A Crisis of Indifference
"The opposite of love is not hate but indifference" ~ Elie Wiesel
Best Friend's Song
A special signed limited edition print from Wayne D. King
Captured outside Cape Coast Castle, the staging center for the Gold Coast slave trade in Ghana these two good friends form the basis of my vision of redemptive hope. Hope for all of humanity in the eyes of these two precious children. The quote reminds us of our common humanity and the need for us to be present for one another in those moments when we have forgotten the song in our heart.
Signed Originals
14.5" x 20"
Edition of 250
$99
Order this signed, limited edition image here
Purchase this image as an unsigned poster
A crisis of indifference
The front stoop to the modest little Sears and Roebuck bungalow that Kodi and I share in the town of Bath, New Hampshire, as it turns out, are a near-perfect spot to view the Fourth of July fireworks in the sweet little confederacy of towns composed of both New Hampshire and Vermont communities here at the confluence of three great rivers: the Connecticut, The Ammonoosuc and the Wells.
I discovered this quite by accident on the Fourth of July 2024.
Like many dogs, Kodi is not terribly fond of fireworks. In that way, he’s like the old golden retriever that Alice, Zach, and I had when Zachary was just a young boy. When the fireworks began back in Rumney, Jackson headed straight for the shower, even if that meant breaking through the glass sliding doors.
Kodi, on the other hand is a bit more restrained. He becomes velcro dog, practically attaching himself to my leg. However, it seems that as long as he knows I’m close by he can summon up his courage.
So it was that at 9pm on July 4th of this year that Kodi and I carefully made our way to the steps that led from the front yard to the street. Together we sat and watched the fireworks sponsored by the good folks of Haverhill and Bath, New Hampshire and Wells River Vermont.
With a slight exception during the grand finale we did ok. That’s because in those final moments both of us were crying. Kodi because he was nervous and I because I had come to the realization, in these final moments of glory, that this might very well be the last year in which I was truly committed to the American idea.
Don’t get me wrong, I am committed to the ideas laid down by the founders of our Republic. As flawed and hypocritical as they were in so many ways, they had risked everything for the idea that we could - over time - build a nation where freedom and equality and the rule of law bound us all together.
I won’t say that we couldn’t see it coming but I don’t think that any of us imagined that a deeply corrupted Supreme Court would so quickly and unashamedly sever all the ties that have bound Americans together in even the most trying times of our past.
Judge Michael Luttig, a brilliant conservative judicial scholar called the recent SCOTUS ruling on Presidential Immunity “The UnSouling of America”.
He’s right.
The Supreme Court ripped the very soul out of the American idea. Luttig makes a very compelling case that the Supreme Court decided what they wanted for Donald Trump in this moment, and then worked backward to fashion their decision. In doing this, the Roberts Court, and especially John Roberts, has shrouded itself in shame.
I had originally intended to say here that they have shrouded themselves in shame for all time - but that presumes that time will continue to play out for the American experiment.
Therein lies the rub, and the other critical point of this piece, denominated by its title. While we “adults” have been sniping at one another, circling up into our tribal groupings and generally failing to listen to one another in any constructive and meaningful way, something has happened to the young people in our country. The vast majority have been swept up in a tsunami of indifference.
We have so thoroughly failed them that most of them see no real reason to feel loyalty to the American idea. They have watched as their financial future has been hijacked by oligarchs and two ostensibly competing political parties played to their donor bases and nonetheless shamelessly uploaded the country’s wealth to the mega-wealthy, while the simple American dream of home ownership has become an illusion for most.
It has become increasingly clear that our loyalty to the ideas of personal autonomy and freedom; our commitment to the rule of law, and the belief that no one is above that law - all supposed hallmarks of “American exceptionalism” - only mattered when it gave our respective “tribe” an advantage over the “other”.
They have lost faith in the American system and they have lost faith in us.
So today we face down the barrel of a SCOTUS-delivered, AI-fueled, existential crisis and our kids don’t have our backs.
They don’t hate us, nor do they love us. They are indifferent.
They have lost the song in their hearts.
You know the song I mean.
It is the song that inspired patriots from the commoner Thomas Paine who called Americans to action with his words of “Common Sense” to the patrician John Hancock who stood with John Adams on a hillside in Boston and watched the British burn his childhood home to the ground at the start of the American Revolution and declared that he would gladly give all he had for the freedom of his country;
It is the song that inspired the secrecy of the Underground Railroad and the fight to end slavery;
It was the song that brought women and men into the streets to demand suffrage for women;
The song that inspired the civil rights marches of the 60s and the resistance at Stonewall;
It is the song that gave America’s greatest generation the steel to storm the beaches of Normandy to stop Hitler; the song that led four white students at Kent State and two African American students at Jackson State to give their lives to stop the Vietnam war . . . need I go on?
If this chapter of our history is to end in a story that future generations of our kids will remember and thank us for, we now have two tasks before us: To halt the slide into the black hole of authoritarianism into which we have been drawn and to sing our American song back to our kids. . . so they will remember how it goes.
I’m suiting up for the fight. I hope you are too.
The Secrets of the Patriot
About Wayne D. King: Wayne King is an author, artist, activist and recovering politician. A three-term State Senator, 1994 Democratic nominee for Governor, now a registered Independent; he is also the former publisher of Heart of New Hampshire Magazine and CEO of MOP Environmental Solutions Inc., and now the host of two Podcasts - The Radical Centrist (www.theradicalcentrist.us) and NH Secrets, Legends and Lore (www.nhsecrets.blogspot.com). His art (www.waynedking.com) is exhibited nationally in galleries and he has published three books of his images and a novel "Sacred Trust" a vicarious, high voltage adventure to stop a private powerline all available on Amazon.com. He now lives in Thornton, New Hampshire at the base of Welch Mountain where he proudly flies both the American and Iroquois Flags. His art website is: http://www.WayneDKing.com . His publishing & production company is Anamaki.com