I could have titled this "Hopeless In Seattle," but I resisted.
KOMO News began with this on Wednesday: "Day after day. Night after night. Weeks turning into months of protests. We've seen various leaders and organizers come and go, including City Councilmember Kshama Sawant directing hundreds of people into City Hall."
An article that reflects hopelessness and despair---saying, "Seattle is exhausted and wounded," asking what can we do---where can we turn, concluding that it all will probably continue, because "history tends to repeat itself."
Is there any hope?
Be informed, not misled.
"Rallying cries are constantly changing," the article continues.
"One moment it's Black Lives Matter and calls for homeless reform, then it's 'defund the police and raise the minimum wage'."
Continuing the lament, the journalist writes, "Public parks and city blocks, occupied and overrun. The homes of elected officials like Mayor Jenny Durkan, and Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos all targeted."
He continues:
"Nearly one year after George Floyd's death sparked social justice demonstrations and emboldened others to mobilize, Seattle is exhausted and wounded. Many city leaders remain silent and on the sidelines. From the business community to neighbors living in hot zones like Capitol Hill, some of the stakeholders are planning and preparing for what could be ahead, even without support from their elected officials."
Some community leaders are saying, "We are absolutely not taking it anymore," while others say, "We have the power to stop it, so why aren't we coming together?" And one citizen leader says, "Until these people are prosecuted and held accountable, I don't see anything changing."
Neither does the journalist. He writes, "After all the social unrest and on-going protests, progress or success remains undefined and elusive..."
Concluding, "One thing is clear. It's difficult to predict the future of demonstrations in Seattle. But history has a tendency to repeat itself."
Similar articles are beginning to gurgle up through the blue haze of other so-called "progressive" cities like Chicago, Detroit, and others.
I'm not a politician, but I'm certain of where the answer lies.
Author Ben Shapiro has addressed the political and cultural root of the problem in his book, "How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps."
How progressives have convinced us America is evil---and must be destroyed.
Shapiro writes:
"The philosophy that derides any notion of American unity is a lie, and bathes that which links us---Abraham Lincoln's 'bonds of affection' and 'mystic chords of memory'---in acid, disintegrating our ties and casting us all adrift."
"I call this strain of thought," he says, "'Disintegrationism'."
His book and his article from the book says, "In order to argue that America's philosophy is wrongheaded, her culture diseased, and her history evil, Disintegrationists must engage in an extraordinarily selective reading of reality. They must home in, in excruciating detail, on America's sins, which in context would be fine---but rob that history of all context or subsequent history."
President Barrack Obama did so masterfully.
This has manifested itself in the obsession with "canceling" people and past presidents that they deem unacceptable or who represent something they disagree with.
Shapiro also appropriately links capitalism as an equal evil in the minds of the deceived.
To Seattle's question about how all the violence is linked together---that's how. And it's why destroying businesses and statues and canceling history is meting out justice.
These demonstrations in Seattle, Portland, Chicago, and elsewhere are not about injustice---black or otherwise, they are about destroying an America that these marchers have been conditioned to hate. And America deserves it, because America is evil.
In my lifetime the liberals who embraced the words of John F. Kennedy in his inaugural address that claimed Americans were willing to"pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty"---have now cast such thoughts aside because they no longer even want "liberty" to succeed. They are now "progressive" and they want some form of socialism.
Sen. Kamala Harris of California---now Vice President of the United States--said last year that identity politics shouldn't be eschewed---in fact, she argued, the phrase was designed to "minimize and marginalize issues that impact all o us."
Democrat Beto O'Rourke, when running for president in the primaries, said: "This is a country that has been defined by foundational systemic endemic racism since the very founding of this country."
These people are attacking every institution and foundation upon which this country was built. The rioters are burning, looting, defacing, and canceling in the same spirit.
The Christian problem.
Progressives are outraged when someone suggests that they are not "Christian" because they consistently violate biblical teaching in their policymaking. Start the list with abortion and same-sex marriage.
The complicit media hailed President Biden as the most "religious President in more than 50 years." And the same media joined the so-called progressive Christians most recently in denouncing Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court by pointing out that she was "too" religious, noting that she was "very Catholic." Not just Catholic, but "very" Catholic, meaning that she actually lived out her faith in real life.
When leftists aren't denying their prejudice, they often selectively cite Scripture to "prove" that Jesus was a socialist warrior or that the Bible mandates open borders or that the problem in America is "hate", with hate being defined as anyone who disagrees with their anti-biblical beliefs.
Obama infamously described anyone who is not a progressive as someone who is bitter, "clinging to their guns and their Bibles." He seemed oblivious to what he was revealing about himself.
America was founded upon Judeo-Christian principles and values. Today's cancel culture is not only intent upon erasing and eliminating America's history and those who led, but the faith that led us to greatness.
Consider this.
Daniel Webster (1782-1852) was a second-generation leader in America. He is honored today in our Capitol as one of the most effective politicians ever to serve our country.
Webster said this at the conclusion of a longer speech in which he addressed some of the issues we face today:
"Finally, let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through all the institutions, civil, political, or literary."
He continued:
"Let us cherish these sentiments, and extend this influence still more widely; in full conviction that that is the happiest society which partakes in the highest degree of the mild and peaceful spirit of Christianity."
A generation earlier, Founding Father Patrick Henry told his colleagues, "When people forget God, tyrants forge their chains."
We have not extended our founding Christian principles into our institutions. We have, instead, worked to remove God from all public life. We do not cherish these beliefs, we mock them. We mock our Creator by declaring that His plan of "male" and "female" is wrong, flawed, and out of date. His model of "family" is irrelevant and unnecessary. His standard of absolute truth is a joke, because we have not only forgotten God, but have worked to completely cancel Him from our culture and our belief system.
Or to remake him in the image we wish Him to be.
Until we get this part figured out, our cities will continue to burn, store windows will be smashed, goods will be looted and the "news" will report that the "constitutional" protests were "mostly peaceful" last night.
But if God's people will humble ourselves, pray, and turn from our sin, we will hear from God and He will forgive and restore our land. But only then. Otherwise, Seattle, Chicago, Portland, and the rest of the cities will smolder and continue to stumble toward Sodom.
Be Prayerful. Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant.