Anger, heartbreak,
frustration, indignation. These are the emotions trapped in
oscillation as I watch the very real news. Add disgust and
embarrassment for good measure. I am embarrassed to live in a
government that would allow such a hollow, racist, mean-spirited,
megalomaniac to even have a shot at being the leader of a professed
Democracy. The left is handling it as best they can, although I am
not sure how much control they initially had over the situation in
2015. I see the potential for the worst re-visited events of history
happening, coming haltingly to light. But they are for the most part
at the end of the tunnel. I listen to my father, a German-Jew who
escaped to America with his parents in 1939, tell me of the
similarities, of the slow-burning away of Jewish rights that amounted
to the Holocaust. To me, it is unimaginable. To him though, it must
me all too real. He was an eyewitness to its tempered progression,
beginning with Jews' exclusion from society and ending with
Kristallnacht. With the recent ICE raids, and certainly with the call
for active military not American born to leave, as much has happened.
I must agree that all the ingredients for a Holocaust, or at least
forced removal of an ethnic group are there. But I also tend to think
there is some bias in my father, a proud and politically active
citizen of these United States since 1945. A smaller part of me says
it is foolish to doubt him, the rest says he is exaggerating things,
and in a Democracy we will always have a fighting chance, always have
an impartial day in a court, however appellate it is. And, I am
pleased to say, so far this administration has been on the losing end
of many issues, beginning with the poorly executed Muslim ban.
To the Front of
the Bus: Movement toward a Fair Democracy began as a knee-jerk
reaction to this administration. Its words, I hope, echo from where
we've come as a nation, the tremendous hurdles minority groups have
overcome in the courts and on the streets. I take great care, as did
the likes of Truman and King, in tendering narratives that went
toward a fair Democracy. I looked back at what I'd written with an
overwhelming sense of pride, not for my writing, or the way I chose
to tell it, but for the people involved; the Quakers, the
abolitionists, the African-Americans, the women, presidents who chose
to be on the right side of history, and the disabled who finally saw
their chance for civil rights and took it. It was a pride in a
democratic system at work, one that struck down unconstitutional
state rulings, allowed federal enforcement of laws when needed, one
that yielded acts and amendments that could be challenged even 50
years down the road. Back before real time could be altered, when all
that was available to citizens was a court, a first amendment right
and newsprint. When politicians had values, certain constants that
were not blurred by the homogenizing effects of wire taps, and later,
tweets. In To the Front of the Bus I briefly turn attention to
the corruption of politics, the point in time where I feel warping
doors were inconspicuously being planed down to be opened enough to
let in someone with the vitriol and political ignorance, the obvious
malicious intentions of Donald J. Trump. I point out the
administrations that worked to normalize that sense of callousness,
the irresponsibility, the self aggrandizing and lack of
accountability.
Writing the book
was a learning opportunity for me, with lessons that are applicable
today. Democracy is amazing when it works, however it is tedious and
painfully slow. When it does not work it is “back to the drawing
board,” supplying the momentum to perpetuate itself again, again
and again, until it does work. All the street and courtroom battles,
protests, non-violent demonstrations I write about were carried out
to the letter, honoring the words following WE THE PEOPLE. That's why
they worked in the end, when they made it to SCOTUS or even a lower
court. The current administration is recalcitrant with regards to
constitutional law. They can't be bothered by such trivialities. This
is why they lose. Court records are documented and hold up. A lawyer
can argue a case and have even 20 year old statements,
pronouncements, addendum or verdict to throw in the face of the
opposition. I was dismayed at first, thinking “why is this dragging
on and on while Trump is violating any number of clauses, getting
richer every day.” It must be slow, precise, measured, to have a
fair shot at winning in court. It is sometimes frustrating,
agonizingly slow, but its the way a Democracy functions best. The
victories are worth the effort. That is what I strive to reveal in To
the Front of the Bus: Movement toward a Fair Democracy.
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