Author Edward C. Patterson Urges Resistance

Well, at 70 I won't see the final crash and burn. But I am resolved to be a voice, a pen, a quill, and this will be my last Hurrah, since I can't repeat my trips in the 60's for Civil Rights, or serving my country in the military again like I did in the late 60's, or march against Nixon and protest at college in the 70's, or go into he field to aid the dying during the AIDS crisis, or march on Washington as I did in the 90's as a Gay activist. The 21st Century gives me only my voice and this wonderful social media extension.

I lived in the business world for how many years? I've been in it and still in it after 52 years. Applying business acumen to government by a bunch of billionaire vultures who probably have not even read the Constitution is not my idea of the vision of the Founding Fathers. Their vision was a WHITE only (even Native Americans were specifically proscribed in the Declaration of Independence) democracy where their special interests were served. We have grown from that narrow definition in the context of a liberally interpreted document. Remember - we are the great experiment, and perhaps the experiment has failed, especially when we managed to let a narcissistic sociopath slip into the executive position.

My dedication to diversity and an America as a beacon of hope for the entire world may be naive and fraught with idealism, but living here is not all beans and potatoes. It's breathing in the many cultures that have changed us. We have had a governmental system which has worked despite of its Byzantine attributes. Tearing it down will not restore us to the vision of the founding fathers, because that vision was myopic. It's the generations between that have made America great.

We evolve. We do not implode.

Thus, with the gifts I have - a voice, a pen, publication, social media - I will continue to inspire, piss-off and otherwise egg on those who can still march, shout, bray and shore up what we have rather than to replace it with a beehive of fascist uniformity. That is what history has taught me - European, Chinese and American History. And here I thought my legacy would be living out my days in quiet reticence. Nope.

"Do not go gentle into that good night."

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