The Christian Fight for Democracy's Survival

I have not wanted to blog, because I don't want to be a broken record.  "Tick, tick, tick," same song, same story.  The American story we are experiencing is a broken record.  The remnants of our federal, state, and local leadership are stuck in a sycophantic groove ensuring their own political and financial security.  Nothing can be more metaphorical than the city of Fayetteville (in Cumberland County) continually hemorrhaging money to local favorites in a nepotistic bacchanal.  Thirty million tax payer dollars lost when Kirk Deviere cancelled the downtown performing arts center project.  This berzerk amusement park ride for the citizens' tax dollars is criminal.  A half-built new fire station on Bragg Blvd., like the Performing Arts Center, is being canceled and deemed uninhabitable.  It is being blamed on the city.  (I can't keep straight whether it is the Mayor, City Manager, City Council, or the County Commissioners) who keep fumbling and lateraling the ball in the worst "Da Ville" cup match ever.  The contractors proclaim it is the fault of the inspectors.  Their original plans for the station are not at fault.  It is the job of the city to police the project.  Meanwhile the money continues to flow out to the pet projects of the local brass.  Market House renovations.  A world class tennis facility.  A multi-million dollar Civil War Museum.  The Cape Fear Regional Theater, under the auspicious co-leadership of Mary Catherine Burke and Ella Wrenn, procured their own steel.  With the most savvy and forward thinking creative and business acumen in decades, these two formulated a plan to expand what began as the Fayetteville Little Theater in Leonard McLoud's living room.  Artistic director and founder of the theater, Olga "Bo" Thorp, achieved a similar renovation and expansion with the help of a state grant acquired by attorney and statesman, Tony Eden Rand.  I remember personally when this took place, and it was transformative for the theater and the local artistic community.  This newest phase is awe inspiring.  The pair chose the best and most appropriate company with which to contract.  History will show the scope of this choice, and how Mary Kate and Ella conceived, planned, and implemented this much needed expansion that brings both glamour and earthiness to Haymont.  The Methodist University and Cape Fear Valley Health's presence cannot be denied when driving into Fayetteville from I-95 South via Owen Drive.  The mirrored facade of the new medical school and additions to the hospital shine like the Eiffel Tower.  The new and improved Cape Fear Regional Theater achieves the same as you drive up Haymount Hill from downtown Fayetteville.  It is no wonder Mr. DeViere cancelled the downtown performing arts center but leaving thirty million dollars unaccounted for.  I hope the the steel for the new Civil War Museum is this lost steel.  The grifting continues, and why shouldn't it when the President of the United States is setting the quintessential example of forsaking the majority of the American citizenry?  It is borderline fascism, and it just keeps coming.  There are so many issues at stake in what has now become a blatant exploiting of the peoples' money.  Trump has nothing to lose, so he just continues to take.  Am I pacified that my own street, Westchester Drive, is slated to be paved in the next year?  Seeing that this modest thoroughfare has become the on ramp for Vanstory Hills Elementary School, and it is plagued with pot holes, cracks, and actively growing vegetation, I would revel in a new smooth asphalt surface upon which to skateboard.  As the city so candidly told me, "The price of asphalt is high right now."  We know why.  My biggest pet peeve is traffic lights.  Since the hurricanes flooded most of Fayetteville and destroyed the traffic control center, logical traffic flow has ceased.  Some new paving has occurred with new trip wires, but the lights are not intelligently programmed.  Everyone will tell you the biggest problem intersections.  First on the list?  McPherson Church Road and Morganton.  It is plausible you will sit at this light for three minutes and nary a vehicle will move.  I have yet to plan my shopping to avoid this area, and always I suffer burning fuel while my car sits in the scorching sun.  Now the Mayor is covering up the city's plan for unwanted data centers, certainly at the behest of a massive Amazon warehouse near Fort Bragg.  In a nutshell with all facets of government being uncooperative of the needs of ordinary citizens and now blatantly exploiting and embezzling tax revenue, and a President who has waged a terror campaign on the populace dismantling regulatory agencies and settling lawsuits with paltry payouts, it is beginning to feel like the only way forward to democratic governance will be resistance violence.  This will manifest itself in small acts of rebellion that will be equivalent to grievous disservices imposed upon the American people.  If prices continue to rise, wages remain stagnant, services are suspended, and people continue to struggle to survive, it will not seem criminal to fight back against political and economic tyranny.  Not unlike the historically active political parties Sinn Fein and the Black Panthers, civilian political activists openly and aggressively began to resist governmental injustice often with violence.  While at the moment the nation has been numbed into subservience, it is becoming evident  only civil or revolutionary war may preserve American democracy.  Donald Trump may crave martyrdom in the vein of vicious dictators, but like the Christian nation America always has been, there comes a time when good people must take up arms and fight.  We are dying at the behest of our own government, and it is time for it to stop.