History Repeats, But We do Not Learn

Peekskill, NY - 1949

Charlottesville - 2017

Some must get tired of my history lessons but the record of history and current events compel me.   

I was Born in 1945, so I am old enough to remember the comments of my parents in response to national and world events. I remember coming home from school and finding my my mother doing her ironing while watching the Congressional sessions of the House Committee on Unamerican Activities, other wise known as the Army-McCarthy Hearings.  My parents were outraged by this travesty of justice. Later on in a casual conversation about visiting territory north of New York City the city of Peekskill was mentioned. I was surprised by my mothers immediate recoil. I did not 'get it' and asked for explanation. "Oh, that is where bigots rioted after a performance by Paul Robeson, a Negro with a great voice who had spoken out against some US policies and in favor of Russia." Whenever I drive through Peekskill today I remember the story, now further informed by an interview with Pete Steeger in which he described being in a car leaving the grounds and being stoned by the crowd with police doing little to hold down the violence.  

So now, 68 years after Peekskill, and more than 50 years since the passage of Civil Rights legislation, we are faced  with hideous images of rampant violence and organized hate groups unafraid to brandish symbols of Confederate slave states, the renewed Ku Klux Klan, and the Neo-Nazi Party.

Believing as I do that the campaign rhetoric and current language and behavior of Donald Trump have given permission for such pent up prejudice, anger, and lethal violence to erupt  I continue to worry about what will happen when he is unable to produce what he promised. How will the Right spew its lava of resentment, hopelessness and pure hatred? The volcano has erupted in Charlottesville. It will not stop there.

So now we face the prospect of war, nuclear or otherwise. One issue seems not to be enough. Both North Korea AND the likes of Venezuela present issues. Could Venezuelan oil have something to do with it?  And at the same time we face domestic warfare unleashed by power that does not know history at all.

For further information about the Peekskill Riot of 1949 go to YOUTUBE.com for great video and documentary accounts.                                              

A Not So Unfamiliar Story

Current Presidential Immigration 
Actions Hit Home

Waking this morning to news of detentions at airports of visitors, refuges, immigrants and green card holder from middle eastern countries listed in President Trump's recent executive action immediately raised my anxiety/compassion level. These reports sadly melded with my own family story of an immigrant detention at port of entry.

In 1921 my Sicilian grandfather, long a citizen of the United States and veteran of service in the US Army durning World War I, returned to the US from a visit to his homeland. He brought with him a new wife and her 10 year old sister. Upon arrival at Ellis Island the authorities were required to admit my grandfather as a citizen and his wife by virtue of that citizenship. But his young sister-in-law did not fit into that formula. She was neither his wife, daughter or blood relative. Although he asserted his willingness to fully support this child he could not prove his ability to do so. He had been out of the country for almost a year and therefore could not provide evidence of gainful employment. He must have had savings because within four years he would by a three family house in Brooklyn. But it may also have been impossible at that moment to provide proof of any assets. The authorities determined that the 10 year old girl who could not speak anything but Sicilian had to be detained in Ellis Island facilities until my grandfather could return with proof that he could support her and prevent her becoming a burden to society and government coffers.

An Italian woman with young children apparently took little Carmelina under her wing for guidance and protection. It was November and during my aunt's two week detention Thanksgiving was celebrated and a special meal provided. Eventually my grandfather returned with proof of support in the form of bank passbooks or a pay stub and the small family was reunited. Our family heard this story recounted by my Aunt Millie every Thanksgiving. As a child myself I remember being horrified at the tale and wondering how this could possibly have been done to a little girl. 

This mornings' news went directly to the memory of this story. Today as a mother and grandmother I struggle to imagine how my grandmother may have cried and screamed at being separated from her little sister in a strange and forbidding place after a long ocean voyage. My heart still cries for the little girl who never knew her own mother and looked to her sister for everything in her life feeling such panic and wailing at their separation. It is within this emotional space that I considered the stories of those detained at airports this weekend; many already extensively vetted, some holding 'green cards' as vetted resident aliens in the US who work here, own homes, have families and pay taxes.

