A more perfect union

1

I decided to delay this month’s tikkun olam post until the 4th. It seemed appropriate.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

A more perfect Union. That’s the goal this country was founded on — and though we may have often and egregiously foundered in pursuit of it, that doesn’t make the goal any less worthy. We must keep striving to establish Justice: to make it clear that Black Lives Matter, Native Lives Matter, Trans Lives Matter. We must ensure domestic Tranquility: stop homegrown terrorism, partner violence, police brutality. Provide for the common defence: but not unending aggression. Promote the general Welfare: through programs like Medicaid, Social Security, and the ACA. Secure the Blessing of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity: protect voting rights, protect the freedom of speech, religion, the press, and peaceable assembly.

If the people in charge won’t do it, then we have to do what we can, in our own lives and in our communities. So share what you’ve done lately, however small, to repair the world: to establish a more perfect Union, in the United States or elsewhere, through donations, volunteer work, good deeds, anything. Share what you intend to do in the days to come. The work is ongoing.

One Response to “A more perfect union”

  1. swantower

    I failed to respond to my own post last month, so this extends over two.

    In addition to the usual phone calls and online petitions and so forth, I’ve made a few small campaign donations. I’m gathering up stuff to take it to Goodwill. I keep looking for ways to get involved with community events, but my schedule keeps making that difficult. We hung rainbow flags out for Pride and forgot to take them down for like a week, which I figure is just fine; in fact, I left one of them up today so it could accompany the American flag (and hung the latter less out of patriotism than out of a desire to pair it with the Pride flag).

    It’s difficult for me to persuade myself sometimes that storytelling makes a difference, but I keep noticing all the ways in which various issues pervade the stories I tell right now. It shows up in my gaming; one of the Pathfinder campaigns I’m currently in involves the PCs founding a new country, and by god, if we can’t make that place a utopia, we’ll at least come as close as we can, with ecologically sound development and a diverse population that includes kobold worshippers of Torag and a penal code focused on rehabilitation rather than punishment. It shows up in my writing; one of the projects I’m working on involves resistance to colonialism and genderqueer people and a commitment to diplomacy in the face of war. These things aren’t going to make the current administration suck any less, but I can hope they’ll do something to shape the thoughts of me, my friends, and my readers, with knock-on effects for years to come.

Comments are closed.