Donald Trump has spent a lot of time talking about a 'deep state'. He has felt used, abused and threatened by bad actors in the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, the Republican Party and his own White House. Bad, bad people all out to get him.
But in reality we have been given a glimpse into his own 'deep state': Children & toddlers disappearing around the country in the middle of the night. And think about it, they have no identification, they have no passports, nothing. Yet they and their handlers are walking through airports and flying on airlines, who by the way, try to deny their involvement. Try that yourself. Somehow TSA is waving these folks through. Airlines, police and military are all participating without question. Police deny access to properties by the media and public officials. Contractors move children with gag orders.
In the midst of all of this, First Lady, Melania Trump travels to Texas and meets what are described as smiling & happy children. She checks out neatly made beds and listens to a Lutheran shelter explain that everything is fine for these 55 children. No need for mothers here. All is well. A very deep state indeed.
Thursday, June 21, 2018
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
History Will Have A Say
History will not look kindly on anyone who remains silent about what is happening in our country. Baby and child prisons in the US should be unacceptable on every level. In reality, they aren't. People of color have been totally dehumanized and are being kept from entry into our country, even when threatened with the worst violence. Politicians, Republicans and Democrats, have failed us all. Imagine, no one, including elected officials have been allowed to view current baby prisons. There is no oversight and pictures are provided by the government. People sworn to uphold the Constitution are clearly subverting it. The Presidency and Congress are a disgrace. Yes, history will not be kind.
People working for federal agencies, private contractors, White House and Congressional staff and yes, all of us, will have to answer to history. Reputations will be held to account and families will be ashamed of relatives and their actions or inactions. There will be heroes here and there - people of conscience who speak up and refuse to follow orders.There are times when people need to ignore and not follow unjust and immoral orders. It has happened throughout history and will continue into the future. There will be courageous people working for ICE, Boarder Patrol, Homeland Security and private contractors who will refuse to continue to participate in the separation of children and families. They will need encouragement and support. History will be kind to those souls.
The Trump Presidency will be time limited. It will end. I believe it will be seen for what it is - a nationalistic and racist regime - anti democratic and worse. History will tell the story and it will be a stain on many.
People working for federal agencies, private contractors, White House and Congressional staff and yes, all of us, will have to answer to history. Reputations will be held to account and families will be ashamed of relatives and their actions or inactions. There will be heroes here and there - people of conscience who speak up and refuse to follow orders.There are times when people need to ignore and not follow unjust and immoral orders. It has happened throughout history and will continue into the future. There will be courageous people working for ICE, Boarder Patrol, Homeland Security and private contractors who will refuse to continue to participate in the separation of children and families. They will need encouragement and support. History will be kind to those souls.
The Trump Presidency will be time limited. It will end. I believe it will be seen for what it is - a nationalistic and racist regime - anti democratic and worse. History will tell the story and it will be a stain on many.
Thursday, June 14, 2018
Crimes Against Humanity - The Shame of Separating and Imprisoning Children
What do we as Americans stand for, a flag or principled values? We are in a terrible state in this country - for some a state of denial, for some a state of shock and for others a state of perceived resistance. But the worst among us are those who are in a state of obedience to crimes being committed against young children and families in the name of their government, deterrence and nationalism.
Many of my friends know that I spent a substantial amount of time in prison in the mid 60's opposing conscription and speaking out against the Vietnam war. The thoughts I'm putting to paper here are influenced greatly by that experience. The experience included detention centers, maximum security walled penitentiaries and toward the end a farm prison camp with no walls but fences that could be climbed. I have listened recently to pundits referencing immigrant camps, refurbished Walmarts, cages, dormitories and on and on. They are all however, talking about very young children as well as teenagers, being separated, at times brutally from their parents, clearly as an act of punishment. This is abusive and criminal. None of us would sit quietly by if it happened to us. Legislators wouldn't allow it if it was their children or grandchildren. White House staff wouldn't allow it if it was their children or grandchildren.
We should all be ashamed and we should all speak up.
