12 Comments
User's avatar
Charlene Delaunay's avatar

You beautifully express the ideals the majority of Americans strive for. There is one grave issue that this country seems unable to handle. Predatory wolves will always live amongst us, but when they worm their way into politics, the responsible leaders don’t know how to take them down. McCarthyism is just one example. He died or he could have gone on much longer.

Expand full comment
SUE Speaks's avatar

Now there’s two of us. And add Jesus to the pep talkers. He said who followed would be greater. So far, no one has been as good, but the time is now, when apocalypse lurks, to awaken to what we were designed to be, loving creatures in an altruistic zeitgeist. So, what next? This morning I was thinking to go after the billionaires. New game. Go to where the power is. Even just think of doing what the world does. Advertise. Let them fund a massive worldwide ad campaign for us to become our better angels?

Expand full comment
Bruce Isaacson's avatar

Good writing & living. I see deep similarities with my own path.

Expand full comment
Adonnah's avatar

Wow. You’ve said it all basically. Wonderfully writtten and a beautiful message. Thank you for your heart and clarity.

Expand full comment
John Capasso Sr's avatar

I’m with you. The realists and cynics - so called - be damned.

Expand full comment
Heather Olivier's avatar

Love love love this! Thank you

Expand full comment
Gwen Roberts's avatar

Fight.

Expand full comment
Dr. Deborah Hall's avatar

Mark,

I hear every lovely word

of your song.

Like Whitman

you hear America singing.

You are in deep harmony.

So am I.

I am devoted

to bringing about

our new birth of freedom

as Lincoln called us to do.

We will build

a more perfect Union, Mark.

I'm with you.

Expand full comment
John Capasso Sr's avatar

Journalist Bill Moyers expressed a milder but noteworthy call-to-arms after the 2016 election: “Journalist Bill Moyers’ comment on the article:

Much that we hold dear appears under threat. We will be asked in new and sometimes frightening ways, “What do we stand for?” “What do we care about enough to risk in ridicule, funding, a job, our lives?”

Many of us have not had to face such choices before. Sure, we act for what we believe in. We march. We write letters to the editor. We call our elected officials. We speak up at council meetings. We join committees. We donate. But at what risk? Often very little. That may change

Expand full comment
Mark McInerney's avatar

The question isn’t what we’re willing to risk. The question is what we’re willing to lose—because some losses are irreversible. And history does not wait for the comfortable to grow courageous.

So what do we stand for? Not in theory. In practice. When it costs. When it cuts. When it wounds. When they come not just for your name, but your name’s meaning.

Because make no mistake: they already have.

Expand full comment
John Capasso Sr's avatar

We need a lot less commentary (present company excepted) and a lot more action, i.e., Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty.

Expand full comment
Mark McInerney's avatar

100% agree

Expand full comment