Reflection, October 2016

June 24, 2018
I don''t know why I didn't post this piece in October 2016. It has been a disgusting week of news about immigration and displaced children who have been separated from their parents at the border and sent all over the US and placed in the hands of systems that are unprepared to provide for the volume of children. Airlines have been lied to about who and why they are transporting unaccompanied children; no records have been kept so the exact number of children is unknown and their is no way to trace the location of parents and children to reunite them. The President changes his mind on policy with no regard for how practice will follow. His staff disagrees on practice.

The first lady goes out to visit a center that is holding children and finding them placements in homes. She wears a jacket that says, "I don't really care. Do U?" on the back. The press secretary claims there is no message on her choice of clothing. Who is more wreckless: the first lady or the press secretary?

In 2016 when I walked into Dad's room and he was glued to election news on CNN he said, "This is how Mao Tse-tung came to power."

October 2016

I started my last blog entry some time in the fall. I should have posted it.

Anyone who is planning to vote in the November election should see The Nazi Games - Berlin 1936 on PBS first. It is the story of bold deceit and cover-up of the truth about Hitler's regime and intentions that enticed the world into a version of the Olympics that continues today. It was the first game to run the torch relay from Olympia to Germany, a tradition that has endured. The pomp and ostentatious display of athletes was also something that endured from the Berlin games. Hitler's extraordinary sense of pride enabled him to present Berlin to the world as an example of success, organization, accomplishment and perfection. A shining example in which the world participated with enthusiasm.

We are witnessing the power of followers who believe in this type of leadership. Leadership that presents itself as powerful, shows results that promise to combat fears and convincingly advocates that there is only one way to reach a goal. 

The terrifying and ugly conflict in Charlottesville, VA this week that was triggered by white supremacists' protest over the taking down of a statue of Robert E. Lee has made real all the bluster and bullying of our current president. It was possible to ignore his impulsive tweeting and his contradictory declarations, unfounded truths (mostly made up lies), and erratic behavior demonstrating his true distaste for disloyalty. It is impossible to ignore the devastating violence and aggression of his supporters on the extreme right.

I have just read Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien. It's the story of the Cultural Revolution in China and the government's response to protests in Tiananmen Square in the 1980's in support of democracy. I read The Handmaid's Tale by Atwood this summer, a dystopian tale in which women's single role is to procreate or fulfill a role that ensures that select women procreate. I read Michael Eric Dyson's Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America in which he pleads for recognition that the black experience in America has been shaped by a history of white supremacy and privilege.

In all of these the loss of freedom is paramount. Tonight, at a performance of Tchaikovsky's Concerto in D for Violin, op 35 by Gil Shaham I was reminded of what this really means. To have this beautiful music taken away during the Cultural Revolution is to leave a landscape without texture. It's to dull the soul and starve the human intellect and creative spirit. We are in a terrible period of history and the only hope that we will come out of this stretch of history differently than those before us is our ability to remain connected, to listen for voices that are being silenced, to look for people who are being made invisible and finding power by turning fear and frustration and anger into action.