Let me be very clear as we see, read and hear about these children and families. Prison is prison, is prison, is prison. Let's call it what it is. This is what we do in our prisons. We control people's ability to leave a variety of geographical or physical locations. We control who people talk to or who they have as visitors. We control mail. We control where people sleep, toilet themselves, eat and spend leisure time. We use a bureaucracy of insulting rules to control large groups of people being held in involuntarily settings because someone tells us it's ok and the right thing to do. Most of these rules are meant to intimidate and frighten potential resisters and rule breakers. Sometimes we do these things in the name of rehabilitation (name only in most cases), sometimes we're more honest and do it in the name of punishment and deterrence. Guess why we're doing it to children and families today seeking asylum in America? Clearly punishment, control and deterrence. Yes laws and policies need to be changed but people can and should be treated humanely in this process.
People need to understand that peoples lives, relationships, mental health and future interactions with families and society are influenced by all of these types of actions. Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, reaction to authority and violence, as well as general attitudes toward peers and society are incubated in these settings. Some ,if not most lives, will be changed forever
I have known people destroyed to the core by prisons, mental health facilities or any institutional setting that tries to destroy individualism. I have also met and known heroes, saints and great people who knew how to beat the dehumanization, yet it was always a chore and steep prices that were paid.
But here we are today as a country, accepting and promoting the separation of babies and youngsters from mothers and fathers and placing them in tents, buildings, dormitories and cages or cells. It is wrong. It is illegal. It is abusive and it has to stop as quickly as possible.
In the end though, we all create our own prisons. Sometimes the cages and cells, fences and walls don't matter. The reality is that there can be prisons created out of big White Houses, where people and families live and work in their own isolation. Prisons can be created in huge domed buildings in Capitols where mostly old white men in crumpled suits look at each other with blank looks or smirks. Imprisoned by their friends, their money and donations. In their self importance, they try to punch their way out of paper bags all day long and they fail.
As you lay down your head to rest and as you rise in the morning, please think of these youngsters and families and in the end speak up for them. We have to. We really have to.
Many of my friends know that I spent a substantial amount of time in prison in the mid 60's opposing conscription and speaking out against the Vietnam war. The thoughts I'm putting to paper here are influenced greatly by that experience. The experience included detention centers, maximum security walled penitentiaries and toward the end a farm prison camp with no walls but fences that could be climbed. I have listened recently to pundits referencing immigrant camps, refurbished Walmarts, cages, dormitories and on and on. They are all however, talking about very young children as well as teenagers, being separated, at times brutally from their parents, clearly as an act of punishment. This is abusive and criminal. None of us would sit quietly by if it happened to us. Legislators wouldn't allow it if it was their children or grandchildren. White House staff wouldn't allow it if it was their children or grandchildren.
We should all be ashamed and we should all speak up.
Let me be very clear as we see, read and hear about these children and families. Prison is prison, is prison, is prison. Let's call it what it is. This is what we do in our prisons. We control people's ability to leave a variety of geographical or physical locations. We control who people talk to or who they have as visitors. We control mail. We control where people sleep, toilet themselves, eat and spend leisure time. We use a bureaucracy of insulting rules to control large groups of people being held in involuntarily settings because someone tells us it's ok and the right thing to do. Most of these rules are meant to intimidate and frighten potential resisters and rule breakers. Sometimes we do these things in the name of rehabilitation (name only in most cases), sometimes we're more honest and do it in the name of punishment and deterrence. Guess why we're doing it to children and families today seeking asylum in America? Clearly punishment, control and deterrence. Yes laws and policies need to be changed but people can and should be treated humanely in this process.
People need to understand that peoples lives, relationships, mental health and future interactions with families and society are influenced by all of these types of actions. Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, reaction to authority and violence, as well as general attitudes toward peers and society are incubated in these settings. Some ,if not most lives, will be changed forever
I have known people destroyed to the core by prisons, mental health facilities or any institutional setting that tries to destroy individualism. I have also met and known heroes, saints and great people who knew how to beat the dehumanization, yet it was always a chore and steep prices that were paid.
