Gettysburg Reunion

 As the perpetrators of the January 6, 2021 insurrection take control of the government at last, they push their revision of recent history relentlessly. It was peaceful. It was legal. It was glorious. They call for unity, which for them only ever means complete capitulation to their position.

They seem to be looking for something like the Gettysburg reunion of 1913, at which the survivors of the battle from both sides displayed camaraderie and respect rather than the deadly enmity that had marked the entire brutal conflict. Through the lens of time, they could appreciate each other's valor, and embrace in the happy knowledge that they were all white men in a white supremacist nation. Maybe business practices and systems of oppression had to operate a little differently, and let's not think too hard about specific atrocities in the war itself, but life in general is pretty good for us all.

It's almost as sick as the Christmas truces of World War I, in which opposing forces took a day or two off to sing carols and share some festive beverages before snapping right back into the orgy of mechanized slaughter that dominated every other day for four years and traumatized an entire generation.

Reconciliation was deeply important to white male America and to the dependents who could do nothing to stop the men from picking fights if a difference of opinion got out of hand. Let's all embrace in a spirit of forgiveness and charity! Focus on the important part, which is that the essential system of dominance is basically intact.

Women and minorities have made steady progress out from under the various boot heels laid upon them through the last century and the beginning of this one. Just as resistance to oppression is intersectional, so is the oppression itself. Pure white supremacists don't want any mixing down the color chart, but male dominance does cross the color barrier. Some adherents to brand-name religions promote tolerance of other belief systems, while others have to be ready for the murder-suicide of unlimited holy war to make sure that they die in battle with the name of the correct deity on their lips. Every form of tolerance and abhorrence is on a spectrum. These spectra overlap in a dense maze.

In the stages of processing something disturbing, acceptance is always the last one. It can be the most elusive, slipping in and out of your grasp. So it goes with acceptance of differences among people. Things can be okay, okay, okay, until suddenly the cord snaps and we're back to anger.

We all have things that we find unacceptable. For me it's environmental destruction and all of the mechanisms that feed it. What color people are, and how they use their genitalia, doesn't matter at all. I want to be polite and supportive to people who have been persecuted for their unimportant differences. Let's all have comfortable, sufficient lives that leave plenty for those who inherit the planet from us, whether we birthed them or not. But that's not how our species has been living. We've been locked into a winner-take-all struggle. You can support the winners -- who are actually dooming us -- or you can hope to prevail in the violent conflict that the seekers of power always hold over us.

The United States -- the Reunited States -- welcomed the reconciliation that took the place of true Reconstruction after the Civil War, because it gave the losing side their dignity and enough of their old power back to keep them quiet for a while. They were right to the extent that destructive enmity would have halted all progress. But it wasn't a pure good thing. It abandoned the moral high ground and shoved the problem off onto future generations. Future generations have moved very slowly, backsliding frequently on the way toward an inclusive society.

There are a lot of people I don't want to hang out with, for various reasons. I don't insist that they cease to exist. We can go along, get along through a fair range of diversity, as long as the goal is actually to go along and get along more or less indefinitely. Some differences are enjoyable and add layers to our understanding. Others are merely tolerable. The judgment is subjective. Take good care of the planet, give each other some space. Appreciate the simple pleasures of food, shelter, and whatever level of companionship meets your needs.