I have been sitting here for days reading Kos and going through a huge variety of emotions. I feel EVERYTHING, most people here feel. I think everything most people here think. All without concern for conflict or rational thought. So...where does that leave me? Back to my large, diverse, extended family, which are like a cross between afternoon school specials and documentaries, for lessons I think I learned throughout the years. This week my father-in-law is on my mind the most. He was the greatest influence on my life as a father figure for the 5 years he was in my life. I wish he were still here. I have never before or since met a more caring, compassionate or wise man. To gloss over his story he was a German Jew who was lucky (?) enough to be picked up on Crystalnaught, sent to a concentration camp and had a family with enough influence to get him out early and sent on to Shanghai, where he spent the next 9 years of his life. The rest of his family perished.
So what does my rambling thoughts have to do with him? Do I think we are in a Fascist state? Certainly not the ilk of Hitler, but maybe headed for our own special Project for a New American Century Fascist way. Anyhow...to get back on the subject. I have kept hearing a voice in my head saying over and over "Who will speak for me?" and it took me awhile to remember a story someone had told me along the lines of when they came for the Poles, I didn't speak, when they came for whoever and whoever and whoever I didn't speak. Now that they've come for me who will speak? The story hit home because of my father-in-law. Well I decided whatever the reasons for the outcome of this election, (fraud, or my being completely out of touch with the populous, me developing my mother's wonderful/terrible knack for over-dramatization, or whatever) I do not like the way the voting went with respect to the homosexual population. I find it frightening. I find I strongly disagree with separating a part of our community for legal discrimination and see nothing but bad things ahead for them. I don't think it will be very long before the Arab community follows suit either. There seems to be a ground swell in a fear-hate mode. I may be the only person in my family that HATES conflict in any way, because most of us thrive on it, but this is a fight I feel needs to be fought. I don't have much clout outside my family, nor much money or a strong voice, but for what it's worth...
"I will speak for you"