This is a terrible time to live in America. What is happening now in Washington infuriates any decent citizen.

The horrible people doing these things are counting on you to not take action, to not stand up, and to not be counted. They want you to go quietly away while they perform their neo-fascist fantasies.

Each one of us is powerful in our own right. Yes, that is a fact. We are not atoms flowing about helplessly in society as one famous right-wing loon claimed. We are human beings with the rights and privileges associated with self-government.

Each of us is powerful but in association our power multiplies. And you are not alone. All over the United States, there are million of citizens equally appalled, equally angry and desperate to take action.

Now, here’s the rub. This isn’t a problem that can be solved in a week, a month or a year. Are you willing to commit to laboring for justice and right for years on end? Is it important enough to you? If you have doubts, maybe your desire to fight for your country and its future is not enough to sustain you for the long haul?

I know it is awful to have to fight for what is obviously right against outright nut jobs and fools. And I know that we as a people and as a nation go over the same ground and the same issues, year after year after year. And it gets exhausting.

If you are going to commit to repair the damage done and live in a working democracy, understand that it is a major decision and it will affect a great deal of many other things in your life. There will be pain. There will be obstacles. There will be friends and family who don’t get why you care and worse, there will be friends and family that actively oppose you. Many, many families are cursed with members whose devotion to the neo-fascist cause is more important than other family members, their friends or their duty as patriots or citizens or as Christians. Consider them lost, casualties in a war for the soul of our democracy.

The first step in struggling against what is happening, against the threat of a burgeoning fascist state is to decide to act.

If you have the heart of a warrior, fight! If you believe in the visions of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, fight! If you have seen the sacrifices of hundreds of thousands of Americans in the struggles against dictatorships and evil, and you don’t want them to have suffered and died in vain, then fight.

Welcome aboard. You’re going to make a lot of new friends and you are joining a just cause for representative democracy. God bless you!

(That is essay one. This is the first of a set. I will write the next one very soon.)