December 13, 2007
by Brian Trent

Across five thousand years of human civilization, fathers and husbands and mothers and wives, children and cousins, siblings, crowned royalty and downtrodden peasant, have enjoyed the notion of a new year. The turning of a page onto a clean canvas. while bearing in mind yesterday's lessons of headlines, discoveries, mistakes, and triumphs.

In the new year let us think, and let us thank.

Let us thank Greek democracy, the Roman Republic, and the Enlightenment ideals which made America possible as the grand experiment. Let us pledge to never let that experiment fail. Let us recognize that such a burden, like Hercules taking the world from Atlas, is ours until the day when our children inherit it as their own. Let us give them something worth inheriting.

Let us memorize our Constitution. Put it in every hotel room and school, every vehicle visor, backpocket, street corner, subway car, airplane, glove-box, lunchbox and mailbox. Let us open Senate with a reading from the Bill of Rights.

Let us remember that the government works for us. That it must be about more than self-perpetuation. That it must respect the separation of powers. That if we can't remember the Bill of Rights, we should tattoo them on our bodies like that guy in Memento. That our Republic only survives among an educated population. That without education, we become a lynch mob.

Let us realize that it isn't video games or music or movies that destroys our children, but our own failure as parents. Let us take responsibility and teach respect again. Read to our children again. Read to ourselves again. Set the example for others to follow.

Let us remember that war is a tool, which we can utilize for the right or wrong reasons. That any politician voting for a war be mandated to send their sons and daughters with the plebian troops as well, or else volunteer themselves. That we abandon the military-industrial complex model of American Empire and return it to the original purpose: for defense and security. That for every billion we spend on a weapon, we match and double it for a school.

Let us return America to its rightful place as bastion of freedom, not a womb for fascism. That we will again be the shining citadel of hope, not the dark tower of deception, hypocrisy, and corruption. That we abandon our partisanship. That we shatter the calcified definitions and start voting on individual platforms, not in accordance with cultist propaganda. That we turn off the blathering of the intellectually dishonest talking heads. That we watch the History Channel, Discovery, The Learning Channel, or PICK UP A BOOK FROM TIME TO TIME. That we read different opinions, Different viewpoints, different ideas. Different perspectives. That we travel more.

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That we will support science and education, instead of opposing it on medieval grounds so that we lose our best and brightest to other nations. That we recognize and affirm America's secular government that permits religious freedom. That we never allow our military, our schools, and our government to be infiltrated by zealots who believe in Apocalypse rather than human progress. That we will become a rational, humanistic nation instead of a vengeful theocratic ambition.

That we reaffirm our faith in human progress. That it is human progress and rationalism which gave us mastery over the elements and animals, allowed us to measure the distances of stars, invent medicine, and strive always for a better world. That the Dark Ages of fundamentalist barbarism belong in the past, not our future.

Let us realize that we can do anything. Let us cure cancer. And let's figure out what to do with that nasty megavolcano brewing under Yellowstone.

Let us pledge to be ruled by our rationality, not our emotions. Without passion or prejudice. That we never allow these dark days to return beneath the banner of Red, White and Blue.

And let us not pray for help, but rather find the strength within ourselves to improve our country, our world, and our lives. For surely that is what any God, people, and future historian will respect.

I do not wish for a Happy New Year.

I expect that we all achieve one.

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Brian Trent [send him email] is a professional essayist, screenwriter, and novelist; he is the author of "Remembering Hypatia" and the just-released "Never Grow Old: the Novel of Gilgamesh."  Brian is a contributor to American Chronicle and The Humanist Magazine.  Visit his website at www.rememberinghypatia.com.

Copyright 2007 Brian Trent

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