‘Speaking truth to power‘, a slogan much in play these days, has always struck me as a bit curious for its implication that the truth is different for those in power as opposed to those who are not. I was schooled in the understanding that the truth was the truth, if indeed, it was the truth at all, so I imagined that the suggestion of it being directed to the powerful was something of an effort to make the fact of stating it more heroic or meaningful. No embellishment is needed, really, for Truth, with a capital ‘T’, shines forth in all its splendor if true, and is, of course, in rare supply these days, and in politics as rare as a shrunken head hanging in the orchard. I recall a recent cartoon that had a white-bearded ancient sage, complete with robe, lantern and walking stick sitting at a bar with his printer and a drink before him saying, “I used to be looking for the Truth, but now I’m just searching for a new cartridge for my printer”. So it is in the modern world; it can wear down the best of us.

The point here is that in this election cycle with all the billions being spent and all the froth being generated and all of the quite obvious avoidance of glaring, screaming facts, it is remarkable that the truth does manage to wiggle into our conversations, to get its ‘foot in the door’, so to speak. That Truth is that our political system is failing and that it is doing so at a level that imperils our planet and all of the multitudinous life forms on it. Profound changes are required to add integrity and efficiency to all that we do and if we can’t discuss, deliberate and come to some agreement about some basic truths, we will fail abysmally; that is to say, as if falling into the abyss. The happy, pat utterance of The Covid moment, that “We’re all in this together”, must give way to the reality of acting as if that were the actual, factual case .  Because . . . just, ‘because’