The Children’s Hour – A Showdown with Trump

For her six to ten-year-old years, I got to be her father. For four minutes I got some inkling of what it must feel like, for a parent to lose a child – whether to kidnapping, over-heated car, swimming pool, school shooting or some disease or addiction, because corporate profits are prioritized over children’s lives.

Then her eight-year-old hand slipped into mine, and I could breathe again; not so for parents victimized by a self-righteous Attorney General trying to impress his callous bully boss.

All too often, God Wills It is the mantra of those obsessed with the need to oppress. Countless tyrants have excused their tyranny with some form of, God Made Me Do It. Indeed, too many honorable and courageous young Americans, faithful to the guidance of our Better Angels, have been used as cannon fodder, by too many self-aggrandizing autocrats, but Trump’s Sessions staining Romans 13 with his heretical history of bigotry cannot stand!

Long before 1/20/17, of, by and for the people was programmed with the propaganda of incomplete history -- which by prejudicial omission, has betrayed our freedom of choice to chronicle, endorse and benefit fully from the comprehensive societal contribution of enlightened diversity.

Denying international reality and disavowing America’s exceptional promises, has finally transformed our American Dream into a national nightmare.

It’s not just about what arrived in our New York Harbor 17 June 1885, as much as it is the families enticed by its Land of the Free promises, freely offering their bloodlines to our Home of the Brave.

America’s dream is reignited every time we define ourselves by honoring all fathers and mothers as we expect all children to be honored. We cannot, however, justify claiming, real Americans are those who came ashore after Native Americans, bringing enslaved African-Americans, and claim also, we aren’t immigrant or refugee byproducts, because, We Built That.

In 242 years of war and peace, America’s inhabitants often rebranded America. Arguably, except for April 12, 1861 – May 13, 1865, we’re now immersed in our greatest identity crises – challenging for many, but threatening for the few prospering from manipulating the fears of those more vulnerable to misinformation’s hyperbole – especially difficult perhaps, for descendants of a cultural majority whose base is rooted in a free labor foundation of human blood, sweat and tears – all the more distressed when denying an infrastructure of descendancy from, huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Is America’s greatness a financial & political might is right, or being the tide that lifts all boats; Trump’s ICE pick ripping children from the arms of loving fathers and mothers, or recapturing our Exceptionalism from domestic terrorism and foreign hackers?

Perhaps if we were a connecting dots guru, we’d recognize @theLPP2017 #BlackLivesMatter #WomensMarch #MeToo #TimesUp #NeverAgain and #MarchForOurLives as 21st century links to Jewish, Italian and Greek families defining Ellis Island as, escaping war, famine and religious persecution – then recognize Matthew Shepherd’s murder in The Pulse, debtors prison in mass incarceration – and eradicate gender inequality by ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment -- permitting, This land is Your Land, This Land is My Land, justice for all.

Faith and patriotism without empathic humanity is void of morality:

• Ignoring the plight of the less prosperous
• Profaning Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself by devaluing fellow human beings
• Claiming love of God & Country without, suffer little children to come unto me, forbidding them not

Neither hypocrite nor Good Samaritan is promised another moment, so choose wisely: help fathers working three jobs, mothers weeping for their lost children and children who love children who look nothing like them.

Each inhalation we take to speak love or ill, defines us to a universe noting our measure:

• most of We the People, shine brighter in the heavens than any family staying together to steal together
• each victory over institutionalized lead poisoning or kidnapping innocent children for lack of paperwork, keeps America great
• We can be clones of a Congress aiding and abetting Pharma industry and its distributors profiting off Opioid deaths…

Or, hearing refugees seeking asylum crying out from the wilderness, we can embrace and honor America’s immigrant heritage, and make this children’s hour, Our Finest Hour.