### Part of an article I submitted to a local paper: 2008 was just a mere symptom, the tip of the iceberg, to a much more immense problem that began in the eighties if not before. For 30 plus years now America, by every objective measure, has become a country that supports the dreams and needs of a smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller elite group. Our region, our City, our country is no longer for all of us, just for the few, and fewer every month. We.......

### Part of an article I submitted to a local paper:  2008 was just a mere symptom, the tip of the iceberg, to a much more immense problem that began in the eighties if not before. For 30 plus years now America, by every objective measure, has become a country that supports the dreams and needs of a smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller elite group.

Our region, our City, our country is no longer for all of us, just for the few, and fewer every month. We in the DC region have little if any time left to decide if we are going to let that stand or if we are going to immediately, aggressively, make our region with liberty and justice for all of our sisters and brothers, not just the fewer and fewer. All.

Baton Rouge, Minneapolis, and Dallas brought a terrifying Clarity to me Sunday, and to many many leading thinkers as well I see from their articles on Monday, that we have all but become a country that by policy, politics, economy and policing is a country of, by, and for the 20%, and functioning to pacify, control, defend against and contain the 80% of us. “Miniature police States,” Chris Hedges said many of our cities have become. When we allow ever dwindling living wage jobs, dwindling affordable housing, and dwindling environmental decency what else could they be or become?

I think this is by design of the wealthiest Among Us who lack the compassion to care for the majority,  just for themselves and the few around them. But more than that I think it is due to the triplets of racism,  materialism, and militarism Dr. King warned us 50 years ago were already destroying us. He said our “thing oriented Society” would not last. We have not repented, we have accelerated.

Whatever the cause, neither America nor our region are for many of us anymore but for an ever and ever smaller elite few.

Washington DC is the heart of our country. If we stand with courage and compassion and face this now, we might still be in time for the rest of the country to follow our lead.

Will we in Washington DC and the region any longer accept an America that is no longer of, by, and for all of the people? Will we individually and collectively find and live the Revolutionary courage to make it what it should be and to turn from, the ultimate disaster we are otherwise headed to?