The March of Time

The last time I blogged for A View from a Blond it was pretty close to the election when it looked like Hillary Clinton would be our first female president.  I was optimistic, but scared.  It seemed then that this country was more divided now than when I was five when the Vietnam War was something you heard about every day.   You saw young soldiers bloody on TV in a war zone– not fake blood – not something staged but the real thing brought to you in living color. 

You also saw demonstrators marching against the war– who also got bloody in the streets – red fluid hemorrhaging out of real people trying to express their outrage at a system they felt was unfair.   There were two sides - the Hawks – the people who were pro-war and the Doves – those that wanted peace.  Their tug of war seemed impossible to reconcile.

The people who were caught in the middle – the young people who went to war and came back shattered or not at all were the ones that sacrificed the most.  In the end, we lost Vietnam and frankly never should have been there.  From 1961 to 1975, over 58,000 soldiers were killed.  Just to put that in perspective –in the Iraq War/Afghanistan Wars from 2001 to 2014 – we’d lost over 7,000 soldiers (Stats via Wikipedia).  For families that have lost a father, son, brother, cousin, sister, mother, wife – these numbers just compound the pain of losing someone you love and the only solace is that there are families out there who have felt that pain on a personal level.  Sure we can say the obligatory “Thank you for the ultimate sacrifice,” but without experiencing that pain first hand it just seems hollow.  How a wife or husband or a parent copes with the loss of their loved one – those things can’t be measured in a debate on whether to increase or decrease spending on a military action.  Yet the people who declare war –rarely see combat first hand.  Launching those first salvos can have repercussions that last decades if not centuries and the innocent always get hurt in the crossfire.  

The weekend after the election – my family and I went to Sweetwater Creek State Park which includes the ruins of the New Manchester Manufacturing Company that was a cotton mill which ran during the Civil War.  The ruins were both sad and exceptional in capturing a time gone by when factories were powered by rushing water.   During General William T. Sherman’s siege of Atlanta, the factory was burned in July 1864 as a way to cripple and punish the South for the indolence of secession.   That part seemed pretty cut and dried to me – the South had its ass handed to them because it wanted to preserve slavery.  It got what it deserved.  I learned that the factory at that point was being run by mostly women and children who were just trying to earn a living to keep a roof over their heads while their fathers, brothers and husbands fought out of a misguided sense of loyalty for a cause that benefitted the white aristocracy.  The mill workers were poor, did not own slaves and many were actually Union sympathizers. 

General Sherman deemed them traitors because the cloth was going to the Confederacy and had the factory burned.  He told his generals to forcibly relocate the 500 women and children at both the Manchester and Roswell Mills to Indiana.   These poor souls had just a few minutes to pack what they could carry, were put on carriages or made to “march” to Marietta where trains would take them to Nashville, then Louisville and finally Indiana.  Unfortunately, Sherman’s sense that they would find work in the Northern cities was extremely misguided.  The cities were overrun with refugees and many of the women and children died of hunger and exposure.  Few of the women came back to Atlanta or found out the fates of their husbands, sons, fathers or brothers.   It was a classic guilt by region – they were Southerners and they brought on their own destruction.  Never mind that they did not own slaves and once they were sent up North, there were not enough resources to help them in the “refugee camps.”  Their peril was fueled by Sherman’s “March to the Sea” in which he burned and pillaged along the way from Atlanta to Savannah.  

It’s easy to demonize people based on where they live because that makes having to face the more complicated issue of why they feel the way they do more daunting.  Dismiss them all as imbeciles, terrorists or racists and you save yourself the time of looking at a complicated issue that is multi-faceted.  That in spite of where they live whether it’s the American South or the Middle East– they might actually have a completely different point of view than what is the assumed outlook for that region – i.e. – maybe they are not racists or terrorists.    

Politics like war is never that completely cut and dried.  It would be too easy to cast one side as the ultimate villain and one side as the ultimate hero – there are shades of gray on both sides (Christian Grey not withstanding).   This is where we are now with politics in America.   Eight years ago, we inaugurated at new president – a black man who was young, had a beautiful wife and two amazing little girls.  It seemed like anything was possible and that this man with the kind smile would pull us out of a very bad recession and give people universal healthcare.  His predecessor had served eight years, but the first four were contested with hanging chads, an appeal to the Supreme Court who declared him the winner of the delegates of Florida after weeks of uncertainty.  There was a peaceful transfer of power even if for many like me – it did not turn out in our favor.  He was re-elected with a more decisive margin in 2004.   But for eight years, the disappointment of the year 2000 still stung.  Then 2008 brought not only a Democrat but a black man as President and it seemed that American had finally arrived as the land of opportunity and anything was possible.   The dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. had finally come true.

