THE HUMAN COST

     There is often a break in  the connections in our mind, the ones that connect decisions to actions and consequences. It is a learning process, particularly in the toddler and the teen years, but it is a process which goes on throughout our lives.
     I know that for much of the middle part of my life, the part where I was raising the kids, building a home and family, working on a career, blending these together, sharing family times, and even possibly, glory be! finding time to actually read a book - I was clearly not in tune so much with the politics of the day. Yes, I voted and yes, I had opinions, but the politics did not consume us all nor did we carry around phones which beeped us any time there was a news break.
     Now, when one has more time to think, to evaluate, to mull and muse, one begins to realize the human cost of all these somewhat abstract decisions. And that cost is great indeed. Raise tariffs and supposedly protect the homeland. Uh huh. Not really, for here is the human cost. There are reciprocal actions and there are consequences. So when you next buy a six pack of soda cans, do not faint at the increase. The same goes for cars, for any product, including foil and especially pharmaceutical packaging. And do not forget the increased costs to the industries that need this aluminum for the completion of their own products and the fact that some products now will not be bought by other countries, and our farmers will have major issues exporting their wheat and soybeans, etc. Here we go again with unemployment and costs and inflation. The human cost is always there.
     But the worst human cost arises when we do not stop and think before acting. Yes, it felt good to do something about the use of chemical weapons in Syria, but now what? There are still loads of it around, it can happen again and what about Russia and its use of chemicals to kill those they do not like. Just put some on a doorknob to a home, evidently and wait for the effect. Do we have a plan that encompasses this all? Do we have a plan that will lead to a solution? Saying "mission accomplished" is not the answer. George W. Bush said that and look where we are today - still mired in the same area with thousands dead and wounded and more to come. Answers anyone?
     We also are not thinking when we endorse or allow the chasing down of immigrants as if they are wild animals, deeply intent on ruining our lives, stealing any and all jobs, the worst of all criminals, the terror of the country. Now read that again and see the nasty stupidity of it all. See the nasty hatreds perpetuated in this behavior. Yes, there needs to be a system, but yes, there also must be a decent way to deal with the failure of the system for nothing works all the time. To think so is to engage in wishful and unrealistic thinking.
     So Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia have the highest rate of conformance to the ICE madness. Philadelphia, ironically the cradle of our own democracy, a country which was built on immigration, has the highest rate!
     And what are we gathering in to deportation centers? Who are we shackling together in long lines? What are we doing to their loved ones? What, in fact, are we doing to the psyche of this country, to its very fabric? The human cost.
     That cost takes away people who have built productive lives here, working hard, creating a business, raising families with American spouses and children, doing jobs that no one else seem to want to do, the "dirty" jobs of agriculture and construction, of manning the counters of stores where they work for minimum wage - or less. What are we doing? Have you stopped to think about this?
     I now have nightmares about being chased down, about having to have papers to prove who I am, whether I am a citizen. I hear the voices of Nazis, of fascist representatives, of dictatorial supposed leaders. I hear the cries of people in cruel and inhumane deportation camps. I hear the cries of children ripped from their parents, from their very arms. The human cost.
     And if one thinks that there is no cost to oneself, that one is not affected by this, well, think again. It eats away at the soul. It eats away at our very being, our very image of ourselves.
     So for sure, let us punish those who would use chemical weapons and gas on both civilians and soldiers. For sure let us fix the immigration mess, finding a better way to incorporate the vigor, the labor, the children, the families, the businesses of these immigrants and for sure, let us then concentrate on ridding ourselves of the criminals, the truly criminals, not the ones driving without a license because they cannot get one. And do not forget our own home bred criminals, for criminality is not a racial thing.
     Fifty years ago Martin Luther King had a dream, but that dream was not new then nor is it new or achieved to this day. It is a yearning of mankind to be able to live in peace, with family and friends, with human cost taken into account and cut to the bone. I fear the future if the human cost is ignored.