It is taught that we should not shame people if we want them to change. I don’t know if I can always agree with that. I am myself ashamed and know there are millions of people in this nation-state who need, and I mean deeply need, to be ashamed. Shame can be harrowing, but shame can also be righteous. Admitting to oneself and before others to being wrong, facing up to the truth of reality, admitting to the cause and apologetically being sorry and courageous before it—making amends for the consequences of gross misjudgments and criminal offenses.
Like it or like it not, America First is an illusion and a pretense and posturing in hubris. We are not the summit, not the pinnacle or crown of creation. Life, including human existence, is a circle, like the earth is round, a sphere of interconnective dependencies, and not a hierarchy of enforced domination. We are participants with all others, a species-joined by genetics and evolution, and at best, when we are at our best, we are cooperative working partners.
Like it or like it not, we live in a context of shared reality. And the disconnect from reality is endemic in the American identity-syndrome and configures the shamefulness of America’s withdrawal from discomforting challenges into narcissistic delusions. While yet to look steadfastly, honestly, critically and courageous at America’s role in global realities should sting the conscience of American people, uncovering the cause of a shame that shows itself vindictively as a national mood of gloom and despair, we are advised to visit a therapist while continuing to shop. Therapy is a coping component of materialistic civilization and consumerism is capitalism’s addiction of addictions.
Right now in the United States of America, we are not a good nation of good people. And if we want to be good people of a good nation, we will have to become better than we ever were in the past (because we have fallen with eyes open into more internal depredation and danger than ever before). Being better means better in our virtues and our integrity, our promises and our deeds, then the shamefulness that has taken hold of us. The ashes of our national repentance must be equal to the phoenix of renewed democracy. Henceforth—for recovery and trust in the world--the phoenix of human betterment and not now repeating the bloody cataclysms of the eagle of war would better serve as a national symbol.
In the crisis of democracy upon us, the corruption of conduct and of governance must be swept from the land and cleansed from the air. Only then will we collectively plant new crops for a shameless harvest. Only then will we again know what it is to breathe the good health of freedom. Then life will become lighter without the weight of betrayal, without the shadow enfolding coils of venomous tyranny.
If the United States has a sovereign Constitution, if the United States has a viable democracy, then the American people united have the power to peacefully and lawfully remove the fundamental cause of current (and yet ongoing) national shame, of harmful misconduct and abhorrent behavior. Indeed, to do so is a common sense assertion of democratic instinct.
Honesty is the first step to recovery. Not only indispensable personal honesty throughout the citizenry but indispensable honesty in political service and public discourse. Seekers of office who lack honesty in the questioning concerns of critical dialogue should never be elected to office. We are far from being of that stainless, trustworthy status today, but this is a goal—a national antidote directly before us. In this too, the quality of a people and the vitality of democracy are on the line.
Approaching the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the USA, let’s take a moment together to ask ourselves in our purblind self-absorption, our stress, our anxiety, our hurry-worry scurrying financial lives, are we turning back and heading home, or rushing terminally into the ICU of failed politicians and calamitous policies?
Each of us makes choices, large and small, not only when voting. Choices have consequences. They delineate parameters and point in a direction.
David Sparenberg is a humanitarian and eco poet, an international essayist and storyteller. He published four eBooks with OVI Books (Sweden) and the Word Press in 2025, the fourth of which was TROUBADOUR & the Earth on Fire. David will have a fifth new OVI eBook, MANIFESTO: Ecology, Spirituality & Politics in a Higher Octave, published in April 2026. David Sparenberg lives in Seattle, WA in the Pacific Northwest of the United States but identifies as an Ecotopian Citizen of Creation.
Don’t miss David Sparenberg‘s latest eBook Troubadour and the Earth on fire ,
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