By Glen T. Martin, Ph.D.

Glen T. Martin

It’s hard to celebrate the victories - even a victory as monumental as a jury finally standing up in a court of law to affirm that Black Lives Matter - when so much injustice is still piling up around us. And it’s harder still to celebrate when I end up wondering and worrying whether this will set a new standard – or, if it will be the rare exception to law enforcement not being held accountable for the taking of Black lives.

Sovereignty is not just a claim to independence. It is a claim to ultimate independence. It means thumbing one’s nose at all other human beings in the belief that one is independent of them in some ultimate way. The claims of others, whether claims of common humanity, fundamental rights, or the demand for universal justice, simply do not count for us, since we recognize no authority or effective claims beyond ourselves. Nation-state sovereignty makes such claims. No one or nothing is above us, for we are autonomous, free, and independent of all the rest of humanity.

Human beings are self-aware beings. To realize the significance of this is to live in astonishment and awe. We are the universe become aware of itself.

For years I have been wondering how this has happened? How did we get here? Why has no one found the strength to stand up to him? Then I realized that I am someone. I must speak up. I can no longer wait for others to do what is right and that I have the power to do.

Students of Spiral Dynamics know what is happening to America: The Spiral is collapsing.

The Center for UN Constitutional Research (CUNCR) based in Brussels is a leading edge think tank

After four years of watching Trump and those around him, this election was not the repudiation we were hoping for. Seeing this certainly dampens the elation I want to feel. It also shows us that our work is just beginning.

Yes, we have spent the last four years resisting Trump, doing damage control while his dumpster fire of an administration hell bent on targeting protections for minorities and the environment (etc.) ran rampant. But the real work starts when Biden steps in and takes the reigns. The energy we spent in survival mode these last four years now needs to be redirected.

After four years of watching Trump and those around him, this election was not the repudiation we were hoping for. Seeing this certainly dampens the elation I want to feel. It also shows us that our work is just beginning.

Yes, we have spent the last four years resisting Trump, doing damage control while his dumpster fire of an administration hell bent on targeting protections for minorities and the environment (etc.) ran rampant. But the real work starts when Biden steps in and takes the reigns. The energy we spent in survival mode these last four years now needs to be redirected.

In this essay, I want to mention the dimensions of the divine (or the ground of being) that we can experience in human life and then go on to reflect on one of them: the Logos.

Attempting to address institutionalized racism in the USA is not going to affect our planetary human failure to create a decent world system supporting a flourishing life for human beings everywhere on Earth. Is the racist dehumanization of persons in the USA our central problem, or is this a symptom of a larger and more fundamental problem? Is the degradation and repression of the poor worldwide separate from the institutionalized racism toward the poor in the US?