My 3-year-old grandson Kingston in Hawaii, in a photo taken by his father, my son Jon, visiting there recently from his current home in W Va.
December
10 is not only Human Rights Day, but also the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. We’d like to think some progress has been made during those 70
years.
Donald Trump, who has constantly disparaged the Bush family and George HW Bush’s NAFTA initiative,
suddenly decided to go all-out for the former president’s funeral. Trump is
nothing if not unpredictable. Of course, the Bush family, in an attempt at
reconciliation, invited Trump to the funeral, an olive branch that he seems to
have relished after being snubbed by McCain’s family. (How will he react if
former President Carter dies on his watch?) No doubt Trump was squirming in his
seat during the long ceremony which was not about him for a change and seemed a
rebuttal to his approach to governing.
Though I did not vote for GHW, I consider him to have been an OK
president, better than his son. He was certainly moderate and reasonable in
contrast to Trump. He showed restraint after the invasion of Kuwait (but failed
to support the Iraqis after urging them to “rise up”). He presided over the
enactment of the Americans with
Disabilities Act, which I had worked on beforehand behind the scenes,
assisting my late former husband. Bush Senior also signed the Clean Air Act now being thwarted by
Trump. He advocated statehood for Puerto Rico. His “Thousand Points of Light.“
much disparaged by Trump, were considered inspiring. And the elder Bush welcomed
the fall of the Berlin Wall, but
also oversaw the Tiananmen Square massacre.
But for all the accolades heaped on a fallen leader, his legacy is
not unblemished. Bush presided over the Anita
Hill hearings and nominated Clarence
Thomas and also was lukewarm about confronting AIDS, which afflicted my late Cuban foster son Alex, leading to his death. The Willie Horton accusations that he repeatedly leveled during his
presidential campaign were pretty egregious. Father Bush was also famous for
his garbled syntax, echoed later by his son in his own presidency. (But compared
to Trump, GHW in his presidency was the soul of eloquence.) In his later (senile?)
years, while posing for photo ops in his wheelchair, the late former president
would reportedly routinely pinch the bottoms of unsuspecting young women
standing next to him and chortle “David-cop-a
feel,” to wife Barbara’s great consternation. So, like most human beings,
he leaves a mixed legacy.
The Me-Too movement is an
ongoing cultural and power distribution shift leaving many men befuddled and defensive
and propelling many of them to join with misogynist Donald Trump. While women of
my generation in our youth simply accepted male dominance and sexual aggression
as reality, thanks to birth control and rising expectations, women are now
seeking more options. Just as there was (and still is) resistance to black
empowerment and equality, there is going to be continuing resistance to female
empowerment. At least some of the vilification of Hillary Clinton has been based on that. Today’s Republican-dominated
Senate is one of the last bastions of male dominance.
Here’s another take on the Central
American migrant caravan.
The migrant situation is complicated,
like most issues when examined in depth. I am not a big fan of contrarian
legislator Mel Zelaya, who may have
set this caravan in motion. Neither am I a fan of the current president of
Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who
managed to change the constitution to give himself a second term, as Zelaya had
attempted to do, but was thwarted. A pox on both their houses!
Here’s another story about the Honduran president’s brother being indicted
on drug charges in the US,].
Of course, there were 16 siblings in the Honduran
president’s family, so their parents might not have been able to keep track of
them all and chances are that some bad apples might have turned up among them.
Many Hondurans believe the president is another bad apple, but the family does
seem to have been an enterprising bunch. When I was in Honduras in Feb.,
people who had voted for the president considered him the lesser of evils, as
the other major candidate was a TV entertainer who had bragged about his sexual
prowess and was supported by Zelaya, the legislator and former president
mentioned in these pages before, an ally of the late Hugo Chavez. Many people
simply told me they had not voted when faced with those choices. I will say
that President Hernandez talking on TV sounded much more organized and coherent
than Trump, including when he took questions from reporters. That's not saying
much.
