I grew up in the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, leaving Scouting only to join the Navy in 1974. My experiences in the Scouts form some of my best childhood memories and Scouting values helped shape me into the person I am today.
I’ve followed the controversy over the past years about the Scouts with increasing dismay. Then, on Monday February 17, 2020, the Boy Scouts of America filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy.
So I was perusing my Facebook Page (secret nasty vice) and stumbled upon the latest right-wing attack on Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC); her choice of apartment in Washington DC.
I’ve been following this weekend’s outrage of the native American who was mocked and generally insulted while chanting a song of healing in the National Mall of Washington, D.C., this past Friday. While much ink has been spilled and many pixels sacrificed in explaining the many variations of this incident, there’s one aspect that cuts me right to my core: the smirk.
I make no secret of my opinion that our country, as a cohesive culture, is in trouble. I see near-daily mass shootings, the rise of white supremacists and Neo-Nazis, and the rapid degradation of public institutions such as schools, matched by the rise of for-profit institutions such as prisons, as part of a cohesive pattern of cultural disintegration. But I also see this pattern to have a deeper cause – the loss of compassion.
This past Friday I was caught up in an “active shooter” alert inside my ten-story office building. The alert turned out to be a false alarm, triggered in error during a building drill, but for about five minutes I, and everyone who received the alert, were thinking about the real possibility of being shot and killed inside our office.
With all the horrors of news these past months, there are times when I need to step back and realize that there are some really cool things happening in our tired old world. One of those really cool things happened this past week.
I’m talking, of course, about Tesla’s Starman and an incredible advancement of our exploration of space.
So a couple of days ago our Pres*dent expressed his knowledge of world geography by referring to all African nations, the Central American nation of El Salvador, and the island nation of Haiti, as “shitholes.” This presumably also referred to the people native to those countries, as trump used his “shithole” comment to prove why those people should not be allowed to emigrant to the United States of America.
I have something to say about this.
This past Sunday, a paying passenger was forcibly removed from a United Airlines (UA) flight in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, in the process beaten and his face bloodied by airport security officers removing him. The paying passenger’s crime, the reason for this violent removal from an aircraft after being seated? UA needed the seat so some of their own employees could travel instead.
The President of UA, and lots of otherwise normal people, are currently defending the actions of these security officers.
All four of my grandparents were immigrants. One, my maternal grandfather, entered the US “illegally.” Both my first and present wives are immigrants. My first wife left the Philippines during the final years of the Marcos dictatorship, at a time when conditions in that country were rapidly deteriorating.
The decree Pre*ident trump issued this past Friday, blocking all Muslims of seven nations from entering America, deeply and personally offends me.
A Very Small Man
I haven’t wanted to blog about the riots sweeping across America simply because it’s too painful. But, after yesterday I feel a need to write. Not so much about the protesters or the out-of-control cops, but about leadership. Actually, about the lack of leadership at all levels of government. And in particular about the lack of leadership from a very small man in particular.
This very small man would be the person occupying our White House, a man expected to provide leadership during difficult times.
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