Watching President Obama take the oath that day – I could hear the

echoes of the “I Have a Dream” speech by Dr. King which was part of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August 1963.   For a shining moment – the dream had been realized and many white liberals like me wanted to think that racism had finally been concurred.   Sadly, the election did not always bring out the best in America and racial tensions continued to swell throughout President Obama’s eight years even when he again won a decisive victory in 2012.

The reality of a white majority was fading and states like Georgia now have counties like DeKalb that are minority majorities.   The difficult conversations about race between black and white America have been stifled by political correctness.  Rather than have an open discussion about frustrations about this shift in culture -  many were driven underground where groups of people who could feed their own prejudice and anger fueled the divide.     

Inequities in urban areas were also not being openly discussed and tensions would boil over when yet another unarmed black man was killed at the hands of a white officer or a person on a neighborhood watch.  There would be more marches by Black Americans that would be peaceful or marred by violence by people who just wanted to detract from the central message of inclusiveness and their frustration with a system that seemed rigged no matter who was president. 

So here we are eight years after a black man took the oath to a man who is a billionaire and has no experience governing.  A man who has made racist and sexist comments and freely admits grabbing women by the genitalia to assert his power over them.   He won but not just on the strength of the angry white guy vote (although that was a huge factor) but by white women that didn’t want to vote for a woman – either because they didn’t trust her or just frankly didn’t want to see a woman as president.    Sadly women not supporting each other has been a reality since the fight for suffrage and the Equal Rights Amendment. 

Which brings me to the marches that are happening all around our nation

the day after the inauguration and why I’m marching.   I’ve done plenty of Pride Parades, walked in the MLK parade with my church and supported other groups financially that wanted to protest the social ills that I thought needed correcting.  I’m upset at the prospect of a Trump Presidency and his use of Twitter as a bully-pulpit.   I worry for the women like me who are in the workplace and face the real possibility of discrimination, sexual assault or harassment (all of which I have experienced).  I fear for American Muslims, for race relations, the LBGTQ community, the arts, education, the environment – the list sadly keeps going on.   My presence at the Atlanta march is a testament to the fact that I don't agree with the new administration and I'm exercising my right to peacefully demonstrate with others who share the same viewpoint.  I also hope that those people who I know that support Trump can respect my right to march and might actually ask me about my experience.

Sometimes a post in Pantsuit Nation on Facebook just doesn’t have the power that standing around with thousands of like-minded people can.  If anything good can come out of a Trump presidency is that it’s getting more people engaged in a process that includes marches, going to local council meetings, calling your representatives and letting your voice be heard in person.   It’s getting young people to take a more active role in their government.  

The last time in my lifetime that the country felt this divided was over Vietnam and 100 years prior to that it was the Civil War - a war that to date has had more deaths and causalities then all the rest of our wars from the 1770’s to the 2010’s put together.  Over 750,000 people died in that war – 2% of the American population.  To put that in today’s context – that would be over 6,000,000 people.   That war left the entire country physically and mentally devastated.   The Union managed to stay together but the price of human lives and suffering was a scar that took decades to heal.  

So as the fissures that feel like they have divided the foundation of our country keep growing - keep in mind that we’re all Americans and that our finest hours have happened when adversity has stricken but served only bring us closer together.  December 7^th brought our parents and grandparents into World War II to stop Japan and Germany from their tyranny.  D-Day brought rejoicing.  The Kennedy Assassination shook people on both sides of the isle and made everyone examine their own mortality.  9/11 had people like me crying in the streets, but were comforted by strangers who didn’t ask if I was a liberal or conservative – just someone who needed compassion and a hug because we were all hurting.

In doing my research for a documentary on the Civil War, I ran across a

passage from Ulysses S. Grant’s memoirs in which he talks about Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. General Lee was the proud Southern General who was literally fighting to his last man and realized that the end was near -he could not sacrifice anymore souls for such a lost cause.  Grant showed up in a working uniform which contrasted with Lee's formal one.  They started to talk to one another – not as enemies but as human beings.  “We soon fell into a conversation about old army times…Our conversation grew so pleasant that I almost forgot the object of our meeting.”  Grant was very respectful of Lee who was actually Lincoln’s first choice to lead the Union Armies.  You got the feeling that if they had not been on opposite sides of the war they might have been friends.  Grant even offered Lee’s starving army access to his rations.  He did not gloat in his victory but gave him a dignified exit because now they were once again Americans.   It was the very definition of compassion.

