Dems, we should accept #TrumpRule with Resolve, not Resignation

There is a lot of talk on Facebook on acceptance and reconciliation, after Trump’s victory, after Hillary’s gracious speech imploring people to give him a chance and after Trump and Obama’s nice photo op. On the other hand, there are protesters refusing to accept and are marching on the streets of most major cities for days. Hence I decided to share my thoughts.

Reconciliation with Trumpers, yes sure – we need to heal and come together, in time.  But no, do not speak to me of reconciliation and giving this man a chance. Let us not forget that people gave him chance after chance after chance and he kept lowering the bar and that is how he got to the world’s top bully spot. No, I am also not speaking of not accepting #TrumpRule. But it is ok to peacefully protest; to protest against his crass and crude racist and sexist remarks about almost every group of Americans. I am sure African Americans and Latinos and Muslims etc. feel the same way about remarks against the groups they belong to as I feel about his name calling, fat shaming, and sexabusing of women.

The crass and crude talk by Trump has been beyond all reasonableness. If he is a role model then what does he inspire? I am not willing to keep lowering the bar in order to accommodate the crudeness demonstrated by Trump towards 50%+ of population, women — and I hope other members of other groups speak up in their own way at their own appropriate time, as they have been. I feel that I must stand up for women and not allow such crude man who has talked of women in such crude terms to earn my respect. I can’t understand how any woman can. And I can’t understand how any man who respects his women, can.

Trump’s basket of deplorable behaviors is now our baggage for next several years.  If past is any prelude to what may come, belief and trust in him will only lower the bar further, now for the office of the Presidency.  While we endure #TrumpRule, we must never forget his deplorable words and behaviors that brought the country to its present stage. While we endure #TrumpRule, he must never get our respect. I am not wishing him to fail or our country to fail. But remember, a President never governs by himself.  Let us hope reasonable “ELECTED” Republicans will play a role and will show wisdom and enable the country to move ahead, in these difficult times. But meanwhile, do not speak to me of reconciliation with Trump or his coterie of gutless men (who are not elected officials) with idiotic chants of locking up political opponents.

So yes, we accept #TrumpRule. But we do not accept it with any kind of belief that this man will be different and be worthy of earning our respect, in the office of Presidency. We also do not accept it with resignation that now he won so we just accept and give up striving to be better. We accept #TrumpRule as a fact of life for the next several years. We accept it with clarity that during this time we need to watch each other’s backs, to look out for safety of those among us who may be more vulnerable, because the groups they belong to were directly threatened by him. We accept him while keeping a spotlight on who he is and what he represents and what stage he brought the country to, so we don’t allow him or anyone like him to repeat history.  We accept with the knowledge that if we rise up to it, if we volunteer, be there for each other, stand #StrongerTogether than we will emerge better and more worthy of our next leader.  

We accept #TrumpRule my friends, with resolve, not resignation; and certainly not gullibility that brought us here today…..

PS: Good discussion on @maddow @MSNBC – her guest shares we have a tendency to think we’d be ok even though everything that’s preceded indicates that it’s not so even though he has already started flaunting traditions – http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show
Russia applauded & congratulated Trump & has come out and confirmed that Russia was in contact w. Trump campaign throughout the entire campaign. Now he is getting intelligence briefings, including intelligence on any American spies in Russia. Whole intelligence operations in all countries center around stealing information.  I pray our spies remain safe. http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show
And a day earlier, Elizabeth Warren @Warrenolizer on Maddow said we will need to stay connected so that we’re ready to mobilize should a time come.

 

Kultar’s Mime – Play Review

“Is there a price for their deaths?  How shall the price be paid?

Sarbpreet Singh’s poem “Kultar’s Mime”, inspired from Haim Bialik’s poem, “In the City of Slaughter”, forms the basis of the play, by the same name, and thus two cultures miles apart, get bound by unforgettable ties, carved in blood.

     http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/51625844

“In the City of Horrors” recounts the horrific pogrom that was organized, targeting the Jewish population of Kishinev, Russia, in 1903.  Eighty one years later, Delhi, capital of India erupted in violence, after the assassination of Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, by her Sikh bodyguards.  In an organized orgy of murder, rape, and arson, more than 3000 Sikh residents in and around Delhi, lost their lives, others lost their homes and their livelihoods, their parents and their siblings, their limbs, their eyes, and their sanity.  “Kultar’s Mime” makes a valiant effort to capture the horrific suffering unleashed upon a community, and succeeds in forming ties across cultures and communities that have endured such pogroms, in history.

If you ever incredulously wonder, “Did it happen?  Did men become such cruel beasts?” and then wonder how can keepers of the law, allow, sanction, and protect organized thugs to run amuck and unleash such pain, then you will find in history, it has happened and happened, time and again.  With evocative lyrics, the play captures it all – “when I walk the streets of Delhi today, I shall see blood mixed with dirt”; “are you so blind, you can’t see”.  Each child, in the town of Tilakvihar, “has a tale to tell, each of these children is a living shell”.

