BY BOB BEARDEN

Is resistance futile? Not by a long shot.

I have been there-done that and I have seen the power that, as Margaret Mead noted, a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can do in making a difference in the world. It is never easy, and, yes, the system is rigged and one party now seems bent on making our nation into an oligarchy and seem ready, willing and able to hand it over to a small cabal of rich cranky old white billionaires. But we can stop it.

To do so we must take to the streets at every opportunity against every wave of oligarchy that raises its ugly head and attempts to cram down our throats their version of dictatorial bull hockey. We can survive Trump and we can take our country back from the brink of neo-Nazism and quell a return to the onerous days of yesteryear. Those were not the good ol’ days as the Trumpster and his cabal of alt-right Nazi sympathizers would have you believe.

There was not a lot in those times that could be counted as good or that we should want to return to and worship. Jim Crow laws were in force, racism and bigotry were rampant throughout our nation. We must resist the call to return to those days.

We can’t stamp out bigotry and racism by allowing our nation to continue to follow the likes of Donald Trump. He wants to assume the mantle of a dictator and his abject genuflection to Vladimir Putin is an indication of where he would like to take our nation.

If we learned nothing from this past year, we learned that people standing together can and do make a difference. We can stop the train wreck that the Trumpster has forced on us, and we can and we must fight his embracing of racism, fear and bigotry at every turn.

The GOPers have capitulated to the Trumpster and are now siding with him at every turn. We can’t count on any organized resistance from their side of the aisle.

We the people must continue to stand up, speak up and speak out. And we must get out into the streets at every opportunity. Resistance is not futile, but it does require action.

It was that firebrand of a patriot, Patrick Henry, who said at the outset of the Revolutionary War, “Why stand we here idle? What is it that the gentlemen wish? What would they have? I know not what course others make take, but as for me give me liberty or give me death.”

Those powerful words still ring true today. We cannot go quietly into that good night and meekly surrender our freedoms to a man who cares more about destroying our rights and our freedoms than he does about protecting them. Who cares more about pushing the world to the brink of war and beyond than he does about bringing the world together or finding peaceful solutions to world problems.

We must band together. As Benjamin Franklin said at the onset of our war of independence, “We must all hang together or by damn we shall all hang separately!”

Our future, the future of our country and the future of the world depends our willingness to stand together and resist! We must insist on it. We must persist, and we must resist!

It has become a moral imperative.

– Bob Bearden is a trustee with the Central Oklahoma Labor Federation, a member of Mayflower Congregational Church UCC and a frequent contributor to The Oklahoma Observer