John Fogerty sings in the background, Down on the Bayou, and I drink a mediocre cup of coffee in the breakfast room of the Holiday Inn.  It is Sunday morning in Greenville, South Carolina.  To bed late and a short evening of restless sleep.  I know that “things change” and that I will feel better in a while.  Sometimes it works in the opposite direction…  Conditions are never ideal.  “Keep moving” is the advice I try to give myself.  Or better put, “keep learning.”

Often I think that our situation is hopeless, given the antipathy between us Americans ranging from discontent to rage, — consequences of the extractive nature of capitalism…  Too many of us have been left behind for too long, and now, those marooned by inadequate education and poverty, or the immanent hazard of poverty, are easy prey for soulless propagandists.  I read about such predators in the New York Times or sometimes hear them interviewed on television.  They appear physically human, but in reality are hungry ghosts, eager for profit and power at the expense of their fellowmen/women.

Can things fall apart?  Yes, and things have fallen apart before.  In my great grandfather’s day American’s killed each other.  There is a military graveyard here in Greenville, just a few yards from the front entrance of this Holiday Inn.  I am told some Confederate war dead are buried there.  This four year period of our history should never be romanticized as a simply a States-Rights “righteous” struggle against tyranny.  The years 1860 to 1865 were years of slaughter sending many young men to a early grave.  A memorial statue to the Confederate dead stolidly stands at the entry way to the nearby graveyard 

Yesterday, to defeat my reason which inclines me to feel hopeless, we came upon a duo of musicians , Synergy Twins playing their electronic violins.   A free concert was in progress at One City Plaza on Main Street in Greenville.  We joined the circle of onlookers to listen for a while.  I felt tears when the musicians played the meditative anthem, Hallelujah, composed by Leonard Cohen.  Transfixed by the beauty and the deep meaning of the words (which we remembered), the notes from the instruments reminded us in the circle of strangers how much we Americans have in common.

From this angle of view, hope defeats despair. 

Keep moving and keep learning.