Zoom Link—‘How do We Recover Our Democracy? Democracy as a Sign of Collective Mental Health’

Live Session Today at 1 p.m. EDT / 10 a.m. PDT

In her acceptance speech on the last night of the Democratic National Convention, Kamala Harris starkly portrayed Donald Trump as an “unserious man” whose ascent to the presidency would still have “extremely serious” consequences—a level of warning that matches that of mental health experts and expands and elaborates on “weird”.

Whereas there is a need to focus on the joy and the hope—we have been long starved of this!—one cannot ignore the dissonance between the overt euphoria and the muted frustration of those protesting the mounting human life toll in Gaza.  “Uncommitted” convention delegates staged a sit-in after being denied a speaker at the Convention.

I have made a commitment until the election—for, if Donald Trump is elected, we may as well give up on our democracy, our security, all hope for the Palestinians, and possibly even the continuation of the human species itself—not to disperse our attention.  This is despite there being a possibility that the military-industrial-CIA complex and the Netanyahu regime may bring Armageddon even before Trump has a chance to.

Hence, I will hang onto the part of Harris’ speech that acknowledges:

what has happened in Gaza over the past ten months is devastating.  So many innocent lives lost.  Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, over and over again.  The scale of suffering is heartbreaking….  President Biden and I are working to end this war such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination.

This, of course, is happening while the U.S. is continuing to supply the weapons and wealth for the unprecedented mass slaughter.  However, given the persistent “disappearance” of Palestinians from all discourse, I will take the mention in her speech as the equivalent of “weird” on another topic of existential proportions—what the public understands and is able to tolerate at this time, precisely as a result of the silence.  At least that silence is broken.

For those who wish to hear more about the very dehumanization that led to our ignoring the plight of fellow human beings, Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, a prominent Palestinian pastor, gave an electrifying speech on “Silence is Complicity” at Riverside Church on August 14, 2024.

It was much like in 1967, when Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Junior came to Riverside Church to deliver his speech, “Beyond Vietnam—A Time to Break Silence,” calling on America to admit its wrongdoings to the people of Vietnam and to take initiative in working towards peace.  Unlike in 1967, Rev. Dr. Isaac’s words were not vehemently criticized; they were simply ignored.  Yet, we find ourselves again in need of breaking the silence and of admitting our complicity in the genocide of Palestinians.

The pastor makes the most basic appeal:

We are not simply calling for a ceasefire.  We are calling for the world to humanize the people of Gaza, to humanize Palestinians. It is heartbreaking to continue to call against the normalization of a genocide.  This is a genocide that is happening in front of all the world to see.  No one can say, “We did not know”….  How many more need to be killed, until the world agrees enough is enough?  How many families need to lose everything?  How many more pictures do we need to share of children pulled from under the rubble, before the world sees us as humans?

Rev. Dr. Isaac is the same pastor from Bethlehem whose “Christ in the Rubble” picture I portrayed, whose sermon, “Christ in the Rubble” was equally powerful.

One of my readers here also eloquently commented:

There is currently another overwhelming pathological factor in our national life besides Donald Trump.  The Biden-Harris administration has been committing genocide in Gaza since October 2023.  (More accurately, it has been perpetrating a Vernichtungskrieg, genocide being one of its components.) … The US is not merely complicit in genocide, nor is it merely enabling it, as many people say it is.  By supplying the material means that enable it, it has itself been committing genocide since the genocide began nearly a year ago….  A majority of Americans, including 83% of Democratic-leaning voters, want an immediate and permanent ceasefire; the numbers had already started out high in 2023 and have steadily increased.

Perhaps soon, just as “weird” has opened an avenue for conversation, we will be able to confront the fact that, as Harris herself said: “a harm against any one of us is a harm against all of us.”  Not just in our country but in our world:

anything is possible.  Nothing is out of reach … where we care for one another, look out for one another, and recognize that we have so much more in common than what separates us.  That none of us has to fail for all of us to succeed.  And that, in unity, there is strength.

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