ON BEING WILLFUL

     At times, as a child, my aunt would tell me to stop being willful when I did something she thought wrong - or willful. Still not sure why she said that, as people are entitled to opinions, but I sure do know why people can be called willful today.
     Today, people are willfully blind or deaf. They do not hear the cries of the children for their parents. They do not hear the cries of the oppressed around the world. They do not internalize the anguish of the molested, the harassed, the persecuted. They are willfully blind to piteous photos of man's inhumanity to man, to the destruction by Nature because we are so wrong in our behavior and deeds.
     And woe upon us as the plague of willfulness does not stop at borders. Last night I watched an episode of Law & Order:SVU that I had recorded and it broke my heart. It was about a ten year old child separated, ripped away, from her mother who had committed the cardinal sin of asking for asylum in this country of ours that once had stood tall as a  place of refuge for those "yearning to breathe free". The scenes with children in cages, yes, cages, on thin green mattresses with thin blankets, in primitive conditions, guarded by OUR soldiers ----well, like it or not, do not tell me that these scenes do not approach the level of the Holocaust. Yes, we are not yet at the killing point, but the more we do this, the more we dehumanize the "others", the more we allow hateful words to flow out of our supposed President and his minions in a filthy flow of horrible words, the more we do this - well, you fill in the rest of the lines, connect the dots.
     The University of Michigan has allowed over 200 slides of crude anti Semitic posters and slides to be shown, no, forced to watch by students, despite prior complaints. They are awful and rise above the Nazi cartoons in their viciousness. And right here in the USA. Right here in the country where people swore it would never happen here. But you see, if one ignores a bad thing, a cruelty, a dehumanization of one group, it is easier the second and the third time, even easier the fourth and on it goes. And yes, folks, we are so perilously close to sliding over a line I prefer not even to imagine, yet there it is, intruding daily, sometimes hourly, into my thoughts.
     There are heroes. Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat who saved so many desperate Jewish refugees despite his "willful" behavior. Other diplomats who did the same, defying their orders - yes, orders can be defied if they are immoral. Those who protest, take in refugee children, stand and give out food and water to those so desperate in times of disaster, especially when our government seems immune to the awfulness of the situation and instead turns to self praise at good jobs, when the mounds of former towns and homes remain and the buried and missing are still waiting too and here are the willful volunteers..
     So the ass Trump can be willfully blind and deaf as he ignores the murder of Khashoggi by the Saudis, deeming it instead as a deed by "rogue" killers. Rogue? Not really such when they are sent by the government! Who has fessed up today. And no, government by tweeting is not government at all, merely a symbolic behavior by a disturbed mind.
     So yes, we must be willful. We must heed the call of those who need us, challenged though we might be. We must speak out, shout out, about the oh so wrong behavior that we are allowing, right here in our own country, let alone the rest of the world. We need to hear the lies and correct them. We need to feel proud once again as we stand to recite the Pledge, something I cannot do any longer. There is no more pride in me for that. We have trampled that right into the ground, so yes, I stand respectfully, kneeling is not even a possibility! - but the words - the words are stuck.
     So yes, I approve of willful - properly willful - behavior, willful behavior that makes sense, that supports the right and the just and the moral. And I detest the willful behavior that leads to death and humiliation, to the growing of future enemies of our country as we imprison them today, as children. I resent the willful attempts to throw out the Dreamers, to deport people who have lived here for decades, have jobs, small businesses, are scientists, doctors, parents of American families. I resent all this immorality. This willful immorality and will speak out against it as long as it remains part and parcel of our lives as it is today.
     I am no hero, trust me on that. But there is a limit and while physically there are limitations, my mind and my fingers work and so does my mouth. Be willful and VOTE!!! Be willful and turn away from your Republican cruel representatives, those who take advantage of us, people who make a mockery of even their own sacrifice. If I see one more photo of Brian Mast showing off his prosthesis......What about his votes for Trump? What about his anti environmental voting and no, his one fight about red algae is not enough. What about all his misdeeds? This is just one example of so many in that Party, the leader of which is a man who condemns one of his own as a "kind of Democrat". The nausea is rising again.
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