Drawing on the raw imagery of both poems, “Kultar’s Mime” not only tells a powerful story of human suffering and courage, but the incredible cast (Addison Williams, Allison Matteodo, Cathryn Roberts, Christine Scherer, Michelle Finston) of “outsiders” to the community, bring it to life, against a backdrop of striking paintings by Evanleigh Davis.  Each actor tells the story of a child, in addition to playing multiple other roles.  The actors own their characters, and deliver such a moving performance that the play bridges all distance of language, culture, or community.  This is a story of human cruelty, of human suffering, of history that we must remember and learn from; never to repeat it.

Truce: A Christmas Wish from the Great War – Play Review

In World Premiere of “Truce: A Christmas Wish from the Great War“, at CityLights Theater in San Jose, through telling of the story of the historic event that occurred in December 1914, both the mindlessness of war and the mindfulness of peace, become abundantly evident.   Playwrights Jeffrey Bracco and Kit Wilder have made this historic story personal, by telling it through four main characters, George Krieger (Max Tachis), the German patriotic soldier, fighting for honor, glory, and fatherland; Anna Friedmann (Cailin Papp), the German nurse who questions the wisdom of war; Tommy Williams (Drew Benjamin) English poet who is compelled to go to war by parental pressure and also pulled to write and pulled by his love for his young wife and by his friendship with Krieger; and Maggie Williams (Allison Meneley), young wife of Tommy who encourages him to write and waits for his return from war.

A little piece of history along with the events in the play

For most of World War I Allied Forces, predominantly those of France and the British Empire, were stalled at trenches on the Western Front. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This history was also expertly and succinctly narrated at the  beginning of the play.  The world was polarized and battle lines were drawn, long before the actual event that ignited the region, the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand, in Sarajevo in June, 1014.   As Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Russia (Serbian ally) mobilized its military.  Like a game of dominoes, one by one the countries were pressured or pulled into the war, as Germany declared war on Russia, France, and Belgium; Britain declared war on Germany; soon thereafter, Japan, Turkey, and the Ottoman Empire entered the fight; and ultimately US entered the war in 1917.  Ultimately, 70 million military personnel were mobilized.

While the obsession of the generals is with moving the pushpins on a map, war has an entirely different impact on the soldiers, in the trenches.  As the characters recount, it was widely believed by common people that the “Great War” would be over within a period of months, if not sooner.  Everyone expected their loved ones to be home  by Christmas.  Then Pope Benedict XV suggested a temporary halt in fighting for the celebration of Christmas, in December 1914, but the warring countries refused to create any official cease-fire.  In fact, the generals declared penalties for what they considered amounted to fraternizing with the enemies.

A cross, left near Ieper in Belgium in 1999, to celebrate the site of the Christmas Truce during the First World War in 1914. The text reads: 1914 – The Khaki Chum’s Christmas Truce – 1999 – 85 Years – Lest We Forget. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

During the four years that the world was at war, several deadly battles were fought.  Nearly 27,000 French troops were killed in a single day, in the Battle of the Frontiers, in August, 1914.  In the battle of Verdun in 1916, over one million soldiers were wounded or killed.  In the end, more than 9 million soldiers and over 7 million civilians died, as a result of this “Great War”, making it one of the deadliest conflicts in history.  It is then all the more remarkable that in the midst of the most deadly period of fighting, there was a brief period of calm, friendship, and camaraderie, moments of hope, reflection, and humanity.

This was a one time event. All future attempts to halt the fighting were squashed by generals’ threats of disciplinary action.  It is even more astonishing that this period of calm emerged spontaneously, in the trenches.  Those who were there, not to reason why, but to do and die, disobeyed orders, and for a brief shining period in history, humanity prevailed.   The soldiers declared their own truce; they began singing Christmas carols to each other across the enemy lines.  Entirely a different domino effect was observed, as soldiers in various places, crossed the no man’s land, and shook hands with the enemy soldiers and exchanged presents of cigarettes, plum puddings and beef jerkey and sang carols.  Some soldiers even used this short period of “truce” to retrieve bodies of their comrades, from the no man’s land, between the enemy battle lines.

It is the brilliance of Jeffrey Bracco and Kit Wilder, in how this remarkable historical event is captured and reproduced on stage, in “Truce: A Christmas Wish from the Great War”.  After deep research and from various documents and anecdotes, Bracco and Wilder put together the script.  Ron Gasparinetti created the scenic design to conjure up images of the long ago war, Jane Lambert provided the costume design and Nick Kumamoto provided lighting and video projection to keep the time and place real.  George Psarras composed music from popular WWI songs.  (One popular song “pack up your troubles in your old kit bag” was one of the biggest hits of the Great War time).

This is truly a must-watch play of this theater season, and it beautifully captures the spirit of the holiday season.   Truce will be running at CityLights Theater in San Jose, through December 21, 2014.  For tickets, go to www.cltc.org .

In the aftermath of the #FergusonDecision, this respite is exactly what we need.  Let us call “truce” and renew commitment to create conditions of