A BETTER HOPE?

It has been exactly four months since I posted on this Blog. The Title was "DISCOURAGED , BUT HOPEFUL."  What does it take to hold onto hope in these times of gridlock, dysfunction, looming extinction, inequality, poverty, freshwater scarcity, pollution, Pakistani polio, to name a few problems here and abroad. 
I choose to call this posting today "A BETTER HOPE?"  America has been referred to as the "Last Best Hope on Earth."  "Best" is too strong a word for me today, but we are better for example, than Ukraine, at the moment.  And I guess, better than China, with its pollution and authoritarianism. 

Here in the U.S. we are seeing the rise of our own Oligarchs, and we have a failing underclass without much hope.  Four months ago I took inspiration from the life of Pete Seeger, and could sing along. 

Today I take my inspiration from my Great GrandUncle Isaac P. Prickett, who volunteered in September 1862 to fight in the Iowa 23rd Infantry, Company F, of the Union Army in the Civil War.  Private Prickett was wounded while fighting at Big Black River, Mississippi.  He was taken to St. Louis where he died in July 1863, and lies in the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery.  He and his comrades saved the Union and ended slavery in our America.

One hundred fifty one years later it is up to us the living, and the remembering, to volunteer and tackle the problems weighing down our country.  We can still give hope to others, after all.