But here we are today as a country, accepting and promoting the separation of babies and youngsters from mothers and fathers and placing them in tents, buildings, dormitories and cages or cells. It is wrong. It is illegal. It is abusive and it has to stop as quickly as possible.
In the end though, we all create our own prisons. Sometimes the cages and cells, fences and walls don't matter. The reality is that there can be prisons created out of big White Houses, where people and families live and work in their own isolation. Prisons can be created in huge domed buildings in Capitols where mostly old white men in crumpled suits look at each other with blank looks or smirks. Imprisoned by their friends, their money and donations. In their self importance, they try to punch their way out of paper bags all day long and they fail.
As you lay down your head to rest and as you rise in the morning, please think of these youngsters and families and in the end speak up for them. We have to. We really have to.
Monday, April 30, 2018
A Bird In Flight
Sometimes we learn about nature or how lucky we are by chance. Living on Seneca Lake in upstate New York provides me with that chance on a pretty regular basis. I have the opportunity to gaze out my windows or off of my deck to watch nature in many forms. I have grown to love watching birds in flight. The flight can be short and brief, a mere jump and flap from one branch to another, or a beautiful soar on thermals above the water and the trees on shore. I get to see the migrations in the spring and the fall - the geese, the loons and the raptors to name a few. Sparrows and eagles move through or make their home here.
The other day, about a week ago, I caught the glimpse of a huge bird soaring along Seneca's shores in the left corner of my eye. I looked quickly as this beautiful specimen moved through the air to the north. Some things didn't compute. I had never seen a bird so large and the color was a mix of white, gold and black from underneath. Soon he or she was out of sight and I thought perhaps this was the American Bald Eagle that I know is here eluding my eyes. I had recently seen two Golden Eagles battling in the sky only yards from my deck over a fish that one had snatched from the water. They both twirled in the sky with wings outstretched, one finally victorious.
Yesterday the mystery of the large soaring bird was solved I believe. John Van Niel, an environmental professor, who writes columns for the Finger Lakes Times, had an article about an American white pelican who has recently ended up at the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge just northeast of Seneca Lake.
Above is a photo Van Nile took of the visitor who I'm pretty sure I saw making his way to the refuge, a bit lost according to the author. The American white pelican has a wing span of up to nine feet and this certainly matches what I saw as this fellow traveled up the lake. Here is Van Niel's full article: SPEAKING OF NATURE - Pelican Makes Rare Stop.
Again, birds in flight are truly amazing, reminding us of our own travels or those of loved ones who we've traveled with over the years. So take some time to look up or look out and see these amazing creatures, finding the wind and each other just as we do.
The other day, about a week ago, I caught the glimpse of a huge bird soaring along Seneca's shores in the left corner of my eye. I looked quickly as this beautiful specimen moved through the air to the north. Some things didn't compute. I had never seen a bird so large and the color was a mix of white, gold and black from underneath. Soon he or she was out of sight and I thought perhaps this was the American Bald Eagle that I know is here eluding my eyes. I had recently seen two Golden Eagles battling in the sky only yards from my deck over a fish that one had snatched from the water. They both twirled in the sky with wings outstretched, one finally victorious.
Yesterday the mystery of the large soaring bird was solved I believe. John Van Niel, an environmental professor, who writes columns for the Finger Lakes Times, had an article about an American white pelican who has recently ended up at the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge just northeast of Seneca Lake.
Above is a photo Van Nile took of the visitor who I'm pretty sure I saw making his way to the refuge, a bit lost according to the author. The American white pelican has a wing span of up to nine feet and this certainly matches what I saw as this fellow traveled up the lake. Here is Van Niel's full article: SPEAKING OF NATURE - Pelican Makes Rare Stop.
Again, birds in flight are truly amazing, reminding us of our own travels or those of loved ones who we've traveled with over the years. So take some time to look up or look out and see these amazing creatures, finding the wind and each other just as we do.
