Some 80 years ago, Americans, engaged in the most titanic conflict in the nation’s history, were referred to as “the greatest generation.”
Theirs was a collective spirit driven by a will to win with no sacrifice too large to endure.
As mentioned by an earlier writer to the PDN, they raised and maintained victory gardens. They endured rationing of gas, food, nylon and other commodities. Their children conducted scrap metal collection drives.
And contrary to the history of conqueror and conquered, our collective will extended beyond our victories over our enemies, and from the ashes of war created two of the most productive and enduring democracies in history.
That collective spirit is dead in America, its coffin nailed shut by its divisive politics, toxic disinformation and the narcissism of self before society.
Our democracy is now under threat, not so much from foreign adversaries but from within.
A political party, dominated by a cult of personality, in thrall of a seditious traitor, perpetrated and collaborated in an attempted coup d’etat.
The rise in domestic extremism produced a legion of armed insurrectionists whose violent desecration of the citadel of our democracy is being defended by the very people who were targets of the mob.
“Like Saturn, the revolution devours its children.” — Jacques Mallet du Pan
Bart Kavruck
Port Townsend