MICHAEL MATTERS

Michael Matters

I am 86 years old, and I stand at the edge of the abyss. My great-grandson Michael stands on the same precipice, though for him, the view ahead is far longer and far darker. My generation failed to see the end of our freedom approaching until it was almost too late.

I matter because I saw the problem in time to raise a clarion call for action. Yet when I did, no one listened. Even now, too many people still do not grasp the gravity of what has happened. They look to politics for answers, as if politics could repair what greed destroyed. They protest, they demonstrate, but these gestures will not stop what is already in place.

This is no longer about prevention. The dictatorship has already taken root. The machinery of autocracy is in place. The civil service has been gutted, the judiciary compromised, and the legislature paralyzed. The power of money, the oligarchs, and their courtiers now rule every chamber of decision. And above it all is the Theocracy movement of Stephen Miller.

So, what remains?

Only one institution still holds the moral authority, the discipline, and the dedication to the oath to the Constitution itself: the United States military. They swore not to a person, nor a party, but to the Republic, to defend it against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That oath now hangs in the balance.

I do not say this lightly. I understand the sacred prohibition against military involvement in politics. But this is not about politics. It is about survival. If the ship of state is to be righted, it will not be by those who profit from its wreckage. It will be by those who swore to defend it.

I have tried writing, pleading, reaching out to those who once stood at the helm: General Milley and others who understand what duty means when the Republic falters. They must now find the courage to stand again.

If they do not, fascists will claim not only my generation, but my great-grandson’s as well. And I will go into that darkness knowing that we, all of us, failed to act when there was still time.

William James Spriggs