By Douglas Kearny
An impassioned plea for us to open our eyes to what is happening and how much we stand to lose. How much longer will we stand for the racism, bigotry and violence of Trump? We are decent people and we all must stand against what is happening.
When I was young my parents had close friends whom were Jewish, Erma and Shep Savage. They were part of our family. We celebrated Hanukkah at their house and they celebrated Christmas at our house. They were important people in my life as they shaped my view of America. Even though Erma was far removed from Nazi Germany and did not experience the Holocaust directly, she had nightmares. Her nightmare was the SS knocking on her door in Whittier California to take her away to a camp. She used to tell me don’t think it can’t happen in America and I believed her.
The Holocaust did not start with the camps, it started with acts of violence against Jews, gays, liberals and anyone else deemed the other. These acts of violence are occurring in our Country now, Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, Orlando, Charleston, San Diego, New York, children in cages at the border, too many other acts of violence to list. So many lives destroyed. There are days, sometimes weeks, where I want to turn on HGTV and drink myself into oblivion so I don’t have to deal with the reality of what is happening, but I can’t give up because the evil of what is happening cannot stand. We tell ourselves we are just one person, what can I do against overwhelming odds, but history shows otherwise, Gandhi was one person, Harriet Tubman was one person, Martin Luther King was one person.
I believe in the ideals of the Constitution; although they have never been fully achieved. After all the Constitution is just a piece a paper and it is the people that uphold it, and if we don’t uphold it is worth nothing. As Adam Schiff stated:
If the truth doesn’t matter, we’re lost. [The] framers couldn’t protect us from ourselves, if right and truth don’t matter. And you know that what he did was not right. That’s what they do in the old country, that [Lt.] Col. Vindman’s father came from. Or the old country that my great-grandfather came from, or the old countries that your ancestors came from, or maybe you came from.
But here, right is supposed to matter. It’s what’s made us the greatest nation on earth. No constitution can protect us if right doesn’t matter anymore. And you know you can’t trust this president to do what’s right for this country. You can trust he will do what’s right for Donald Trump. He’ll do it now. He’s done it before. He’ll do it for the next several months. He’ll do it in the election if he’s allowed to. This is why if you find him guilty, you must find that he should be removed. Because right matters. Because right matters and the truth matters. Otherwise, we are lost.
Please do what you can, call your Senators, donate money, volunteer. We must win or the violence and chaos of this time will only get worse.
