Our Illusions about Our Beloved Country Have Burst

The truth can set us free to care for all people and ecosystems at home and abroad.

When your illusions burst, it is painful and disorienting. Who are you and what is real when your old beliefs and views are suddenly shattered and gone? A broken illusion, however, can free you to live in your real world as the real you. When many illusions burst at once, it can be traumatic and lead to the emergence of a new worldview, a new self image, and a new way of living. In fact, this transformation reveals that life is good, you are accepted, the past is approved, and the future is open. Yes!

Many Americans, including me, have been trapped in several illusions about our beloved country.

We have believed that we live in a functioning democracy, but that illusion has burst. Eighty-five million eligible voters did not vote in the 2024 presidential election that was won by a two million vote majority, seventy-four million votes versus seventy-two million. The policy views of two hundred and forty million voters cannot be represented by only two viable political parties. A few billionaires unduly influence elections by donating hundreds of millions of dollars to candidates who support policies that strengthen their power and wealth. The Electoral College by design is undemocratic. Gerrymandering and voter suppression are rampant. We do not have mandatory voting or a voting holiday. Mass media and social media are owned by the wealthy who allow misinformation and slant the news in favor of policies that support their continued wealth and power. And so on.

We have believed that we live in a country governed by the rule of law which applies to everyone, but that illusion has burst. The wealthy can upend the rule of law at any time with their armies of well paid attorneys, friendly judges, and supportive media and never face accountability or punishment.

We have believed that there would be endless social progress and unlimited economic growth, but those illusions have burst. (image above, MD, 2017) The world’s wealthiest nation, we are the only industrialized country that does not have universal health care. The minimum wage has not been raised in sixteen years. While we have eight hundred billionaires, most Americans live paycheck to paycheck. The six to ten million undocumented workers in our country work primarily in construction and agriculture and pay around one hundred billion dollars in taxes, yet some people want to expel them. The activities of extracting and burning fossil fuels and massive extraction of natural resources that support “endless” economic growth have accelerated climate chaos of hurricanes and fires and the death of countless species and ecosystems. The stock market creates money from money primarily for wealthy investors rather than from the provision or exchange of goods and services. A few companies now control the production and pricing of food, drugs, and much more. The majority of Supreme Court justices were selected by the wealthy to support their continued power and wealth.

We have believed that a “free press” of mass media and “open discourse” on social media would help us understand what is true and good for people and nature, but that illusion has been burst. Media outlets and platforms are owned by billionaires and promote propaganda and misinformation that support the rule and prospering of the rich and powerful.

We have believed that we are the “good guys” promoting freedom, democracy, and peace around the world, but that illusion has been burst. With the world’s largest military, our foreign policy is one of self interest promoting American business, wealth, and power regardless of the costs to other countries. As the world’s largest exporter of weapons, we support armed conflicts around the world with devastating results such as in Palestine. Domestically, we have the world’s highest firearms mortality rates. Our country was created by violently stealing indigenous land and using slave labor from West Africa. A few of our leaders are friends with other authoritarians and oligarchs in other countries.

As these treasured illusions burst, we are exposed to our real country controlled by and for billionaires, corporations, CEOs, shareholders, the politically powerful, and their allies of religious fundamentalists, racists, and patriarchs, a world of increasing climate disaster, societal injustice, and civilizational collapse. What a time to be alive!

The vast majority of Americans, I believe, care about each other, about the wellbeing of people in other countries, and about the health of the living Earth. The outpouring of support for our Helene devasted community is a witness to that. For this, we are deeply grateful.

The new, real world in which we find ourselves is also a world of mystery, beauty, love, and gratitude. In this world, we can love our given lives, our actual family members, and our real neighbors. We can live in awe at being an Earthling spinning around a star rotating around a black hole at the center of a spiral galaxy. We can be touched by the beauty of sunlight, the colors of flowers, the smiles of babies, nourishing food, the delights of mindfully breathing in and out, and so much more.

We can be grateful for the gift of being alive, aware, and in love with our real life and world. We can care for our neighbors as ourselves. We can be generous, kind, and happy. We can laugh and dance. We can embrace interbeing and impermanence. We can continue to nudge societal and ecological evolution with our daily compassionate actions.

We thought January 6th would be hard this year. But January 20th could be even more challenging. How can we prepare for what may be coming and care for ourselves and others without withdrawing from what is going on? Yes, there is tragedy in life. Yes, there is suffering. This is a time of grief and of concern and of caring for the vulnerable and for our own body-mind.

We grieve the effects of powerful voices and actions spreading misinformation, hatred, greed, and fearmongering that create confusion and harm.

We are committed to the human rights of women and girls, to policies of ecological regeneration, to climate change mitigation and adaptation, to disaster preparedness and recovery, to ensuring a living wage for all workers, to exercising the vote by all eligible voters, to the safety of BIPOC and LGBTQ citizens, to strengthening Social Security and Medicare for the elderly, to providing universal health care, education, housing, and basic income, to making available Medicaid and Food Stamps for those in need, to ensuring religious freedom for all, to upholding the rule of law for all, and to promoting peace at home and abroad.

We can care for the vulnerable by doing what we can near and far.

We can care for ourselves by caring for our body-mind, families, neighbors, friends, and those in need, and engaging in actions that relieve suffering.

As a loyal American who loves and is grateful for his country, whose Scottish ancestors arrived on this continent in the seventeenth century, and who has voted faithfully for sixty-two years, I call on all Americans to be people of kindness and generosity. We can invent a society that cares for everyone at home and aboard. We can mitigate and adapt to climate change and prepare for climate disasters and recovery. We can invent a compassionate, ecologically sound community, country, and planetary society.

May it be so.