Let Us Not Forget

During this Black History Month, we must not forget that the struggle for freedom was fought with the dedicated support of many white citizens. Two of these gave their young lives in a dastardly, cowardly mob murder.

As I have fought all of my life against bigotry, I remind my fellow black citizens that bigotry of any kind –particularly anti Semitism- does not serve our interests or those of our children.

Three young men, Cheney, Goodman and Schwerner shall not be forgotten. God rest their souls.

What Price Principles?

I am fortunate, for the most part, to have some very intelligent friends. I often query them to determine their stance on current social and political issues. Interestingly, I find that the most progressive –some could read ‘liberal’- friends are the most vocal, strident and confrontational. My conservative –some could read ‘regressive’ friends tend to be less vocal and confrontational. I am extremely curious as to why these differences exist.

Last night, my family got together for a send-off of my grandson who is destined for Iraq.
I have been adamantly opposed to the Iraq war from the beginning and this occurrence intensifies my position. The great dilemma for me is the torturous balance between supporting the troops and opposing the war. It is not a problem for me personally since I find no difficulty in doing both simultaneously. The problem surfaces because the Bush administration has done a superb job of convincing the general public that opposition to the war is unpatriotic and opposition to the war is opposition to the troops. This is nonsense, but this message has much traction among the masses.

Politics, being what it is, requires majority opinion to gain power. To gain this power sophisticated sleight-of-hand public diplomacy is mandatory. In my opinion this is an irrefutable fact. Not so with my progressive friends. Stand on principle, they say, and to hell with those who disagree.

Case in point: Cindy Sheehan, who started a mass movement against the war gained great support for her argument. There was overwhelming sympathy for her crusade. Then she shows up on the floor of the house with a T shirt –during the State Of The Union speech- which highlighted the death toll of our military kids. Then she appears with Hugo Chavez on his podium and congratulates him for his opposition to the U.S. government.

No matter how one thinks about the war and the troops, this, to me is simply stupid public diplomacy. These acts alienated many of her newly-acquired supporters. Is this any way to form a national coalition? My conservative friends say absolutely NO! My liberal friends applaud her courage and her dedication to principle. This division of position is troubling. I don’t think it accurately portrays the greater national Red-Blue division, but it does indicate that political turmoil is on the horizon.

I am more than ever opposed to the Iraq war and the dishonest, bungling administration of the Bush-Chaney Neo-Cons. I implore Ms. Sheehan to rethink her strategy. She has the moral high ground. I beg her not to lose it. I remind my friends that an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. And blind pursuit of principle without regard for dispute leads to anarchy.

The sign on my car now reads: "Till They All Come Home." God bless our troops. This is now very, very personal.

Terror What Terror

Terror? What Terror?

Our nation is being held hostage by a very clever administration which uses ‘Terror’ as a divisive tool. Even to the most casual observer of American society, the mass fear of terror is a farce. The subtle, official, implication that an attack on our nation is imminent makes a mockery of responsible national leadership.

To get a feel for what real terror is like, just walk the streets of our nation’s inner cities. The fear of law abiding citizens is palpable. People, forced to live in the midst of this horrible environment because of economic deprivation, walk their kids to schools, hide behind locked doors and barred windows, and close their eyes to continuous violence for fear of murderous recriminations. This is unrelenting, daily terror. It is an unmitigated insult to the good people of these neighborhoods for those of us –the great masses- to harp on an unrealistic, unseen, statistically insignificant threat of foreign terror on our shores.

Between December 1, 2005 and January 8, 2006, 46 people were murdered in the streets of Philadelphia. It is inconceivable that no one saw any of these shootings. But not even the police can convince the residents of these neighborhoods to come forward and identify the shooters. Doing so would be suicidal.

Just imagine not being able to let your kids play in their streets or even look out of your windows. Imagine going to bed every night to the sound of gunfire. Imagine your kids being bullied or even beaten because they won’t join a gang, your daughters sexually harassed when they walk the street. This, my friends is unthinkable terror.

Listen to the sad story of this mother:

Catherine Young is looking through a box of her son's things -- a box filled with grief and pride.
"All the shattered dreams are in this box. Everything he worked for to get to his goal are all left behind in a box," Young told NBC 10 News.
Inside the box are the remnants of her son, Richard Johnson, who was shot last July in Philadelphia.
Those remnants include old report cards.
"He was an excellent student in Greek. This award is the President Education Award and it's for outstanding academic excellence," Young said.
The remnants also include Johnson's most cherished belongings.
"This is the briefcase he carried to work every day. He had a job working at a law firm," Young said.
It was Johnson's life-long dream to become a lawyer and last July he was about to turn that goal into a reality. He had just graduated from high school and was headed to St. Joseph's University on an academic scholarship.
But last July, Johnson was gunned down in Philadelphia's Point Breeze section as he was walking with his cousin and his girlfriend.

Our government has spent billions of dollars protecting us from a specious enemy while it cannot find minimal dollars to attack a real, potent and deadly enemy in our midst. We must not allow politicians to continue to play on our unrealistic fears and make moral cowards of us all.

Yes, the terrorists killed three thousand of our citizens on September eleven, 2001. We should never forget that day. It was, indeed, a day of reckoning. But there is another form of terror that kills thousands of our citizens each year in our inner cities. Let us not forget these victims and their families as well.