Many, if not most, people in Central America dream of going to the
US. It's a shared fantasy of a better life, although since Trump took office,
some have changed their mind—his rhetoric has had a chilling effect and border
crossing are actually down. Still, poverty and violence there are real, but
unless you are starving, you can adjust to poverty--it becomes normal. It's a
situation shared with all your associates, so simply what you come to expect,
as I found out when I lived there as a Peace Corps volunteer for 3 1/2 years.
When I came home to the US to a bathroom with a hot shower and flush toilet,
that seemed exotic. But violence that threatens you directly is another matter.
I do worry about my own safety whenever I go to Honduras, especially in a taxi
or on a bus when a hold-up is always possible. And it really isn't feasible for
a poor Honduran to just pick up and move to a safer part of the country since
there are not many safe places, except maybe in remote villages where it's
practically impossible to fit in and earn even a subsistence living. For
many Central American young people, the journey north is an adventure and a
rite of passage.
The northward journey is dangerous and difficult
and the risks don’t end when they arrive in the US, but when they are first starting
out, they don’t know that. Of course, this guy did, because he had done it
before. https://apnews.com/aaac850c517441b4a1936cb59cdc7040
If Mexico is willing to accept most of the migrants who already speak
their national language and are willing to work in border sweatshops for $2 or
less per hour, that might still be preferable for them than trying to get into
the US. But Mexico's capacity is also limited and there is plenty of violence
there too. It would be an irony if migrants now become attracted by “the Mexican dream."
Why is Sen. Chuck Schumer
seeming to agree to fund Trump’s border wall? Is it to try to agree with
Trump on something or to avoid a government shutdown? Is it because he knows
the rest of the Democratic contingent won’t allow it? It would be a big waste
of money, be environmentally damaging, and present a negative image of our
country. Shore up fences, if you will, but no wall! Now Schumer is saying it’s money
actually for “border security,” not necessarily for a wall.
My
younger daughter and her husband live and work in Honolulu and I have a little grandson living there, and am also concerned
for all of Hawaii’s residents. So, I believe we need to get Trump out of the presidency
as soon as possible, before North Korea
builds up its nuclear arsenal to the point that it can reach not only Seoul and
Tokyo, but Honolulu. Trump represents a grave danger to humankind.
Julian
Assange may have avoided prison by holing up in the Ecuadoran Embassy,
its own sort of prison. Now that it is becoming clear that WikiLeaks was
instrumental in getting Trump elected, will Assange become eligible for a
presidential pardon? If so, there may not be much time left, as the noose seems
to be tightening around Donald Trump. (Or is that just my wishful thinking?) Trump
seems to be getting increasingly ansy as he tries to feign being in charge.
Will his supporters both in government and in the public jettison him if the
evidence against him appears too strong? If it comes to that, probably Mike
Pence will pardon him, following the Nixon playbook. Then Donald Trump can
retire mercifully to the golf course and try again to make real estate deals,
though with much diminished capacity with his fraudulence revealed. He may even
find a ghostwriter for another memoir giving his side of the story, how the
fake media and deep state did him in, which will still sell among his hard
core.
Looking back on my Peace
Corps years, after the tragic deaths of my son and Cuban foster son and so
many years of juggling the needs of my family as a single parent with work
obligations and volunteer duties, being in rural Honduras served as a retreat
and a respite. Some folks may seek peace in an ashram or a monastery, but I was
able to get away from it all by just leading a simple life in a Honduran
village. No wonder that I was willing to extend my Peace Corps service for more
than a year while many other volunteers went home early or left immediately
after completing their 27-month term.
According to the Economist
cover story for Nov. 24-30, 2018, global suicide rates are falling, rising only
in the US, where half of suicides are
carried out with guns. Since suicide is often an impulsive act, easy gun
availability makes it lethal.
In the same issue, US
birthrates are falling below replacement, approaching low European and
Japanese levels. The availability of effective contraception is certainly a
factor, as is the greater participation of women in the workforce. Birthrates
for Hispanic women are the only sector approaching replacement, but even those have
begun falling. All the more reason why our country, as well as Europe and
Japan, should welcome more immigrants.
No comments:
Post a Comment