On Saturday, January 28, when Brooklyn Federal District Court Judge Ann M. Donnelly upheld an action by the American Civil Liberties Union challenging detentions by executive order she wrote that such detentions could cause "irreparable harm". I can attest to the irreparable harm done to my dear aunt by her detention so many years ago. Each time I heard her anguished story I thought, "Thank God they don't do that anymore." How wrong I was.

History Makes Demands

Among the many gifts received from my father is the fruit of his deliberate effort to make me a student of history beginning in my early childhood. Just before my 7^th birthday he planned a family vacation in Washington, DC. My sister was just 5 years old. We flew to D.C., stayed in a hotel on Embassy Row, saw every monument and historic site in and around the city and we walked, and walked, and walked. It is amazing how much of that trip I remember in detail – the Declaration of Independence under glass, the very cramped box at Ford’s Theater in which Lincoln was assassinated, the awesomeness of his famed Memorial, and precision of the guard change at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

At home we watched Walter Cronkite reporting the news every evening and what we heard was discussed at the dinner table. And there were books all around, especially American history and historical novels. Once off to college I very naturally became a history major.

All of this is reported so as to establish my ‘creds’ as a life-long student of history. It is that background that brings me to urging everyone to vote in the election facing our country. It also gives me the courage to forcefully ask outright that votes be cast for Senator Hillary Clinton. I have never before directly requested support for a specific candidate. But this election is so horrifyingly different, has so distorted democratic values, so distracted the ‘better angels of our nature’, so annihilated standards of civility and human respect, and so buried the real requirements of the office of president that, as a student of history, I find I am obligated to speak out.

In the past I have written about why so many are angry and afraid. I do not blame them for being so. Elected representatives of both political parties have for so long protected and promoted the top 10% in the financial picture of our country and now the inevitable gaps in wealth, services, benefits, education, employment and housing have become intolerable; a grave danger not only to individuals and families but also to the future of our democracy.

Just as the greedy and powerful have in their avarice become myopic about the consequences of their policies; those suffering are myopic about the consequences of their support for a candidate so unsuited for the office of President of the United States. They have become deaf and blind to actions and words that in the past would have caused any political party to send him packing after recognize him as dangerous excess baggage. These considerations seem to matter no longer. Truly we have been reduced to the lowest common denominator. Students of history remember that President Harry Truman fired Douglas MacArthur, a five-star general, for disrespecting the office of the presidency.

As for Senator Clinton, I recognize her short comings; see the dangers inherent in the degree to which she has formed relationships with the high and mighty in all sectors national and international and I worry about errors in judgment. However, these concerns are tempered by the mouthy irresponsible and ignorant nature of her opponent as well as the cranked up scrutiny to which all women aspiring to positions of power are subjected in our society.  It still seems that men can get away with almost anything but women are dissected under a microscope. Free for discussion is the tone of her voice, color of her hair, practices as a mother, choices made in a long and at times troubled marriage, as well as her attire. And then there are the complaints about emotional reticence. Wonder how all the former male presidents would score if subjected to this contest?

It troubles me that it seems easy to ignore a life-long dedication to service, persistent effort consistently applied, creation of a huge tool box of experience acquired as attorney, First Lady, senator, and Secretary of State. Her curriculum vitae should be envied and valued; particularly so in the troubled, on the verge of self-destruction, world in which we live.

We know virtually nothing about Donald Trump’s financial holdings and machinations. We have not been told how he will separate himself from the ongoing management of his business interests if elected. He has thoroughly revealed himself to be a non-reader. He has no record of public service as a volunteer, philanthropist, or elected official. He is a one-man show, surrounding himself with people he thinks he can trust. These are largely family members who we might consider tied to him only because they know on which side their bread is buttered. In the first presidential debate he unabashedly admitted that he uses every loophole in in the law favoring the wealthy to reduce his taxes and cheat those to whom he owes money.

History has reveal that the elections of such leaders can destroy democracies and countries as well as unleashing of terrible hardship, suffering, death and even genocide. Check out any documentary account of the time of Hitler and the Third Reich for affirmation of this assertion.

So get out there and vote. Urge family members and co-workers to vote. And, by all means, even where a vote has never been cast for the Democratic candidate, cast your vote this year for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Too much is at stake. The study of history reveals this necessity.