It’s vital at this point in our democracy that we try reach across the divide which now feels like the Grand Canyon to talk to people whose viewpoint is not necessarily our own – to listen to what we have in common like how much a baby's laughter makes us smile, bringing up our children in the digital age, dealing with aging parents and not what separates us.  The next four years are going to be a challenge – no matter who was going to be president.  The challenge now is to march forward together and do our level best not to fall apart. 

1968 - Frightened at Five - Film at 11

I was walking with my daughter taking our morning constitutional on a brisk fall morning.  The leaves were starting to turn and the sky was a calm blue.  I tried to keep my mind focused on the positive – the beauty around me and how blessed I am to have my sweet children and a loving husband.  But for some reason I felt panicked.   I felt lost even though I knew exactly where I was.  I started to think about the election and the twinges of panic started to build – that helpless feeling I used to get in my parent’s living room when I was five waiting for dinner and seeing very disturbing images from Vietnam on the evening news with Walter Cronkite. 

 

At five, I wondered how adults could watch such a show – a show at that young age that I knew was real and not pretend.  The newscasters would talk about the war and good kind men like Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy Jr. would try to make the world a better place.  I liked both those men – they were dads and with big families like mine.   But sitting in the living room holding my Barbies, the world which should have seemed ordered became very unpredictable. 

I would see and hear terrible stories about the IRA (Irish Republican Army) who creating acts of terror in the name of my culture and religion and innocent people were being killed in the crossfire.  I was afraid that somehow because I was in this country and those things were happening in Northern Ireland that people would think my family was part of those acts just because we were Irish and Catholic.  I would imagine it’s the same terror an American Muslim child feels when something bad happens in the name of Islam either in this country or other places. They feel that they will be blamed because they share that same religion but like me would never raise a hand to hurt another human being but the stigma of being part of group that was actively trying to bring down the status quo in a very violent way is there.

I was afraid that my older brothers would be drafted into a hell hole that would not allow them to leave alive or if they survived they would not be the same people that I loved.  My mother threatened to send them to Canada if they were drafted which put my father who was a veteran of World War II in a bind because in his heart of hearts he knew that he could not send his sons over there.  Luckily, the war ended before they were old enough to be drafted. 

As adults we seem to forget that current events can leave its mark on our children and the terror that I felt in 1968 when the world seemed so upside-down is probably the same that our kids feel now with an election that is filled with frightening predictions no matter who is elected, a year of mass shootings, talk of deportations, race riots and the threat of armed insurrections after election day. 

 

For instance, I remember my older sister Kathy was having a slumber party the night that Bobby Kennedy was shot.   My child-like mind loved that the girls were going to play games and my younger sister Sharon and I got to have M&Ms in Dixie cups in our room just like the teenage girls.  Then the news came through and I distinctly remember seeing a brick wall and police sirens and red lights.  My mother was crying because another Kennedy had been shot and it brought back the memories of November 1963 which was also the year I was born.  The next morning the girls in the slumber party awoke to the news that Bobby Kennedy had died at 4:44 am.  

The day before my 5^th birthday on April 4, 1968 – Martin Luther King was shot and killed.  Ironically Robert Kennedy was the voice of reason in Indianapolis when he had the terrible job of announcing the passing of MLK to a crowd that was not aware that he had been shot.   His words were pure eloquence and helped keep that town from rioting when so many cities were plunged into chaos in those days after the assassination – here are some excerpts from that speech:

“For those of you who are black and are tempted to fill with -- be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, and he was killed by a white man.
 

But we have to make an effort in the United States. We have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond, or go beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poem, my -- my favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote:

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.

 

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.

We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We've had difficult times in the past, but we -- and we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it's not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.

And let's dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.”

1968 saw too many good people cut down their prime – not just the Kings and

the Kennedys but fathers in Vietnam who would not live to see their child’s next birthday.  1968 was the most expensive year in the Vietnam war with the US spending $77.4 billion ($527 billion by today’s standards) on the war. The year also became the deadliest of the Vietnam War for America and its allies with 27,915 South Vietnamese (ARVN) soldiers killed and the Americans suffering 16,592 killed compared to around two hundred thousand of the communist forces killed.  Compare that to 4,486 U.S. soldiers who died in Iraq and 2,345 U.S. soldiers who died in Afghanistan during our current conflicts.

