May Grace Accompany Us On Our Long Walk Home

Here everybody has a neighbor

Everybody has a friend

Everybody has a reason to begin again

My father said "Son, we're lucky in this town,

It's a beautiful place to be born.

It just wraps its arms around you,

Nobody crowds you and nobody goes it alone"

"Your flag flyin' over the courthouse

Means certain things are set in stone.

Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't"

It's gonna be a long walk home

"Long Walk Home"~ Bruce Springsteen - 

To Dr. Franklin: I did my best, and will continue to do so, to keep—and strengthen—the republic you gave us.

To my family and friends: my deepest appreciation for participating in our democracy so passionately, as your actions and sentiments have bolstered my faith in the furthering and deepening of our civic education and commitment, and the love of our country.

To my family and friends who have suffered deep discrimination by virtue of the color of their skin, religious beliefs, ethnicity, sex, and identities: I am one of you, one with you, and will always work to support a more inclusive, compassionate America.

To my friends and family whose politics differ from mine—by small or large degree—I extend my hand in healing and unity.  I pray you will take it, and together work with me to unify our America.

To my fellow Americans who care not (perhaps at this moment) to unify and would instead seek to sow greater discord:  I will pray for you and the country we share. Just remember:  we are, all of us, in this together.  We sink or swim TOGETHER.  For the past year and a half we have seemed more like the two bloody sides in a most uncivil Civil War that must end with as much graciousness we can find within ourselves.  Now, it is all of you who must find room—and inclusion—within yourselves for a country so vast and beautiful in its diversity to truly thrive as the UNITED States of America.  My pledge, I give you. Will you give me yours?  It is my prayer that you do.  It is my prayer that all of us listen with open minds, hearts, and souls to each other, as this must be our common goal.  Today we must end the disparagement, the hateful rhetoric, and the destructive gloating that one side of us won and one side of us lost.  Remember, there is only ONE side: ours, together. This is America.  There is only one.  THE ONLY ONE.  We must come to share a vision of America where there is equal justice for all; where we support greater rights, not fewer; where we can live and let live in peace—even if we do not share beliefs in some of our Supreme Court decisions, we ought not wish nor work to impose our religious beliefs on others, as it goes against the basic pillars of our democracy: the Separation of Church and State, and freedoms fought for and died for by those heralded and unheralded. We may have our very real differences, but our laws and protections under them must be greater than any person, any principle that would leave any of us abandoned in times of greatest need.  We have lived in times of great neglect, suffering, abandonment, obstruction, the abdication and, yes, treasonous, acts of a political party in power over both Houses of OUR Congress.  Shame  on them.  Shame on us for allowing them to commit these atrocities against our democracy.  They are OUR servants. They did not serve us well. We must all learn more now about the power-mongers and how they have operated in the shadows of our consciousness to continue to cling to their power.  They have used many of us with imperfect knowledge of how this all works who voted yesterday.  Now, let us all call out our representatives whose obstruction has had less to do with political ideology than the attempt to delegitimize a duly and democratically elected president.  In truth—and these are hard truths to accept—and, whether you agree with me or not, we must start acknowledging what has been behind this if we are ever going to get through this together:  fear, a racist thrust shooting through the realization that our once strongly white majority is losing its hold on power as our nation gets browner, as whites have come to know that the Hispanics in our population will—within little more than a decade or so—be in the majority.  We are so used to what has been.  Now we have to make a true effort to come to peace with what will be. This is scary for so many Americans.  But, a little shared history here:  My Italian ancestors were feared and discriminated against when they came here.  My wife’s Jewish ancestors—those who survived after being nearly annihilated in the Holocaust—were discriminated against.  The ancestors of my Irish friends suffered that same initial fate.  My best friend’s Asian ancestors were put into “concentration” camps in our—their—own country.  My black friends…my God…there are no adequate words to describe the crimes against humanity you have—and continue to—suffer. Our Native Americans, the tragedy against whom has been absolutely thorough and shameful, suffered the loss of their indigenous land, were relegated to reservations, and now fight for some respect to be shown to their ancient burial grounds and their precious water supply.   Yes, ours is a shared history of suffering.  We MUST learn our history, embrace our commonalities, and unite to save ourselves.

To all my fellow Americans who have suffered the degradation of Unions that would give them an equal voice against those with now almost unbridled power over them, I say, “Fight for the worthy cause of protecting our workers.”  Today dawns on political parties that are vastly changed.  We get to tell them to stop the nonsense and live up to the ideals of our Constitution.  We get to write their script.  We must be sensible and judicious.  Let us all read our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and its first ten amendments, our Bill of Rights.  If you agree with them, fight for the ideals enshrined within them. Dig deep and deeper still to allow for freedoms that will keep us greatly protected, no matter how they may chafe against our grain, against some of our religious and social principles for the reasons aforementioned. As I have often said about the Freedom of Speech, “I might wholly and entirely disagree with what you say or write, but I would die for your right of unfettered expression to continue to do so.”  You see, democracy demands some self-sacrifice . 

To Hillary Clinton: I thank you for your unwavering, constant, multi-decade fight for all that is righteous and right in America. You were the one, Hillary.  You were IT--the best of our best. Your brilliance, knowledge of foreign and domestic affairs, the geo-political intricacies of global inter-relationships, the fear you struck in patriarchal countries that oppress women, the empowerment of those women to rise up for change when you were poised to hold the most powerful leadership position in the world, your championship for Women's Rights as Human RIghts, and your absolute dedication to the rights of children and the most impoverished among make you--absolutely--a PHENOMENAL WOMAN. It is these attributes and accomplishments that made hostile foreign powers (Russia, et al), criminals (Assange and foreign oligarchs), and cowards work in a dark under-world, aided by a corrupt FBI, to thwart our efforts.  You are the one, Hillary. You will always have my respect and support.  You will always have my love. 

To President-Elect  Donald Trump:  Do your best for ALL of us.  You MUST be better than your campaign rhetoric.  You MUST be president of us ALL, for in your hands now lies a fragile, but honorable democracy that you must serve honorably.  You must dispense with corrosive language unworthy of a president-elect.  I am lending you my faith.  May your actions and words be worthy of it.  I pray for you and our country.  It is in America’s greatest interest that you succeed.  I pray for your success, as your success will be ours—if you indeed keep us ALL in your heart and mind, and at the forefront of the decisions you make on behalf of us, of OUR nation.  God be with you and our American family.

To my friends and family who wished to see our mighty country elect the first woman president: I have had to reach deeply inside myself and call upon the better angels of my nature in order to summon the grace to write this. For all the devastation I feel, I also join in history—with great empathy— my brothers and sisters of the Civil Rights and Womens’ Movements to keep hope for a better America alive within me. Those who suffered—and continue to do so—never stopped moving forward. Not in the face of naked, vicious racism and sexism. Not in times of grievous and lethal wrongs.  Not ever.  To all of you I say: We Shall Overcome.

So, I leave everyone with this:

I pledge allegiance to the flag

Of the UNITED States of America,

And to the republic for which it stands,

ONE nation, under God, INDIVISIBLE,

WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL.

And, to Abraham Lincoln:  I thank you for your grace and for inspiring the better angels of my nature.