Draco II has made the determination that the U.S. is in a formal “armed conflict” with drug cartels, that those “suspected” – without proof of evidence – of smuggling drugs for the cartels are “unlawful combatants” and can therefore be murdered. Murder without justification, even in “war”, is bad enough, but to allow Draco II to determine at his whim that anyone he does not like or opposes him to be a member of an administration-determined “terrorist organization” and therefore subject to elimination (read: murder) puts every American at potential risk. Draco II’s push for dictatorship has gotten out of hand; Draco II is running roughshod over existing laws, making up his own laws, while SCOTUS and the Republican led Congress is aiding and abetting him in democracy’s destruction. Draco II’s decisions are not made for the betterment of the country and democracy, but for his own aggrandizement, wealth generation, and retribution.

Draco II and the Republicans are trying to place the blame for the shutdown on Democrats. They have even stated that Democrats are part of what he calls the “enemy within”. Draco II could just start rounding up “enemies of the state”. A main author of Project 2025, Russel Vought, Draco II’s director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), a man who REALLY hates democracy, has threatened to start layoffs and firings instead of the normal furloughs during the shutdown, in direct opposition to a law signed by Draco II in his first term. Draco II has now officially tied himself to Project 2025, something he disavowed any knowledge of during the election campaign, and is pressing full steam ahead towards authoritarianism. The White House says that “OMB is in charge”.

Draco II and Russel Vought are also using the shutdown to cut federal funding to large, important, already-in-progress programs in blue states (so called “Democratic Agencies”) especially in blue-leaning cities he says are “war ravaged”. So, fellow citizen, if you are a ruby-red, MAGA Republican-loving person, don’t think that you will be safe from all his draconian malpractice. If you “love the smell of deportations in the morning”, or if you are OK with the pain and suffering inflicted on blue-leaning areas by Draco II, if you want martial law as the law of the land, if you don’t mind your medical expenses skyrocketing (more so in red states than blue states!!) so billionaires can get more money, know that taking that stance will not keep you safe from a dictator’s whims.

It’s time to make your decision, now: you’re either for democracy or you are OK with a dictator. If you choose democracy, there is no time to waste to stop authoritarianism and the foibles of a wannabe-king. Pretending that you will be immune from the whims of a mentally unstable king is a fool’s error. You will not be. Even temporarily. Refusing to see the truth of Draco II’s plan to destroy American democracy and establish a dictatorship will not save you or your family or your friends or your group, tribe, church, or community. No one will be safe from the waving and wobbling line of Draco II’s wild mental meanderings.

Only individuals rising up against fascism and dictatorship, authoritarianism, oligarchy, kleptocracy can stop it from happening. Do something. Join a rally. Attend a march. Say no to hate, retribution, racial purity, slavery in any form, and going back to some imaginary “great” times.

Democracy requires a lot of work, which in the last few decades has gone terribly wrong on both sides of the American political isle. When money talks, democracy walks. When corporations are adjudicated as red-blood people and given full rights of free speech, that allows their vast sums of money to talk the loudest; it does not mean they care about democracy or are smart. The “Citizens United” ruling must be reversed. When politicians are not subject to term limits, they become professionals, subject to corruption, and greedy of the power they wield. Term limits must be imposed on all elected officials, even SCOTUS.

But, most of all, humanity must regain the innate, God-given knowledge that Nature uses to communicate among all other life, a knowledge we Homo sapiens and our predecessors used almost exclusively to live sustainably on Earth for hundreds of thousands of years. Before humanity learned to think of themselves as separate from Nature, before division cemented into place, before the ego became so prominent in human lives, and before science sealed the deal by teaching us that Nature was without any inherent value, without agency, except for what it could provide “us” as the specie destined to “dominate” it, life was pretty good on Earth. We respected Nature as the provider of all of our sustenance, as the support system that it is for all life, and we (mostly) worked within bounds set by her. Yet, we have learned to override God’s knowledge and supplant it with our own lower-level consciousness, thinking that we are co-creators of reality, and the setters of rules for the future. Not true. All that said, it doesn’t mean knowledge humans have unfolded during our separation and dividing explorations should be discounted – far from it. But, Nature is still in charge, and she has a timetable that does not match our own. She will prevail in her desires for evolution at a time and place of her choosing. So, along with the need to choose democracy over dictatorship right now – at this immediate time and place, we also have to choose to not operate things as we have done in the past, using the same mindset that got us into this mess in the first place, seeing only the iceberg above water and ignoring the vastness of God-knowledge currently hidden out of sight, denying our own science data about climate science to our and Nature’s great peril, we must also choose to regain our innate knowledge of Nature and then, and only then, can we truly know how to properly aid Nature in her desires in how she wants the future to manifest; otherwise we constantly fight an uphill, losing battle.

A lot of choices have to be made right now. Choose wisely for democracy’s sake, as well as for our own and Nature’s.

Bob Bates

Tullahoma