 

As adults I think we assume that our children don’t pick-up on the world around them outside of their school, after-school activities and latest shows on the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.  We try to protect them from the bad things that go on outside, but they do pick-up on what is going on- with all the wall-to-wall coverage and the inevitable election they are seeing our anxiety no matter which side of the isle you sit on.  I knew my parents were upset about the things with the war, gun violence and race relations.   It was tough trying to reconcile why anyone would think sending young men to the dangerous jungles of a foreign land to fight people we didn’t need to have a fight with. The sights of Vietnam from the news are still locked in my memory and the terror of those images as a five year old is stored and accessibly managed from the safe distance of 48 years hence and the assurance of my parents that everything would be okay even when they had no idea if it would be.  But that’s what American’s do – we pull it together and get it done when we need to and many times we’re there for each other – that’s our baseline.   

Our country has endured a Revolutionary War and the redux in the War of 1812,  the Civil War, WWI, WWII, the Korean War, the McCarthy Hearings, Civil Rights, Vietnam War, Watergate, Dessert Storm, Hanging Chads, 9/11, the War on Terror and any number of mass shootings – and somehow we managed to work together and get through it.  I remember crying in the aftermath of 9/11 outside a building and having a stranger give me a hug- I didn’t even have to say why – it was just understood.   Yet here we are 15 years later and the vision of American could not be more far apart between the Trump and Hillary supporters.

Just as much as I want to put on my game face and tell my kids that it will all be okay – I’m not entirely convinced it will be.  I remember people worried that the election of a black man would cause racists go to nuts and there would be carnage in the streets – but there wasn’t. 

A co-worker of mine at the time told her husband to get their boys from school  because now that there was a man of color in the White House the black kids wouldn’t listen to their white teachers and there would be gang fights everywhere in the suburbs.  Of course that didn’t happen (although race relations has been dealt several set-backs over the last few years.)

The transfer of power during the election of 2000 was a perfect example of how our democracy works.  It didn’t work out in my political favor but there were not riots or calls for an armed overthrow of the government.

But even as I despair about the divisions here in the US, I see hope in an unlikely place like Vietnam.  It’s now an international tourist destination – beautiful and a foodie haven.  Recently Anthony Bourdain went there and not only visited some wonderful restaurants but showed how US Vietnam vets where making peace and getting closure.  John McCain - a man  who was captured and a prisoner for five years in Hanoi - was instrumental in getting relations normalized between the US.  In fact the Vietnamese people in their 20’s and 30’s have never even known war – that’s how far that country has come.  When I saw that on CNN – I cried because if a country that lost so much over 40 years ago can move on – so can we.

 

So considering all we’ve been through America – are we up to the task of this election?  Can we look past diatribes and demagoguery to make a rational choice for president?   Are the next four years going to be nothing but each party blocking the progress of the other?  Will our children be able to sleep knowing that the adults have it under control? These questions have been keeping me up at night and there are no easy answers – I wish there were.   My optimism has dimmed but maybe we’ll rise above the pettiness of this election and forge a new path and show the world we’re better than what they’ve been seeing on CNN and FOX .  That’s my prayer and the thing I’d tell that frightened five-year old both now and back in 1968. 

The Paranoid Conspiracy

It always amazes me how easily people will believe in even the stupidest things.    The latest and saddest one to date is by the "Truthers" who believe that the whole Sandy Hook Massacre is a hoax because they have uncovered conflicting accounts from witnesses and police accounts to lead them to believe that the entire tragedy was created to take guns away from law abiding citizens.   Their smoking gun includes a photo of a six year old girl named Emilie Parker who was reported as one of the Sandy Hook victims who was later seen in a photo with President Obama wearing the same dress that she wore in a different photo.   The reality for those supposed "truthers" is that the girl with the President is Emily's sister who looks like her and she just happened to be wearing the same dress her sister wore possibly as a way to feel connected to her.   For them, it proves that the President is in on the conspiracy and is using it to further his political agenda.  Forget that if that was true, it would be very sloppy for the President to be seen with someone who was assumed dead, but for those want to believe in the unbelievable, nothing is impossible and the truth that's out there is the one they manufacture. 

