Campfire: This New Year, I hope youÕre not ok Hello and welcome to this Campfire Edition of the Civil Flame, a podcast where we take a deep dive into the US Constitution and look at how it isÑand isnÕtÑworking in todayÕs America. For those of you new here, campfires are where we step a little bit out exploring the strict text of the Constitution and shift out lens to broader socio-legal issues. IÕm your host Amber Vayo, professor of law and policy at Worcester State University, and IÕm starting our post-winter break comeback with this campfire to hand you a present for the new year. Are you ready? Here it is: I give you permission to stop pretending everything is ok. Why am I doing that, and how are we not ok? ThatÕs what weÕre going to get to in a minute. Pull up a seat by the fire and get your boxing gloves because weÕre coming into this new year swinging! (transition) Have you looked at the news lately? I mean, what the what? How? And huh? If youÕve followed me on Instagram (thank you!) you may have seen my recent post where I put up some crazy headlines with a quote from the Star Wars show Andor. The quote in various forms has been attributed to various people over the years, but a young revolutionary and freedom fighter Kaaris says, Ò"The pace of oppression outstrips our ability to understand it, and that is the real trick of the Imperial Thought Machine. It's easier to hide behind 40 atrocities than a single incident."Ó I canÕt get the quote out of my head. ItÕs like Trump ally Steve Bannon echoing famed Nazi Josef Goebbles saying you should Òflood the zone with shit,Ó meaning that you send out all of this horrible stuff at once. People will try to unpack or attack it one thing at a time, but they canÕt because it is so fast that we lose focus. Disclosure: I donÕt love Andor. I think itÕs brilliant on every level. ItÕs just not my favorite. But IÕve watched it anyway because it is the best political commentary of our times. I know the amazing Mon Motha scene where sheÕs giving hell to the emperor is a big one, but what best describes the US is MaarvaÕs address at her funeral. ÒBut we were sleeping. IÕve been sleeping. And IÕve been turning away from the truth I wanted not to face. There is a wound that wonÕt heal at the center of the galaxy. There is a darkness reaching like rust into everything around us. We let it grow, and now itÕs here. ItÕs here and itÕs not visiting anymore. It wants to stay. ÒThe Empire is a disease that thrives in darkness, it is never more alive than when we are asleep. ItÕs easy for the dead to tell you to fight, and maybe itÕs true, maybe fighting is useless. Perhaps itÕs too late. But IÕll tell you this, if I could do it again, IÕd wake up early and be fighting those bastards from the start! Fight the Empire!Ó You know, John Kennedy wrote a book called Why England Slept examining the ways he thought World Wars could be stopped by vigilance beforehand. Future historians will write why America slept. In 11th grade, in the Ô90s, I wrote an essay comparing the fall of the Roman Empire to the US. And every day since IÕve been fighting the comfort of sleeping with my duty to be awake. Too many of us slept when George W. Bush stood on Ground Zero and said, Òthe rest of the world will hear all of us.Ó Too many slept when the weapons of mass destruction turned out to be weapons of mass distraction. We slept when Obama circumvented due process with drone strikes. We slept when Trump rode down a golden elevator with the promises of a new Reich. We have slept. But it is time to wake. The Epstein files have implicated some of the wealthiest, most powerful people in the world in the most horrific crimes against children. Do we wring our hands and say Òah, how can we hold them accountable, they are so powerful?Ó Do we sleep under the weight of the dozens of distractions? JD Vance allies have said on the record that they donÕt want democracy. Peter Theil wants complete control of the world and will shortly have it if we donÕt stop him. Will we sleep by being distracted by TrumpÕs Patriot Games? Jack Smith just explained in detail how Trump and his campaign were not just complicit in but responsible for the January 6, 2021, insurrection that attempted to overthrow our government? Will we sleep there like we did when he allowed Elon MuskÕs fake DOGE to steal our data and cut off money from everyone investigating him? Or when Elon and Trump said that Elon helped him win the 2024 election because he was good with computers? Mark Kelly has stood up to Donald Trump. And today, the Pentagon is punishing him publicly for doing it. Will we sleep while the least competent administration in American history tears down its challengers? Shall we cover our eyes and say, Òif I canÕt see you, you canÕt see me, and youÕll leave me aloneÓ? The president of the United States informed oil companies that he was going to kidnap the head of a foreign government (which is against multiple laws). And he did so, without alerting Congress (as is required by law). And we sleep while the stock market booms because we dream walk our way to pretending that money for rich people means anything to the rest of us. We are not ok. We are not well. It is time to accept that. One of my favorite professors never like Noam Chomsky. This professor was super chill, so I took his word for it because the only other person he said he dislike was a war criminal. Then ChomskyÉMr. EthicsÉwas found hanging out with Epstein. Why? For the same reason all of these awful men are allowed to get away with awful things. The rest of us sleep. We donÕt demand that people put their action where their words are. You say you care about ethics? Then do the hard work of behaving ethically. You say you care about Christ? Do the hard work of fighting in love for your fellow humans that you are shunned by those who love the status quo more. You say you love America? Then do the hard work of educating yourself and holding yourself accountable. It wonÕt get better. It wonÕt go away. Everything is impossible until you face it. Or to turn to my other sci fi love, Captain Jean-Luc Picard: things are only impossible until theyÕre not. (transition) I know that walking through the grief of who we thought we were difficult. I have lived my life in a constant identity crisis between who we can be and who we have been, finding a way to love my country when it has not always loved me back. It is not easy. But we canÕt defeat it if we donÕt face it. As we approach our 250th birthday as a nation, we must rise up and bring our highest ideals to life. Equality, Democracy, Liberty. These are and can be more than pretty words. If we wake up and commit to making them so. So follow me on Instagram, blue sky, and Substack; then go watch K Pop Demon Hunters, get a good soundtrack going, and get up. This is the year we choose not to be ok. (outro) This campfire edition of the civic flame is a dr fun sponge media production made with the help of writer Amber Vayo and sound producer Matt Munyon. Thanks for listening.