Here is the introduction to this blog, unflinching.blog

The concept of being unflinching refers to having the resolve, determination, and courage to remain steady and unchanged, especially in the face of adversity or challenge. This quality is about inner strength and steadfastness, it speaks to an individual’s ability to stand firm, unwavering, particularly in situations that may be daunting or challenging.

I don’t think I’ve lived up to being unflinching very well. Its an ongoing struggle. But continues to be a spiritual leading and practice. What is my unflinching view of where we are now?

Our government has been captured

We are now living under an authoritarian state. The current administration is deliberately dismantling the federal government, with Congress and the Supreme Court aiding the process. Law enforcement and the judicial system have increasingly, violently, militarily turned against citizens, non-citizens, students, and activists.

Civil liberties no longer exist

Those who push for change are arrested, deported, disappeared, killed. It is not a matter of if, but when I will be arrested for writing about these things.

Years of systematic attacks on truth have succeeded—lies, repeated endlessly, have undermined rational discussion and informed decision-making. This deliberate distortion allows those dismantling our democratic systems to deflect accountability, reinforcing their grip on power.

Collapse

Our current political and economic systems are collapsing. Will we confront these realities? History suggests otherwise. Change is inevitable, and negative forces continue to evolve.

In this land this all began to change the moment white Europeans arrived. They came with the worldview of conquerors, to see a land of vast natural resources for them to profit from. The Catholic Church supported this with the Doctrine of Discovery. These conquests required the subjugation and dominance over the indigenous people. Required the forced assimilation of native children to the ways of white dominance and a capitalist economy.

This upended millennia of sustainable living. Where humans lived in harmony with the rest of creation. Where the resources used were readily replenished. And the small amounts of carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuel could be handled by photosynthesis and the natural carbon cycle.

Humans were grateful and wise enough to know they should protect and conserve the land, air and water they and the rest of creation depend upon.

To generate wealth more rapidly, thousands of Africans were captured and made the perilous journey to this land in slave ships. Those who survived were sold to white men, sometimes separating family members in the process.

Over five hundred years later we are moving ever more rapidly and deeply into the consequences of this history of injustice and exploitation.

Mother Earth’s resources have been plundered. The extractive processes and burning fossil fuels have significantly polluted the land, air and water. The consequences of environmental devastation will be increasingly severe. Increasing air and water high temperature records, intense localized rainfall and flooding, out of control wildfires, increasingly violent storms, and drought.

Meanwhile, the white dominant culture has built a global network of repressive politics, surveillance, militarized policing and incarceration to try to control the non-white people entrapped in these unjust systems.