The "truthers" would be easily dismissed if they were just a group of whack jobs who congregated in basements or in chatrooms and kept on writing weird letters to the National Enquirer editors.   But unfortunately in this electronic age, they have unleashed their collective fury on people we would consider heroes of the Newtown tragedy.  Somehow by harassing people like Gene Rosen they feel righteously indignant at the possible fall-out of Sandy Hook - which in their minds includes the repeal of the Second Amendment.  Rosen, who lived just one-eighth of a mile away from the school, found six shell shocked kindergardeners on his lawn and offered them food and comfort.  He is now the subject to terrible harassment for this kindness.  These "truthers" have set up  false websites and Facebook pages that suggest that Rosen is a pedophile or an actor looking to be in the movies.   These paranoid people will stop at nothing to discredit those they see as threats even if it proves to everyone else the extent of their lunacy.    A few YouTube videos that uses some of these "truths" have gotten anywhere from 45,000 to over a million views.    I'd like to think the bulk of these views are from people who are outraged at the hoax implication but why do I think most of the views are from like-minded nut bars who need to prove that their crazy theory is true.  It's a sad state of affairs but then conspiracy theories are not new — and for those that are easily duped into believing them, the simple truth does not hold the mystique that an elaborate hoax does.   Think about it - first there was Hurricane Sandy and then the tragedy took place at Sandy Hook - both incidents in the same part of the country within weeks of each other -  somehow it has to be related, right? 

Of course, President Obama has been plagued by another set of crackpots called the "Birthers" who insist that he was not born in this country even after he submitted both this birth certificate and his long form birth certificate to prove he was born in Hawaii and is a legal citizen worthy of being elected.   It's interesting that 13% of Americans still believe that he was not born here -  of that number, 23% of them are Republicans.   However, the problem with paranoid conspiracy theorists is that no matter how many actual facts you throw their way, they will find a way to dismiss it as forgery.   There are lawsuits trying to block the President's inauguration as illegal or even suing John Roberts, the Chief Supreme Court Justice who will swear him in.  It would seem that after two resounding wins in 2008 and 2012 that those "birthers" would be silenced and realize they are in the minority because the rest of America is not buying their level of crazy.   But alas, the more the reality of a second Obama term is coming to fruition the more these people want to vehemently deny it because the rest of us "just don't get it".  In their minds, he was obviously born in Kenya.  The talking head of this movement has been Donald Trump, a rich man who has a vested interest in defeating President Obama both for publicity and political reasons.   His constant demand for documents which are produced, authentic and certified never seem to satisfy him - because like many conspiracy theorists, anything can be forged.   You will never know the truth until it's admitted publicly.   Interestingly enough, Macy's and NBC are standing by him, possibly to allow consumers and viewers who are not in the majority of his viewpoint to vote with their wallets.  If The Apprentice ratings are dismal (which my guess is they will be this season) he will be cancelled, ironically with his own tagline - "It's not personal, it's business."   

What's interesting in the minds of those that believe in conspiracies is that if they believe in one conspiracy, they will likely believe in multiple ones even if they contradict each other according to an article on LivingScience.com.  "They're explained by the overarching theory that there is some kind of cover-up, that authorities are withholding information from us," said Karen Douglas, a study researcher and reader in the school of psychology sciences at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom. "It's not that people are gullible or silly by having those beliefs. … It all fits into the same picture."  In the first of two experiments, Douglas and colleagues asked 137 students to rate how much they agreed with five conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Princess Diana in a car crash in 1997.  "The more people were likely to endorse the idea Princess Diana was murdered, the more they were likely to believe that Princess Diana is alive," explained Douglas. "People who thought it was unlikely she was murdered were also unlikely to think she did not die."  

Of course not all conspiracies are make-believe.  The attacks on 9/11 were coordinated by a group of terrorists who wanted to kill the most number of Americans that they could.   Their coordination of the attacks were by definition a "conspiracy."  However, the conspiracy folks would have you believe that that Bush administration knew and allowed it to happen or even coordinated the attacks so they could invade Iraq. If that were the case, wouldn't they have done a better job coordinating the size and scope of the war?  Eleven years of fighting is a long time to be mired on a conflict that was manufactured by "big government."  Obviously the conspiracy folks have a greater confidence that our government is efficient enough to hide the facts for over a decade with brilliant accuracy than I do.  Have you ever had to deal with the federal government to correct a tax issue or to get a name change for your Social Security?   Good luck getting it corrected the first or even the fifth time.  The reality is that our government bureaucracy is not set up for that kind of collusion.  I mean really you can't expect thousands of government workers to keep those secrets under wraps - it would be impossible.  Yet, for conspiracy experts the government is all knowing so it's all plausible. 