Tuesday, April 3, 2018
Martin We Hardly Knew You!
It will soon be 50 years ago to the minute that Martin Luther King, Jr was taken down by an assassin's bullet. Memories fade and facts are sometimes changed by well intentioned memory keepers. There are those who hold the truth and others who think they hold the truth.
It is certainly not a bad thing that Martin Luther King, Jr has become a hero to so many. He has become a person to emulate and believe in. He is both real and a symbol to many in the black and white communities. All of this is good.
But 50 years later we have to understand that many really hardly knew him or what he stood for. Few have understood his faith, his nonviolence, and how both became connected to poverty, poor people and social action. In addition, the revisionists make us think all was well in the end when it never really was. Martin Luther King, Jr was hated by whites in the north and the south. He was assassinated by a bullet and gun fed by hate. Martin Luther King, Jr was hated before he came out against the war in Vietnam. He was pressed hard by the left and the right.
I had the privalige of seeing and hearing Martin Luther King, Jr once while I was in Selma many years ago. It was by no means a close or personal meeting. No, it was listening with hundreds of others outside of Brown Chapel, looking to a leader who wasn't afraid to talk about the hate and his fears. I watched him walk to the front of a crowd confronting more symbols and weapons of hate carried by white men in uniforms. This was the uppity black communist who was followed and harassed by the FBI and others in the establishment.
His faith was about politics. He believed in the Jesus who walked the streets, who reached out to the beggars and the unclean. The Jesus who knew that economics was behind someones struggle with injustice. Martin knew that poor men fought rich men's wars, always. He knew that some people looked up and others looked down on those who suffered. He also knew the fear some people lived under because he lived there too.
Like all men and women, Martin Luther King, Jr grew and evolved. He was speaking out in the north, He was speaking out about Vietnam and war, he was speaking out about poverty and poor wages. And let's be real clear. It wasn't going over well and he knew it. But sadly, his life was cut short in Memphis that night 50 years ago. He had so much more to say. More to say that would make many squirm and more to say that would anger those in power. And then he was gone and over the years love for him grew. Yes, that's good but we all need to know the fact is - Martin we hardly knew you.
It is certainly not a bad thing that Martin Luther King, Jr has become a hero to so many. He has become a person to emulate and believe in. He is both real and a symbol to many in the black and white communities. All of this is good.
But 50 years later we have to understand that many really hardly knew him or what he stood for. Few have understood his faith, his nonviolence, and how both became connected to poverty, poor people and social action. In addition, the revisionists make us think all was well in the end when it never really was. Martin Luther King, Jr was hated by whites in the north and the south. He was assassinated by a bullet and gun fed by hate. Martin Luther King, Jr was hated before he came out against the war in Vietnam. He was pressed hard by the left and the right.
I had the privalige of seeing and hearing Martin Luther King, Jr once while I was in Selma many years ago. It was by no means a close or personal meeting. No, it was listening with hundreds of others outside of Brown Chapel, looking to a leader who wasn't afraid to talk about the hate and his fears. I watched him walk to the front of a crowd confronting more symbols and weapons of hate carried by white men in uniforms. This was the uppity black communist who was followed and harassed by the FBI and others in the establishment.
His faith was about politics. He believed in the Jesus who walked the streets, who reached out to the beggars and the unclean. The Jesus who knew that economics was behind someones struggle with injustice. Martin knew that poor men fought rich men's wars, always. He knew that some people looked up and others looked down on those who suffered. He also knew the fear some people lived under because he lived there too.
Like all men and women, Martin Luther King, Jr grew and evolved. He was speaking out in the north, He was speaking out about Vietnam and war, he was speaking out about poverty and poor wages. And let's be real clear. It wasn't going over well and he knew it. But sadly, his life was cut short in Memphis that night 50 years ago. He had so much more to say. More to say that would make many squirm and more to say that would anger those in power. And then he was gone and over the years love for him grew. Yes, that's good but we all need to know the fact is - Martin we hardly knew you.
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