Thanksgiving was a feast. Family gathered and shared with each other the blessings of the holiday. Christmas is just around the corner and the holiday shopping has already begun. The stores are full of people, some pushing and shoving to get what they can. The news told us the stories of Black Friday, where people forgot the meaning of the word “peace.” Not all people, of course. We are desperate American shoppers trying to find things that our budget can tolerate, cost wise.
I am not a shopper. I give to the different charities that so desperately need help and wonder how much they are actually giving to the people needing it. The Northwest Holiday food drive will be in the Redmond Town Center on Saturday. When I saw their warehouse stacked with pallets of food (on the news), I wondered if all that food goes to the seniors and needy families like it is suppose to.
In Olympia the politicians meet to decide how many people will not get the money they so desperately need to survive. The protesters are in full force; but their voices will not be heard. The cuts will be made and the needy will suffer once again, this Holiday Season. I think some people think I am a “bleeding heart” liberal. I think I am just a mother who sees children and parents suffering because of something they have no control over, the economy. Among the deeper cuts proposed are cuts to educational institutions in this state. How sad. At what point are students willing to protest and why do they always seem to turn violent with the policing authories winning?
This weekend, I watched in horror, for the third time, at the pepper spraying of peaceful University of CA-Davis students and donated to the TV station willing to speak out against the policing agency responsible. How can any parent or teacher or professor watch that incident and not respond? It was a peaceful demonstration and well within the rights of the students protesting, per the U.S. Constitution. I could not believe what I was seeing. The students were chanting “shame on you” and showing the world once again the type of brutality we are capable of. No…these students are not children; but my heart went out to them just the same.
As I am building the modules for Chapter 2, I have taken the time to review this incident. I remember when these types of incidents happened during the Nixon Administration. The thought came to mind, “…those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” These words were spoken by Winston Churchill and George Sanayana.” The full quote from The Life of Reason (1905-1906) by George Santayana is:
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement; and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
I think we all should ponder those words as we re-think the incident at Davis and what it really means for all of us. It is very hard for me to understand the brutality of the police using military grade pepper spray on students. I think the students said it best, “..the whole world is watching you!.” The next video was my reaction as well, I take my hat off to this ex-Marine for telling it like it was.
I have come from a military family. Both my step-brother, my brother and my husband (a U.S. Marine and eventually U.S. Army Officer) were Vietnam veterans. Two of my children served during Desert Storm. They swore an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution. The protesting students at UC-Davis did not have guns, they had no weapons, they held no rocks. They simply sat in peaceful protest exercising their rights as American citizens. I have only one comment, “…shame on you.” The comic strip author, of the comic strip Pogo, Walt Kelly stated on Earth Day 1970, “…I have met the enemy and he is us.”
The Pogo cartoon might be telling us something about Wallstreet. Could it be…you can cheat just so much before you have to pay up?
JOYSTECHTOOL 