Text:  Ben Franklin’s Prayer – June 28, 1787

Pushing A Rope?

An Odd Title for a Commentary!

“Lay on, Macduff, and damned be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’”

William Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth features this spirited exclamation, meaning “Bring it on,” “Let’s begin,” or “Start the attack.” It is the language of someone ready to face a daunting challenge, commence a difficult task, or invite an opponent to give their absolute best effort.

It’s also what we say right before we face a difficult choice, or realize we’ve finally had enough.

So, maybe I’m damned…

The title of this piece comes from a story I heard during my time in the military about a young airman walking down the flight line, pulling a long piece of rope. The sergeant in charge stopped him and demanded to know why he was dragging that thing behind him.

The airman replied simply, “Sarge… have you ever tried to push a rope?”

When you consider the simplicity of that response, the physics of the precept become clear. It is entirely impossible to push a rope. It completely lacks the structural integrity to be pushed; it simply buckles, bends, or goes slack. For over twenty years, this is exactly what it has felt like to write and share information in the hope that someone is listening – only to sit with the disconcerting realization that no one is.

What a perfect metaphor for America, and for what I’ve spent over two decades trying to accomplish. This country is the rope, and I’ve been trying to push it — to push you — to the realization that we are about to lose total control.

I was wrong. We’ve already lost it.

There’s another old military parable about a sergeant who finds an airman repeatedly hitting his own forehead with a hammer. When asked why on earth he’s doing it… The airman replies, “It feels so good when you quit.”

This is where I find myself this morning. I am trying to push a rope; I am hitting myself in the head with a hammer, believing I can change decades of bad habits and hubris rooted in what we’ve convinced ourselves to believe, rather than looking toward what should be. We already possess the flawless guidebook — the US Constitution — yet our collective arrogance leads us to believe it is merely old and irrelevant.

This realization exposes the sheer lunacy of writing for the past twenty-plus years in the hope of making a difference. These axioms clearly explain the absolute futility of my actions and my investment. It hasn’t been a total loss; I’ve grown immensely in understanding and knowledge through my own research and investigations. I am richer for the clarity I hold, but I am left wondering whether that massive investment of cognitive energy would have served better elsewhere.

We’ve mistake-proofed our current illusions, embracing today’s manufactured narratives as unshakeable reality while completely ignoring the fact that we are the ones who built this asylum. It is the ultimate tragedy of a society that has used its high intelligence and advanced tools not to uncover truth, but to construct a flawless, impenetrable cage of self-deception. We are so busy living inside our illusions of today that we treat them as absolute reality, totally blind to the self-created delusions that sustain them.

Over the past twenty years, my articles and commentaries have explored these structural limitations, the nature of futility, and our compounding historical weight through three distinct lenses: linguistic accuracy, physical realities, and societal inertia. My mistake in all of this was assuming someone else cared. Perhaps a few do, but the very people I have tried so hard to reach are deeply mired in self-adulation – so trapped in a state of unearned self-praise and vanity that they can no longer see the forest for the trees.

I have watched this physical truth become a permanent idiom for our broader political and social futility. It mirrors a central bank fruitlessly trying to force economic expansion during a deep recession by merely lowering interest rates, the sheer insanity of spending $40 trillion we don’t have to support programs we don’t need, or the psychological exhaustion of trying to change a defensive, fatigued mind through aggressive argumentation.

We are profoundly encumbered by what has been. The necessary institutional safety nets of our past have inevitably fossilized into rigid, bureaucratic architectures that trap society in cycles of debt and alienation. This systemic weight is compounded by a modern digital landscape – the portable altar of enlightenment – that constantly inundates the individual with hyperpartisan anxiety, erodes epistemic humility, and creates a cycle of emotional sterility and victimhood. It is a cycle that can only be broken by trading reactive feelings for objective logic.

But you’re the rope. And the hammer represents the actual possibilities for this republic.

Here is a play on words that summarizes the current state of affairs more clearly: You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be led.

I could go on, but I’ve finally had enough.

I’m coiling the rope and dropping the hammer.

I’ve offered countless remedies, but they go ignored – you all know better – so there’s no point in beating a dead horse.

Good luck, America.

You are the horse, standing at the trough, drinking deeply from the runoff of the mainstream media. They tell you the water is sweet, nourishing, and exactly what you need to prosper and thrive. You believe every word because you are stuck deep in the forest, where the trees were specifically arranged to block your view.

There is no longer any point in rearranging the deck chairs; this ship of state is sinking, and you are busy drilling more holes in the hull to let the water out.

And the band plays “Nearer, My God, to Thee…“

Don’t worry, it will all become painfully obvious soon enough. But then again, maybe not.

“Sic transit gloria mundi” — Thus passes the glory of the world.

P.S. I’m not dying. But my resolve to continue this specific, futile pursuit has. I am not laying down my pen; I am simply seeking a different path.

For the Amalgamated Heavy

‘The devil you say…‘

 

 

November 11, 2026

~ the Author ~
Charles R. Dickens Was Born in 1951, Is a Veteran of the Vietnam War, for Which He Volunteered, and the Great-Great Grandson of the Noted Author, Whose Name He Shares.

He Is a Fiercely Proud American, Who Still Believes This Is the Greatest Country on the Planet, With Which We’ve Lost Control and Certainly Our Direction. He Grew Up in Moderate Financial Surrounding; We’re Not Rich by Any Stretch, but Didn’t Go Hungry – His Incredibly Hard Working Father Saw to That. As Most From That Era, He Learned About Life From His Father, Whose Story Would Take Too Long to Tell, Other Than to Say That, He Is Also a Fiercely Proud American; A WWII and Korean War, Veteran Marine.

Charlie Was Educated in the Parochial System Which, Demanded That You Actually Learn Something, and Have Capability to Retain It Before You Advance. He Attended Several Universities in Pursuit of a Bachelor’s Degree, and Chased the Goose Further to a Master’s, and Has Retained Some Very Definite Ideas About Education in This Country.

in Addition, Charlie Is a Retired Blues Guitar and Vocalist – a Musician. This Was His Therapy Career. Nothing Brings Him as Much Joy as Playing Music, and He Wishes That He Could Make a Living at It… but Alas… Life Goes on!