Not a sheep

History, especially American history, and 20th-century history, has always been one of my biggest passions.

I’m not going to go into all the reasons we’re on the road to Fascism–see Facebook, many many blogs, and newspapers, but every single thing that Drumpf does points to it.

How can people believe that we’re being “negative” when so many Americans escaped Communism, and other totalitarian governments since the Korean war? Many became citizens; others are waiting to become citizens, still others have dual citizenship (Drumpf’s latest “crackdown.”)

I remember when many Greeks came over in the early 1970’s. People talked to strangers in lunch restaurants then and I heard many stories that stayed with me. Then I lived in Israel in 1971 where I met every type of possible Jewish refuge including Russians who were just beginning to “escape” Communist Russia. It was mind opening to me. Not every refuge was good. I tried talking another young American woman out of marrying one because I saw that he just wanted the fabled “green card” but I couldn’t. Later she thanked me for trying. Other marriages lasted.

Not every refuge was good. I tried talking another young American woman out of marrying one because I saw that he just wanted the fabled “green card” but I couldn’t. Later she thanked me for trying. Other marriages lasted.

In the 1980’s I managed a large computerized litigation project with much deposition digesting. The company bookkeeper, a Filipino, kept coming to me and asking me to hire family members. It was during the time Marcos was in power and every Filipino who could was sadly leaving.

I kept telling the bookkeeper that I could only hire people to code documents (very much like data processing but on paper) as they just weren’t ready for the more advanced jobs. After a week or two, I realized what she really was doing, and went to my bosses to tell them we needed to hire people for an entirely new job. They agreed. And that’s how we ran our version of an underground railroad. Because it was the right thing to do.  Honestly I didn’t tell them why we needed this new job but they weren’t stupid and must have figured it out as I had.

The president of the company had adopted a Viet Namese child who was on an airplane that crashed. The boy lived but had severe disabilities. So even the president of the company, thought hiring every Filipino we could a good thing. (Their papers looked real, and I told myself they were. The bookkeeper was in charge of the paperwork, ha!).  I didn’t go crazy hiring because I never wanted it coming back to haunt us. But I slept a bit better at night.

The only person I’ve ever told this story to before today was one Filipino blogger. I feel that it needs to be told now.

I’m a New York Jew. Many of our parents, grandparents and/or great-grandparents escaped the Holocaust or a bit later after living in gross camps were awarded refugee status. Some of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century came over in the 1930’s as refugees who were “needed” for war work such as building the atomic bomb and much more.

I can’t imagine how many people who weren’t awarded special refugee status could have developed programs that cured diseases, and helped build America into an even greater country. Yes I still cry for Anne Frank who might have become a great author or maybe a lawyer or social worker or housewife who raised incredible kids.

My family, like so many others came during the Russian pogroms, my grandparents and great grand-grandparents came over legally, but it had been a few years later they wouldn’t have been so lucky.

Not one of us has been dependent upon government unless you count great public schools, libraries, police and fire departments, very occasionally unemployment, good roads, parks, and so many more programs paid for by the city, county, state and/or federal government–even our garbage collection is subsidized.

Most of us take government programs for granted and argue that we have never taken anything from the government. If you were born in a hospital you probably began taking from the government at birth as most hospitals receive subsidies. And so it goes through the life cycle.

Much later in life, we receive Medicare and Social Security—earned entitlements.

Government is good. Government is needed. Perhaps you believe in “less government.” I hope I showed you, just a bit, why that’s virtually impossible.

At this stage in my life the last thing I want to do is protest, but like many people with a conscience, I feel compelled to.

I can’t and won’t accept this government. For you who say you “suffered” under President Obama–he never took your rights away. To want background checks for gun owners isn’t impeding your life. To want every American to have health insurance should be a great thing. It would have been if the ACA hadn’t been obstructed at every corner.

I lived in New York during 9/11. Like most of the people who lived in Manhattan, the surrounding boroughs, even the entire tri-state area I couldn’t wait for Bin Laden to be brought to justice. He was.

The countries we are banning people from had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. Muslims like every religion has good and bad people. To think that every Muslim is potentially a bad person is to be like a German in the 1930’s, follow Hitler, and say that every Jew is potentially horrible.

I always wondered if I would be like a German during the 1930’s. Wondering this cost me many sleepless nights when I was a kid. (I admit that I was extremely weird. But lovable.)

I can now tell Child Pia that no I probably wouldn’t have been a sheep.

I had a very hard time writing this. I know it’s scattered but I won’t post it if I edit so….I love my country very much. It’s a great one, that at this moment is suffering badly.

I needed to add my name and some of my story to the growing number of bloggers who #resist.