A prime example that the government simply would not be able to handle a huge conspiracy is Watergate.   The whole scandal started out simply enough - a few burglars broke into the  Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate Hotel in Washington in June 1972 during the course of the Presidential Campaign to wiretap the headquarters.   The original five were arrested but their arrests led a FBI investigation which led to the White House and President Nixon recording key conversations that would implicate him and eventually led the way for his impeachment.  On August 9, 1974, Nixon took to the airwaves and resigned.  Later his Vice President Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon.  Keep in mind, this was back before there was the internet and thousands of places to keep information - yet Nixon was brought down by the dogged fact finding of two Washington Post reporters.   After Nixon's resignation and subsequent investigations, 48 people were found guilty of the cover-up.  While many different branches were implicated including the CIA, in the end, all the President's men fell including Nixon himself.   Yes, there was a conspiracy, but it started to fall apart almost immediately after it began.   

The Kennedy Assassination is another topic that is ripe for a full on Government or Mafia conspiracy.   How could Lee Harvey Oswald have acted alone to kill the President?  It seems impossible for it to be so random - it must have had to be something more - part of a larger plot because that one moment changed the course of history.  History should not change because to the act of one insane individual.  It had to have been a plot - there are just too many contradictions.  Yes, there are conflicting witness reports but ask any detective about trying to piece together a crime scene and they will tell you that it's not unusual for there to be wide variety of differences in witness accounts.   The third shot that was captured on film was more than likely the exit wound and not a fourth shot from a second shooter.   Jack Ruby killed Oswald within days after the assassination - surely that must have been part of the plot.  All indications are that Jack Ruby also acted alone.  The movie JFK perpetuates many of the myths and actually adds more for dramatic effect.  Filmmakers like Oliver Stone feel that it must have been a conspiracy because Kennedy was going to pull troops out of Vietnam and if that had happened the war would have ended.  All those young soldiers would still be alive.  Someone must have ordered the murder to prevent that from happening.  If Kennedy had lived, Stone would not have gone to see the horrors he witnessed as a young man serving in Vietnam and documented in his film Platoon.  His friends would not have died in that horrible place.   The government had to be behind the President's murder that extinguished Stone's own youthful innocence because the universe cannot be that random and cruel - and yet sadly, sometimes it is. 

I was discussing the content of this blog with my 12 year son and told him that there are some people who would dismiss Sandy Hook as a hoax because they see conspiracies in everything, including things like Global Warming, 9/11 and the death of Princess Diana.  I took the Devil's advocate role when he tried to explain that global warming is real.   My answer for all the photos that he tried to show me of the Polar Ice caps melting was that they were forged and unless he had been there himself to witness it, he had no definitive proof to offer that it was real.   I could see him getting frustrated even though he knew that we were role playing.   Later when we were getting ready to go to church and I couldn't find my keys or make-up, I jokingly attributed it to a conspiracy.   It was meant as a joke but then I realized that if you see the world as full of plots and conspiracies, you don't really have to take responsibility for how messed up your life is because there is some puppet master making sure you don't get to where you need to go.  Your relationships fall apart because those around you don't possess the same level of understanding that you do or they are part of the plot to undermine you.  Your search for the truth will never end because the truth you are looking for was never there to begin with. 

So for those that bought into the Mayan Apocalypse and now have a whole basement full of rations much like the ones you had for Y2K, sorry things did not work out.  To those that think the government is watching us through our DVRs or tracking us via our driver's licenses, I would suggest that if you are going to turn over any more rocks looking for plots, try going to an actual park with real rocks where real human beings are taking in the sun and enjoying life.   You'll hear children laughing and feel sunshine basking on your face.   You might even remember a time before the world became a cold sinister place.   However, if it does make you feel any better, I will admit that there is someone who is after you.  They are closer then you think - I mean really, really close.  Just get up slowly and go into the bathroom and take a good hard look in the mirror.   You'll find that the truth is staring right back at you because if all you can believe in are conspiracies, you are easy to manipulate.  People like Donald Trump who perpetuate these crazy theories know that.  Don't get paranoid though, it's not personal - it's business. 

