“I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House.”

Just over 156 years ago, on August 22, 1864, another president spoke at the White House. Lincoln spoke not to a political party but to the One Hundred Sixty-sixth Ohio Regiment. Here’s what he said.

“I suppose you are going home to see your families and friends. For the service you have done in this great struggle in which we are engaged I present you sincere thanks for myself and the country.
I almost always feel inclined, when I happen to say anything to soldiers, to impress upon them in a few brief remarks the importance of success in this contest. It is not merely for to-day, but for all time to come that we should perpetuate for our children’s children this great and free government, which we have enjoyed all our lives. I beg you to remember this, not merely for my sake, but for yours. I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am a living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father’s child has. It is in order that each of you may have through this free government which we have enjoyed, an open field and a fair chance for your industry, enterprise and intelligence; that you may all have equal privileges in the race of life, with all its desirable human aspirations. It is for this the struggle should be maintained, that we may not lose our birthright—not only for one, but for two or three years. The nation is worth fighting for, to secure such an inestimable jewel.”

“Now let me speak generally to those who are advocates for white supremacy, or white nationalism.”

Comments by Justin Herdman United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio:

Remarks as prepared announcing federal criminal charges against James Reardon:

. . .

Now let me speak generally to those who are advocates for white supremacy, or white nationalism. I am talking directly to you. The Constitution protects your right to speak, your right to think, and your right to believe. If you want to waste the blessings of liberty by going down a path of hatred and failed ideologies, that is your choice.

Democracy allows you to test those ideas in the public forum. If you want to submit your beliefs to the American people and get their reaction, please be my guest. Keep this in mind, though. Thousands and thousands of young Americans already voted with their lives to ensure that this same message of intolerance, death, and destruction would not prevail – you can count their ballots by visiting any American cemetery in North Africa, Italy, France, or Belgium and tallying the white headstones. You can also recite the many names of civil rights advocates who bled and died in opposing supporters of those same ideologies of hatred. Their voices may be distant, but they can still be heard.

Go ahead and make your case for Nazism, a white nation, and racial superiority. The Constitution may give you a voice, but it doesn’t guarantee you a receptive audience.

Your right to free speech does not automatically mean that people will agree with you. In fact, you have an absolute God-given and inalienable right to be on the losing end of this argument.

What you don’t have, though, is the right to take out your frustration at failure in the political arena by resorting to violence. You don’t have any right to threaten the lives and well-being of our neighbors. They have an absolute God-given and inalienable right to live peacefully, to worship as they please, to be free from fear that they might become a target simply because of the color of their skin, the country of their birth, or the form of their prayer.

Threatening to kill Jewish people, gunning down innocent Latinos on a weekend shopping trip, planning and plotting to perpetrate murders in the name of a nonsense racial theory, sitting to pray with God-fearing people who you execute moments later – those actions don’t make you soldiers, they make you criminals. Law enforcement doesn’t go to war with cowards who break the law, we arrest them and send them to prison.

As I said, this case was made by a concerned member of the public and a responsive police officer. That’s all it takes to stop you. The men and women of our community are allied with law enforcement. And every single member of law enforcement took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Many of us have taken that oath several times – as police officers, federal agents, prosecutors, military members, and elected officials.

Together, we represent the absolute best of what America has to offer. Our skin is every color you can imagine, our families come from a hundred different countries and a hundred different faiths. What makes us different doesn’t split us apart, though. Those differences are insignificant compared to what is the same about us – we are united in our commitment to each other, to our families, and to our communities. We are the living embodiment of everything you say is impossible.

Together, we are united to ensure that you commit no further acts of violence in the name of your beliefs. When you wake up tomorrow morning, no matter what time, I want you to remember something. You can’t set your alarm clock early enough to beat us out of bed. The men and women of law enforcement don’t wake up. We never went to sleep. We are always awake. And arm in arm with the public, when your hatred leads you to break the law, we will do everything we can to be there to stop you.

