Independent Guestatorial: Enter… the New Dark Ages?

During the decline and eventual fall of the Roman Empire the world entered what is known as the Dark Ages. An age of intellectual darkness extinguished the “light of Rome” as powerful religious and political autocrats joined forces and vanquished free thought, scientific exploration and stifled the intellectual development of humanity. Books were burned. Science was heresy. The once great Libraries of the Western Roman Empire were plundered and destroyed. Oligarchs sucked economic resources dry.

Historical autocratic rule was an important reason our Founders created a nation with a clear separation of church and state. Now, the current conservative political movement, joining forces with evangelicals, are working to rewrite history. They actually preach this country was founded as a “christian” nation which used the Bible as a governing authority and that God actually wrote our Constitution! Not only is this rewriting of history a complete lie, it goes squarely against everything our Republic was built upon.

This rejection of intellect is the devaluation of education, science and historical facts. Since the proliferation of social media, fake news sites and the corruption of mainstream media, people are profoundly befuddled in this time where misinformation is at our fingertips but truth remains elusive. Worse yet, the newly crowned leaders of our Federal Government are not interested in truth, nor are their supporters. Science and facts, especially historical facts, are often met with hostility and a growing violence. Creationism, which is a total rejection of natural science right in front of our eyes, has taken root in America. It does not matter that we have discovered the proverbial Tree of Life through our exploration of DNA; nor does the fact that we find some of the same strands of DNA in trees, butterflies, lions, tigers and bears (oh my), hummingbirds, flowers and even insects, as we find in ourselves. We are literally ONE with our Universe, and while this is truly a profound spiritual discovery, it is rejected as heresy and treated with contempt by a growing faction of individuals.

As our world now faces Global Warming and literally the possible extinction of not only humanity, but most life on this planet, our President-elect has appointed a climate change denier to head up our Environmental Protection Agency. New policies to increase oil and gas exploration are already taking form, which will encroach not only upon sacred lands, but very fragile ecosystems that are already in dire peril. More and more carbon is being pumped into the atmosphere at record pace. The lust for power of the ‘new’ conservatives has reached a fever pitch and they are clearly willing to sacrifice all of our children and generations to follow, not to mention destroying all life on this planet, for monetary gains which will give them more ‘power’ and supposedly a more robust economy to rule.

We are entering the New Dark Ages. Americans are drowning in massive amounts of misinformation, but little truth. If somebody thinks ‘it’… or says ‘it’ enough times… then ‘it’ must be true. History is being re-written and the underbelly of America has been brewing yet again in supremacist tendencies that have now given birth to a social convention of overt racism, hate and bigotry. This is a group of people where fellowships in shared illusions have become a defining existence. The full extent of this fellowship has largely been in the closet, a quiet minority, until the last eight years, because the heart of their social convention includes embracing the ‘righteousness’ of greed, racism, bigotry, misogyny, materialism, and xenophobia, all the while disregarding science, truth and historical facts. On the other side of the coin, a political party that is arrogant and entitled is damaging to our growth as well. No movement, politician or political party is immune from blinding themselves with greed and lust for power.

The newly elected ruling political party is rigorously fanning the flames that will destroy our Republic, and quite possibly our world. Historically, after times like the Dark Age is the coming of a Renaissance and an Age of Discovery. We must strive to hope all citizens of our Republic understand and appreciate how and why the United States was formed, and that we use our extensive resources to come together with our partners in the world to find alternative energy sources. Only with hope, focus and resolve can we begin to turn the tide of destruction that is upon us… the New Dark Ages.

T.G. Johnson