An Open Letter to American Politicians

Ferguson, MO. For some of us the rhetoric is familiar, the cognitive dissonance reminiscent, the feeling of helplessness present. We are reliving the nightmares of our childhoods and the tales of warnings from university books, but these nightmares or books were about other people, other countries, other times. We think, this couldn’t happen here, this couldn’t happen now.

We wonder about remembrance, that admonition we all know so well: Remember, never forget. But even that has lost it’s power, it’s real meaning confused and devalued over the years. The great humanitarians, the steely fighters for human rights around the world, mourn that loss and we search for some other expression.

So I will say to you instead, American politician, you, who are meant to be the first participants in our government, the most fair, the most self-governed, the most connected to that beautiful duty of being for your fellow man: Après moi, le déluge.

You may not know this saying though you should. I will tell you what it means.

Count your money, spin your stories of distraction, use “threat of terrorism” as your crutch, talk about the supposed non-existence of racism in America, reinforce conflict, keep assisting in the dehumanization and categorization of your fellow man… all the while you will be losing yourself piece by piece, your capacity for logical thought and empathy degenerating until there is no longer any semblance of humanity in you, and you will be one of them, one who actively participated in crimes against humanity. Then you can say of yourself, After me, the flood.

Perhaps in your lifetime you will be taken to task for these actions, perhaps not. But your children and grandchildren will feel the flood, that overwhelming loss you brought upon them, and they will struggle to come to terms with your failures of life. They will feel a malaise even, a disease over which they have no control, living in their bones and causing them great pain. Your country will feel the flood, it’s beauty and culture, even it’s land, marred deeply, perhaps beyond recognition.

And You. You will be remembered as weak and cowardly, even cruel, one who chose to betray himself and his fellow man, a person without faith, without hope, without love. The Cain of your time, the Brutus of your government, the Paris of your country.

Or you can take a different path.

Remember yourself. Choose to be present, to actually listen, to recognize the existence of another (this is what we call ) and question your “constituency”, your “patriotism,” your capacity for leadership and your instinct of self-preservation…

and if you find that you have been wrong… be humble (you are of the earth), be noble (your are of the stars) and… change.