A STEP AND ANOTHER

     "Step, step" went the oldie. Armstrong took one small step for a man but a huge one for mankind. Many of us can recall times when we almost had to force our feet into motion, to take the step, then another one, towards where we were not sure we wanted to go. Steps can move us forward or bring us right back to that which must be changed.
     Steps have momentous effects on our lives, both as individuals and as members of larger societies. From the beginning of mankind, steps have been the pathway for advancement. The first step to explore beyond the cave. The first step towards making colors to paint on a wall. The first step to sail away from the shoreline. The first step towards liberating mankind from the onus of  terrible burdens.
     People need courage to take those seemingly small, inconsequential steps. And yet, not so small nor inconsequential. Each step that brought individuals to form crowds is what brought down the USSR and it will be the same small steps echoed in others that will bring down Putin. Small steps brought the heroes of Tiananmen Square to defy the government of China and those same steps have encouraged the heroes of Hong Kong today to rally and protest for weeks already. The same steps have encouraged others throughout the world to protest the conditions that oppress them, that even kill them, to speak up and out.
     Small steps are often the precursor towards drama in the theater of mankind. The women who marched for voting rights and the women of soccer and sports today who demand pay equality. The masses of Europe marching, demanding, freedom, better living conditons, rights, in 1848, along with enlightened members of the higher economic classes, and the brutal repression of the spirit of 1848, the resulting mass emigration to America. One of many such mass waves, waves that brought new people,fresh ideas, workers for society, and hope for a better life.
     Today we seemed to have taken steps that cause us to move backwards. Once again it seems that we are to support those who crush others under their boot heel. We seem to have lost empathy, forgetting that others are entitled to try to achieve the same lives that we are so lucky to have achieved here, so lucky that our ancestors had the courage, the ability to go against great odds, to leave families behind, all in the quest of a better life, all journeys that begin with small steps, one step after another.
     Yesterday, after reading report after report about the 'raids', after reading of the terrible tweets of our hateful and demented President, after looking into the future and seeing a darkness that never had I ever thought to be possible, to actually happen, in this country, then I, too, made a decision to take a small step. I thought these particular steps had long ago left their heyday behind, civil disobedience not having played a huge role in life after the turbulent sixties, as I was busy making a life, raising a family. But, a huge but, the time has come again.
     I can write all day about the awfulness of Trump and his pack of dirty individuals. I can rail all night about the inhumane conditions that refugees are kept in, such that there is a 'stench' when near them. And I think of the old canard that Jews are filthy people, and that is why there was an odor hanging around in the air over the concentration and death camps. No, it was because they were brutalized, denied the basic rights of humanity. Blame the victim then and now and as Stephen King and others so aptly put it - the words lead to deeds lead to roundups lead to armbands lead to ...... History has shown us that, so why, why, do we determine never to learn from history and our errors and yes, our triumphs?
     Any thinking person must realize, understand, get it, that hatred flows like a dirty and polluted river. It is the river of souls who have left their humanity behind and it grows and overwhelms others, gathering them to its moving heart and that hatred and its consequences are so terribly difficult to stem and overcome. Step by step is the only way to do so.
     So this coming Sunday, I, too, along with some friends, will take our renewed steps, step by step. We will attend a meeting wherein we will hear what and how to help immigrants. So I will continue writing, for that is the voice of my soul, my outlet for feelings that would otherwise eat me up, but I will also step. If that step means riding around a neigborhood looking for ICE, or standing in front of a door to remind those inside NOT to open, no abra la puerta, then so be it. If I am deemed a danger to the government, then this is a government not worthy of the name and certainly not worthy of respect. But it is a government which is built on the basis of free speech. Hold that close!
     The right to criticize the government has been codified within the courts of America since the Peter Zenger case and his criticism of the British Governor, written in stone in the First Amendment, and so brutalized throughout the centuries. Those who criticized our country were told to leave it. They were imprisoned, beaten up, despised and yet, that is how the workers achieved a living wage - though that is in dire trouble today - were able to send their children off to school, the more the better, were able to breathe in air of hope, of the freshness of a belief in the possibilities of mankind and of one man at a time.
     Now think of the despair today when Republicans who were quick to shout at the nasty remarks of Omar and Tlaib, and that was deserved, now are ominously quiet at the racial over tones and undertones of Trump, still cannot find their moral balls, their moral backbones, as they still follow that caricature of a president down a very dangerous road. They ignore his mouthings, how he will absolutely consider the wishes of his base and remain in office maybe even for 14 years and signs a tweet as 4eva. Or worse, think it is the way to go and screw democracy!
     Many steps are needed here, people, many. And many more. Find the courage within, the anger within, and take your step. Find your cause. Help the immigrant sitting there in terrified silence, hiding from the enforcers of a nation wo are willing to brutalize to do their 'job'. Who think nothing of ripping parent from child, from infant, from teen. Who deny they are the moral detritus and descendants of those who did this before them, here and in other countrues. Who forget that once they too or their family before them were also immigrants. In fact, since the time of the Mayflower, we have all been immigrants and among us, too, were crooks, and murderers and rapists, but also inventors and pioneers and soldiers, and statesmen, and entrepreneurs, and businessmen and women, and scientists, and teachers and judges - people all, just as they are today.
     The immigrants, the refugees of today all took that first step because the situation in their homeland was beyond all possibility of life, for them and their children. They were hungry, seeking water, seeking safety from gangs and violent governments. It is not an easy decision to decide to take those steps that begin a 1,000 mile journey towards an unknown, but they did it and so, too, must we. We must find the courage to take a step and another and another.