I don’t know how any of this restoration and strengthening can happen until ethics, morality and truth are re-established in Congress. When graft was illegal members of congress worked in a much more bipartisan way for the betterment of the people. Now dark money is the driver. The leaders demand partisanship all the way down the ballot, even to the inclusion of our city councils. So when accountability begins, how far down the pyramid does it extend, and since there is blatant corruption at every level, where does that leadership come from? I think a joint effort of the United Nations and The Hague, with security provided by NATO, as our only hope of returning our country to its constitution.
Bill, I hear the weariness in this, and I don’t think it’s cynicism so much as mourning. Mourning the loss of a shared moral floor, the sense that there were lines you didn’t cross without consequence, that public service still meant something binding.
You’re right about the corrosive effect of money and enforced partisanship. When loyalty replaces conscience, and fundraising replaces judgment, everything downstream gets contaminated. Even the smallest civic spaces start to feel like battlegrounds instead of commons. That doesn’t just break policy, it breaks trust.
And, again, I understand the impulse to look outward, to imagine some external moral authority stepping in when internal ones have failed. I believe that instinct comes from how dire this feels, from the sense that the system can no longer correct itself because too many people benefit from its decay.
What haunts me, personally, though, is that no outside body can restore what isn’t being practiced somewhere already. Ethics don’t descend from institutions, they’re carried upward by people willing to be lonely, to lose status, to refuse the bargain. That’s slow, uneven, and unsatisfying, especially when the damage is everywhere at once.
I don’t have a clean answer to where leadership comes from, Bill, when corruption feels universal, pervasive. I only know that every time we decide it must come from somewhere else, we concede more ground than we realize. Accountability has to begin somewhere small enough to be believable, even if it feels inadequate to the scale of the crisis.
But your frustration makes sense, I do get it. It’s the sound of someone who hasn’t given up on the idea that truth and ethics should matter. In times like these, that alone feels like a form of resistance.
Chemo-therapy does not restore health to the body, it destroys the disease that has corrupted it and gives the body a chance to reconstruct healthy cells. This is what I think might be necessary to get us back on our feet; much like what Germany and Japan had to go through 80 years ago. A bit like having a sponsor walking us through the steps of an AA program. Humility and accountability will be required of us all.
We will be angry, we will grieve, we will mourn; but then we will raise our heads and see the horizon, we will rise to our feet and step toward it again, and we will know that our healing has come.
Much to think on in this one, but I totally agree 💯! I truly do hope that more of us can learn this hard lesson finally and avoid reliving the so-called punishment ... consequence(s) of our past, but it will/would be worth it. Thank you again for inspiring and encouraging us this Monday morn, Dino!
I'm hoping to see as your final statement encourages more discussion on this - right here!
Meanwhile I will internalize and continue to absorb and ponder. I like what Susan suggest (or asks) if your future articles will provide "workable solutions to heal us" but also let's hear other's ideas as well.
I fully agree with you Dino. I can only hope that we can implement all of this. It's going to be a hard, but necessary, road to get there.
Good morning Dino. I agree. Will your articles provide workable solutions to heal us?
I don’t know how any of this restoration and strengthening can happen until ethics, morality and truth are re-established in Congress. When graft was illegal members of congress worked in a much more bipartisan way for the betterment of the people. Now dark money is the driver. The leaders demand partisanship all the way down the ballot, even to the inclusion of our city councils. So when accountability begins, how far down the pyramid does it extend, and since there is blatant corruption at every level, where does that leadership come from? I think a joint effort of the United Nations and The Hague, with security provided by NATO, as our only hope of returning our country to its constitution.
Bill, I hear the weariness in this, and I don’t think it’s cynicism so much as mourning. Mourning the loss of a shared moral floor, the sense that there were lines you didn’t cross without consequence, that public service still meant something binding.
You’re right about the corrosive effect of money and enforced partisanship. When loyalty replaces conscience, and fundraising replaces judgment, everything downstream gets contaminated. Even the smallest civic spaces start to feel like battlegrounds instead of commons. That doesn’t just break policy, it breaks trust.
And, again, I understand the impulse to look outward, to imagine some external moral authority stepping in when internal ones have failed. I believe that instinct comes from how dire this feels, from the sense that the system can no longer correct itself because too many people benefit from its decay.
What haunts me, personally, though, is that no outside body can restore what isn’t being practiced somewhere already. Ethics don’t descend from institutions, they’re carried upward by people willing to be lonely, to lose status, to refuse the bargain. That’s slow, uneven, and unsatisfying, especially when the damage is everywhere at once.
I don’t have a clean answer to where leadership comes from, Bill, when corruption feels universal, pervasive. I only know that every time we decide it must come from somewhere else, we concede more ground than we realize. Accountability has to begin somewhere small enough to be believable, even if it feels inadequate to the scale of the crisis.
But your frustration makes sense, I do get it. It’s the sound of someone who hasn’t given up on the idea that truth and ethics should matter. In times like these, that alone feels like a form of resistance.
Chemo-therapy does not restore health to the body, it destroys the disease that has corrupted it and gives the body a chance to reconstruct healthy cells. This is what I think might be necessary to get us back on our feet; much like what Germany and Japan had to go through 80 years ago. A bit like having a sponsor walking us through the steps of an AA program. Humility and accountability will be required of us all.
We will be angry, we will grieve, we will mourn; but then we will raise our heads and see the horizon, we will rise to our feet and step toward it again, and we will know that our healing has come.
Much to think on in this one, but I totally agree 💯! I truly do hope that more of us can learn this hard lesson finally and avoid reliving the so-called punishment ... consequence(s) of our past, but it will/would be worth it. Thank you again for inspiring and encouraging us this Monday morn, Dino!
I'm hoping to see as your final statement encourages more discussion on this - right here!
Meanwhile I will internalize and continue to absorb and ponder. I like what Susan suggest (or asks) if your future articles will provide "workable solutions to heal us" but also let's hear other's ideas as well.