits only eat and mate. They only speak up once their whole lives, when they are killed".
Sometime while I wasn't looking in the past sixteen years, we have become a nation of rabbity lions.
We want a fixed game. A whiffle life. An '80's Rocky-Flashdance-slow-clap ending.
Reagan was our first Disney president. He seems positively benign compared to President Such a Fuckin Liar.
That's what this is about. Lies vs. myths.
Here's the thing- Americans used to remember our own stories. We didn't wait for Speilberg or Lucas or FauxNews to synthesize our realities and feed it back to us in cheese-flavored crisps.
The stories I remember are of the folks who fought the U.S. Government when it was acting the prick, and lost.
Or at the least took some hits.
Maybe I just don't 'get' the reasoning, well, what difference does it make what I do, it won't do any good'.
Because I an American in the tradition of
Crazy Horse
Rosa Parks
The Miner's Insurrection
Margaret Sanger, a mother doing time for saving women's lives with birth control.
Mohammed Ali losing his title at the peak of his career for his principles.
Or, closer to home, one of my co-workers who refused to give me permission to repeat his younger brother's story (an Army whistleblower), but who said this-
"Sometimes, you gotta be the Black Braveheart- you gotta take on the fight even when you know it's gonna end in a bad".
Where are the American Bravehearts?
All it takes is what we are trying to do
Witness.
Say "This is a lie".
"Here is the truth".
And to remember, heroes aren't always the winners.
Sometimes it's worth the fight for the tradition of courage you leave for your children.
I will remember. I promise.