78b0c594-463b-425b-8ba9-94104cdac29a-2

March from Selma to Montgomery Alabama, 1965. Today is 50 days to Election Day 2018

Photographer Bruce Davidson, Magnum Photos

A conversation between General John Kelley and Abraham Lincoln

General John Kelley:

“I would tell you that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man.”

President Abraham Lincoln:

“It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged.”

General John Kelley:

He was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country. It was always loyalty to state first back in those days. Now it’s different today.

President Abraham Lincoln:

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

General John Kelley:

But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand.”

President Abraham Lincoln:

The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

“Because our humanity is shared”

I have no idea who this lady is but I am very grateful for her words when she closed the Asian American Dreamers rally outside Trump Tower last night. She finished calling for solidarity for Dreamers, for Muslims, for Mexicans, for . . well everyone knows the list by now.

She didn’t ask the crowd to stand by Muslims and Mexicans and Dreamers because we are “allies”, she called for solidarity because of a self-evident truth: Because our humanity is shared.

I am very grateful. I am done with hearing about “intersectionality” and allies. I do not stand with those attacked by this administration because I am an “ally”. I stand with people targeted as strangers because our humanity is shared, because I am human and because I am an American . . . And so are the Dreamers we were rallying for last night.

“Please tell us why you are unsubscribing”

Dear Hillary,

I am unsubscribing because you lost. You ran an ineffective campaign that I did spend a lot of time volunteering for as did many, many people but in the end you managed to lose what should have been an un-losable election and the rest of the country is paying for your hubris and incompetence. The only thing I would like to hear from you is that you are enjoying your well earned retirement and that you are exiting the public square to make space for new, fresh leadership who are untainted with your baggage. It is mostly underserved but you are tainted with baggage that makes you a lightning rod for the “vast right wing conspiracy” making you the single most effective mobilizing tool for their base. You need to understand that although we recognize your service to the country that does not mean that the country owes you anything and you have enjoyed much, much more than your “15 minutes of fame”. Please enjoy your retirement and create space for talented, untainted leadership to emerge to take our country back and save the republic that your hubris and electoral incompetence have placed at such risk.

Sincerely

July 4th celebrations in the age of Trump

When I try to explain my love affair with my adoptive country I start by explaining that America is a country based on an idea. That idea however is not a guarantee, it’s a promise. It is up to every generation to work and struggle to make the reality of the United States closer to its promise. All the ugliness and darkness that existed within the country’s borders and within its population did not magically vanish on a single day in January 2009. The beauty and the light did not magically vanish on a single day in January 2017. On July 4th each year I celebrate my opportunity as an adoptive American to be part of the journey to create a more perfect union. I wish the route of that journey was more direct but July 4th 2017 gave me just as many reasons to celebrate as every July 4th since I became a citizen of our proud republic.

‘We Can’t Walk Away From This Truth’

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu explains to his city why four monuments commemorating the Lost Cause and the Confederacy had to come down.

‘Let us remember what the once exiled, imprisoned and now universally loved Nelson Mandela and what he said after the fall of apartheid.

“If the pain has often been unbearable and the revelations shocking to all of us, it is because they indeed bring us the beginnings of a common understanding of what happened and a steady restoration of the nation’s humanity.”

So before we part let us again state the truth clearly.

The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity. It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate our fellow Americans to slavery. This is the history we should never forget and one that we should never again put on a pedestal to be revered.

As a community, we must recognize the significance of removing New Orleans’ Confederate monuments. It is our acknowledgment that now is the time to take stock of, and then move past, a painful part of our history.

Anything less would render generations of courageous struggle and soul-searching a truly lost cause.

Anything less would fall short of the immortal words of our greatest President Abraham Lincoln, who with an open heart and clarity of purpose calls on us today to unite as one people when he said:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right; let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds … to do all which may achieve and cherish—a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”’

Full Text:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/we-cant-walk-away-from-this-truth/527721/

Do We Deserve Trump?