Mankind is Our Business

It was a freezing night in New York City as the holiday shoppers rushed from place to place in Times Square.  Outside of the Skeeters store, there was a homeless man sitting outside on the pavement, shoeless, his feet covered in blisters.   A young police officer named Larry DePrimo saw that man, I mean really saw him.  Not as person who might have been a petty thief or a drug addict, or a nameless emotionless homeless person who countless people probably walked by that night.  He saw him as a fellow human being who was suffering from the cold.  Officer DePrimo was on the beat with two pairs of thermal socks and shoes and still his feet were cold, he could only imagine how this man felt in the nearly freezing temperatures that night.   So he went into the Skeeter’s store to ask about purchasing shoes for this stranger who needed someone to watch out for him that night.  The manager could not give him the shoes for free but offered to use his employee discount to get the winter boots and some thermal socks.  The officer took out his wallet and paid $75 for the shoes and socks.  There were no documentary cameras following this young man around to document his act of kindness which would have gone completely unnoticed by anyone else.   But a tourist from Arizona named Jennifer Foster happened upon the scene and took a cell phone photo – a snapshot of what is good and kind in human nature. 

This photo has resonated around the internet and made plenty of rounds on Facebook.  Officer DePrimo has been on the Today Show and various other news shows in what many call a fine example of New York’s finest.   Ms. Foster works in law enforcement and comes from a long line of people who serve and protect.  She had seen her father do something similar for a person in the same circumstance and it touched her.  She sent the photo to NYPD with a note about how impressed she was with what the officer did.  The NYPD put it on their Facebook page.   The public, feeling parched for good deeds after a very contentious election season, grabbed the photo and ran with it.  I actually posted the story on my own Facebook page.   For many, it restored their faith in humanity because lately humanity has been getting a bad rap.  You see the horrible things that are happening in Syria and other places like North Korea and wonder what has happened to us as a species.   When did not caring become okay?    Maybe we’ve needed a reminder to remember how good human nature can be under the right circumstances.

Charles Dickens’s pondered the question of kindness in human nature in his 1843 novella A Christmas Carol.  Ebenezer Scrooge is a money grubbing, self-centered curmudgeon who feels nothing towards his fellow man but disdain.  Any sense of love and charity had been snuffed out years ago.   He does not see his only relative a nephew named Fred on Christmas and bristles at giving his one employee, Bob Cratchit the day off with pay which was the custom in those days.  Scrooge is on the fast track to Hell until a visit from his best friend Jacob Marley changes his life forever.   Jacob had passed on seven years to the day and comes back in ghostly form to tell him the torment he now must experience due to the way he treated people when he was living.  When Scrooge reminds him that he was “always a good man of business”, Marley responds:

"Business!  Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"  Marley tells Scrooge that he will be visited by three ghosts, one from Christmas Past, one from Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Be.  The ghost of Christmas past shows a young Scrooge who was bullied but eventually found love with Belle but destroys it all when he chooses money over love.  The ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge how he is perceived by his nephew and by the Cratchit family.   His nephew’s fiancée dismisses him as an old greedy geezer who is not worth bothering about.  Bob Cratchit, even as poor as he is, thanks his stingy boss for their meager Christmas, showing more charity then Scrooge has ever shown him.   Moreover, his sick son Tiny Tim warms Scrooges heart by showing courage and kindness and eternal optimism.    Christmas Yet to Be shows Scrooge that both he and Tiny Tim have passed on – the little boy is greatly mourned while Scrooge’s corpse is barely tended to and items from his estate are stolen by his maid.   When he begs the last ghost to send him back because he will repent, Scrooge wakes up on Christmas Day, sends a prize winning goose to the Cratchits anonymously and attends Fred’s party to the astonishment of his guests.  Scrooge stays true to his promise to the ghosts and keeps Christmas in his heart, gives money to the poor and is greatly loved.

A Christmas Carol is a great story because it asks all of us to examine our hearts and learn to see things from another’s perspective.   It has never been out of print since 1843 probably because the themes are timeless – to those whom much is given – much is expected and turning your back on your fellow man in need just is not going to cut it in the afterlife – you might well end up like Marley walking around with all your sins linked together in an ungodly chain of misery. (Are you listening Donald Trump?)

