HAVE WE NOT LEARNED?

NOTES OF CONCERN…

    …Jack Blair

                     Have We Not Learned

One cannot look beyond the borders of our individual communities without witnessing turmoil. Tumultuous events occur both within and outside the borders of our nation. Some of them will never touch us personally; others will be very personal.  Too many are cause for future personal concern.

Internationally, dictators and despots have learned how to push our national button. Most recently, a nice young man serving as a reporter was beheaded on film. It outrages us, as it should. But in that same month terrorists were beheading people all over the Middle East to show their determination that everyone would join their effort or be considered a spy.

Since our President’s speech on Syria, which seems so long ago, 190,000 Syrians have died.

People in Israel and those who follow Hamas are dying at at significant rate, but saddest of all there is no resolution in sight.

Over my lifetime I have always assumed our government held a lot of information back that would be scary to the common citizen. Yet this week the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs said publically that we have never faced a greater threat of attack on the homeland and that our enemies were not only living abroad but were people from our own country and the countries of our allies who could easily return to conduct internal terror.

Well if my old theory is correct, I can only wonder what the government is holding back from us now as it would appear the answer might be nothing.

Internally, we continue to have a battle between big financial institutions and the regulating government. Neither the banks  nor the government has done a very good job, and it seems that the financial crisis is going to have, as they say in the insurance business, a long tail.

Race still plays a big role in America. In some ways, the election of our first black president has simply made it more obvious. These last two weeks I have heard arguments that the percentage of white and black police officers should represent the percentage of citizens of color in the town. Same for jury selections. Those suggestions set back what Dr. King sought, a race blind America. The number of people of any color, including white, should not be a consideration. The selection of the best-qualified people for police forces, juries or jobs of any kind should be the rule.  If a case can be made that prejudice exists and is proven then that is a matter for the legal authorities.

 I feel bad that the Reverend Martin Luther King and his associates, admired by so many people, would never and did never condone riots, pillaging and looting in response to what was perceived as white indifference to their plight. It is as if nothing was learned from the historic civil rights movement. Gandhi’s movement further informed minorities on how best to win equality.

Tear gas, smoke bombs, and riot clubs are not far removed from the powerful water hoses and snarling dogs from our civil rights history. But by protesting quietly and orderly the protesters brought to the attention of the American people just what was really happening.

Today, after all the successes that led to a black president and a black attorney general, what message is being sent by current rioting behavior? It will gain little sympathy. After all these years we need to remember the success of Dr. King’s approach and the gains made in all walks of life for minorities since then.

Have we learned nothing?

Have we not learned that America is safest when she is strong?

Have we not learned that unsecured borders become a welcome mat for the terror that some want to bring down on us?  

Have we not learned that protests can be peaceful and still bring about change?

Time to revisit the history books.