A friend posted his horror and anguish this morning at the ongoing national humiliation of the Trump presidency. He then argued powerfully that we deserve Trump:

“we” … The people of the is country – as a whole. We… the people… are pissed off at the guy at the bus stop at 5am going to his first minimum wage job. Worse yet… we hate him for it – he’s a leach. We…. the people… convince ourselves we are the victim. We… the people… are mad at the guy in front of us while driving simply because he is there, and as we fly around him give him the finger. Not even caring that he is probably just lost and finding his way. We… the people say “don’t tread on me”…. “screw the other guy (even if he is our neighbor)”….and “me first”. We the people… value the kind of man Mr. Trump is. “he says what I want to say…. he acts like I want to act.” Yes… we. IMO…We.. as a whole… are not good people. And we… the people of this country… got exactly the kind of man “we” really are.

I emotionally identify with my friend’s sentiments but I respectfully disagree. To quote Barack Obama: “This is not who we are”. To go one step further I agree with Dr King’s insight that the United States is an inherently just society which is simultaneously the home of intolerable injustice. He then understood that if you can force America, or at least the just middle to bear witness to injustice then you can awaken the conscience of a just society and create the political reality necessary to overcome injustice. The complication is that the republic was born with a huge cancer inside it of injustice, the injustice of the dehumanization of the other and the development of elaborate philosophical and semantic frameworks to justify stripping the dehumanized other of every right that accompanies humanity.

To put it in different terms, we created a republic in the name of “We the people” but never defined who the people are and have continuously used, in law and in relationships between individuals, the mechanism of excluding “others” from the “people”. Although we have progressively decreased the manifestations of that injustice we’ve also learned and taught each successive generation to avert our gaze unless we are absolutely forced to see that injustice straight in the middle of our vision. There is a also an unreachable segment of the population that Trump speaks to directly who will never be able to see some people as anything other than “other”.

The real tipping point though in the story of how we ended up with Trump is that those of us who should know better got lazy. News turned into entertainment. “Quality news” pretended to be journalism while actually degenerating into a “he said / she said” soap opera of false equivalence which placed no value in objective truth. If objective truth was discussed it was placed in the ghetto of “fact checking” rather than being treated as the central purpose of journalism. Smart educated people who should have known better went along with this degeneracy of journalism and refused to say that the emperor had no clothes. To allow ourselves to excuse our complicitness in this decadence we label the ugliness we see now as “Trumpism” so we can say it is something new. The “newness” of Trumpism gives us an excuse for not calling out the decades long slide of mainstreaming of othering and authoritarianism into the mainstream of one of the two great parties. The concept of “Trumpism” allows us to label this as something new which we can denounce as opposed to something that has stared us in the face all along that we refused to call out. The concept of “Trumpism” allows us to make ourselves believe we are genuinely surprised when we, as people who should know better, are forced to stare at the ugliness beyond our fortresses of privilege and ask “How can this be happening today?”

Reagan was right: “Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation”. We got lazy as a polity and we got the predictable outcome. On the other hand, I’m getting somewhat optimistic: It is unavoidable that when we look back at this period we will regard the Trump presidency as a period of national shame and humiliation. However I think we will also see that we got lucky: Trump and Bannon do not appear competent enough to establish an authoritarian regime and overturn the republic. We may regard them as a painful warning that caused us to engage in a period of renewal of the intuitions of the republic and and a re-education in the obligations of citizenship. (The word “painful” should not be taken lightly though. This “warning” has and will continue to destroy many, many lives).

We’re only a month and a half in so a lot can go wrong but I’m feeling optimistic that we will get through this. The press seems to be re-learning the role of journalism. We are re-learning the skills of civic engagement, we engage in acts as solidarity with other communities as a matter of course and most importantly we are relearning the core imperative of engaged citizenship in a just republic: bearing witness to injustice.

On the other hand I chose to be American so I would look for a cup half full perspective. Maybe the right perspective was Jon Stewart’s on Colbert’s show a few weeks ago which was that if we survive this with the republic’s institutions intact we will prove that America truly is great.