The resistance lives on in how we choose to create, rather than destroy

The history of the United States and its colonies has always been propaganda used to justify inhumane acts. It breeds an ignorance that can be an effective tool for keeping the greedy in wealth, the amoral in power, and the rest of us complacent.

Ignorance can be a powerful tool. But so can information.

Here are just a few reminders of why interruption is a more powerful tool.

1. Chrisopher Columbus was deposed as governor of Hispañola because he couldn’t manage people and the Spanish crown—the people who were fine with the brutality of the Spanish Inquisition—thought he was too cruel to the Taíno people.
2. Roanoke Colony was established to look for gold and failed because the English couldn’t feed themselves, depended on the Indigenous Secotan people.
3. George Washington’s teeth weren’t made of wood. They were made of enslaved people’s teeth.
4. Abraham Lincoln ordered the largest mass execution in U.S. history by sentencing 38 Dakota men to death on the day after Christmas, 1862.
5. Donald Trump lost the popular vote, twice in 2016 and 2020, and received less than half the popular vote in 2024.

The Resistance Lives On

Throughout all the atrocities that the United States has perpetrated on Indigenous tribal nations, enslaved Black Africans and their descendants, queer people, and immigrants from non-Northern European countries, the constant has been that resistance to tyranny is a legacy of all those aforementioned on the margins, not those in power.

By continuing to tell our stories and bear witness to what we know to be true, we undo one knot at a time, the ropes that bind us in our oppression by this American empire.

In his 1976 essay, “The Fate of Empires,” Sir John Glubb outlines, however impartially to the concept of empire as a British citizen and military historian can, the stages of the rise and fall of an empire, using the Roman, Russian, Ottoman, and British as exemplars. His conclusion is that empire lasts roughly 10 generations, or about 250 years.

The common theme is in the end is the Age of Decadence, marked by defensiveness, materialism, and frivolity. He concludes that decadence is due to long periods of wealth and power, selfishness, love of money, and the loss of a sense of duty.

“But this spirit of dedication was slowly eroded in the Age of Commerce by the action of money. People make money for themselves, not for their country. Thus periods of affluence gradually dissolved the spirit of service, which had caused the rise of the imperial races.

“In due course, selfishness permeated the community, the coherence of which was weakened until disintegration was threatened. Then, as we have seen, came the period of pessimism with the accompanying spirit of frivolity and sensual indulgence, byproducts of despair. It was inevitable at such times that men should look back yearningly to the days of ‘religion’, when the spirit of self-sacrifice was still strong enough to make men ready to give and to serve, rather than to snatch.

“But while despair might permeate the greater part of the nation, others achieved a new realisation of the fact that only readiness for self-sacrifice could enable a community to survive. Some of the greatest saints in history lived in times of national decadence, raising the banner of duty and service against the flood of depravity and despair.”

One could argue that we are in an age of decadence with the national symbol of it being Donald Trump. He is an apt living metaphor of how wealth corrupts otherwise enterprising people into a series of billion-dollar stakes of survival. Not only are we living among the animus mindset created by the wealth and prosperity of the last 50 years since Sir John put pen to paper, but by the desire for instant gratification of technology. Not only are we wanting for ease, we are wanting for a class of beings to do work we’d rather not.

Again.

Throughout it all, as a participant, a witness, a resistor, and storyteller of the times, I find myself surrounded by good people who are ready for the fall of this empire. We are united by a common love for people, not just our own, and by dedication to the belief that we can create and make things new, transmuting what was once toxic into things that can heal.

We needn’t align ourselves with overt acts of destruction, the wealthy are ruining themselves every day for fun and profit without our help.

We continue the resistance by questioning the predominant narratives, learning how to ask questions, empowering oneself to ask questions, and generating something good from the answers, not just simply tearing down the bad.

In this work, we find joy.