One thing that really bothered me about this past election was the sense that it was more over class issues then “Hey we’re all Americans and let’s get this country moving.”  It became more about economic differences –the haves vs. the have nots.  I know that mind-set has been around since the turn of the century (both 1900 and 2000) so this is nothing new but the nastiness of this election took was really bad.  The ferocity of the opposition to a universal health plan really took me aback.  I’m not going to tell you that it’s a perfect plan (nothing is) but trying to choose between feeding your family and wondering if you can get chemotherapy does not move us further as a country.   There are ways to fix it if both sides want to work together and adopt a program that closer to the Swiss Healthcare system that offers subsidies to lower income families but still requires people to have some form of insurance.   The Swiss use a premium-support model that is similar in many ways to the various Paul Ryan proposals for Medicare, and also to the Obamacare exchanges.   Working together, conservatives and liberals can put their differences aside and create a workable healthcare plan that might actually save billions of dollars and help the most vulnerable in our society at the same time.  It’s a win/win that needs to see political pride checked at the door if we have any hope of having it work.   It’s a way to help mankind in the United States as we know it.

I’m not trying to bash the wealthy because in my line of work, I’ve had to serve the Have-Nots while soliciting money from the Haves.   I almost always find generous people on both sides of the aisle who want to help once you make a good case for what the needs of the people you are serving are.  For instance, I used to work at a charity that works with adults with developmental disabilities.   One of the programs was Community Connections where we try to match our individuals and their passion with a professional person who shares that same passion.   We had one older gentleman named Randy who loves anything that flies.   The office was less than a mile from a private airport and the Maintenance Supervisor offered to take Randy around to the different areas of the complex that normally would be off-limits to anyone off the street.  Randy got to see the air traffic tower and the controllers were more than happy to show him how things worked and how to guide a plane safely in.   He got to sit in a helicopter and he got to meet real pilots who were working on their private plane before it got ready to take off.  They were thrilled to share what they knew with Randy because this developmentally disabled man touched them with his excitement and love for the same thing they cared about.    These wealthy men probably had a ton of things to do before take-off, but stopped when they saw someone they could help or just brighten his day.   Their faces were priceless as they spoke to Randy about why they love to fly.   It didn’t cost those pilots anything but time and my guess is that they felt pretty awesome after the visit was over.  To me that is just as miraculous as giving shoes to a homeless person because the spirit moves you to do it. 

Since Officer DePrimo’s act of kindness has hit the internet, there have been so many messages from people who appreciate the fact that as a police officer did what he felt was right.  It would have been easier to ask the man to move along because he might be bothering the tourists.  For my money, he gave this kindness when he thought that no one was watching.  That is the true definition of character. 

Now there are of course the cynics who have left messages that would have you believe that this homeless man was probably a drug addict and sold the shoes for drugs or that there are safety nets and no one is truly homeless unless they want to be.  There are also those that are suspicious of law enforcement and claim that this is all made-up.  They list a litany of abuses from bad cops in the NYPD as an excuse to not be touched by the photo or see the intrinsic goodness in what was being done.   I would hate to see the world through their eyes because while they might claim to want to help, their inability to see the good in anyone either a police officer or a homeless person will keep them in this spiral of negativity.  In their eyes, the world is a terrible place, full of terrible people in which only terrible things happen.  

Yet they will still go to church or temple or whatever religion they ascribe to and claim to be a good person who just hasn’t found the right cause to support.  I like Stephen Colbert’s response to those who put down the needy because it’s easier to turn a blind eye than offer any meaningful solutions:  “If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.”   There were thousands of people who saw that man and many homeless like him that night and just pretended not to see them because it was easier to not get involved and not acknowledge that person as one of God’s creatures.  I remember seeing a homeless man sitting at a table in McDonalds drinking a cup of coffee because that was probably all he could buy.    When he went the bathroom, I walked over to his dirty and stained book bag and put a $5 bill on it which was all the cash I had on me.   I got my kids and left, peaking around the corner in the window when the man came back and found $5 unexplained dollars on his book bag and no one around.  I don’t know what he did with it - my hope is that he got something hot and nourishing to eat.  I smiled the rest of the day.   

The Ghost of Christmas Present asks Scrooge , "Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be that in the sight of Heaven you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child!"   It’s the Christmas season, and whether you are giving to a toy drive, or offering to help an overwhelmed neighbor, or just writing a check to a cause you care about – everything counts.  It’s a time to share and feel good in a way that a new iPad just can’t give you.   It took a 25 year old police officer to show us the real truth behind the season of giving – it’s to help out the less fortunate because whatever your economic circumstance or what you are able give, mankind is everyone’s business.