A very long time ago I was a student. I was one of those people who could never read enough, and my life was filled with books. I had an impatience to learn and devour what I could from the books that I held in my hands. I could never seem to get much out of the teacher analyzing something for us, I would be sitting there in class, listening but thinking about things well beyond the obvious meanings being touted.

Sometimes, when asked, I had an opinion. I listened to the "right" thinking analysis, and could wrap myself around what the teacher said was significant, but I never abandoned my own thoughts. I think we call this critical thinking today. People who read, and analyze and build ideas from their reading are not supposed to be unique or unusual. I thought they were supposed to be adults, learned, intelligent and balanced, by the discipline of their own critical thinking.

Back in that time, when I was young, I remember holding a book in my hands; it was Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt. Miss Hunt was a woman about my age now when she wrote this piece of historical fiction. It was based on her grandfather who had been a boy in the civil war. I was reading her book not long after it was written and it was in her home state of Illinois, not too far where she was herself a teacher. I will never know her as she died in 2001 at the age of 94, but I will remember some very distinct messages in that book, and what I thought of them at the time, and how they speak to me now, in these troubled times.

The main themes introduced in the book were the "Capriciousness of Public Opinion", "The Power of the Presidency", and the "Importance of Redemption and Forgiveness".  

The Capriciousness of Public Opinion

This book is a story which revolves around a young man, as he comes of age, perhaps too quickly, during the civil war. A war that is something so intimate that brothers fight on opposite sides, where neighbors rise up against neighbors and where your property becomes the battle field. It is a story where news is reported and it portrays the indecisiveness of the people as to who will ultimately prevail in victory, who is the better or incompetent general, it is directed as much by the motivations of whatever newspaper it is, as to the sensibilities of whomever is writing the piece. Demonizing and sanctifying the people involved in the conflict rotated with each printing of the press. That is probably historical fact. The indecisiveness of the times, the huge, personal fight it really was, the intimacy of the hatred, loyalty and betrayals that are all war, was keenly felt on our American soil and we lost more people in and as an immediate result of that war than any other since.

I sense that same kind of hatred, unresolved anger and moral righteousness in the very air now. I see the divisiveness of the news, the slant of the reporting, the propagandizing of the views. I feel the tennis match of anger, which runs from side to side with a baseball bat to smash its opposition. I also sense, as many did then, who is really right, who is most vested in the right and called to defend it. But, as I am human, I can give that same sense of "knowing" to some of those very people who may oppose me. It is not lost on me, the concept in Across Five Aprils, of brother against brother. There are those who believe as strongly and as firmly as I do in their ideas. I also know that they are manipulated, perhaps as I am too, by entities hidden or un hidden who will gain, from whatever comes in some way. These are the real enemy. 

The Power of the Presidency

The Power of the Presidency is a wonderful idea. As history has continually revealed, that power is limited by design. There is some opportunity for leadership and moral character must or should abound in the leader. We have seen even the Presidency besmirched in the past, the recent past. We have seen the influence and the cycle of influence grow and wane, grow and wane, exert its influence, and recoil at judicial and legal constraints. We have seen that overcome and again seen influence rise, like yeasted bread dough, waiting to be baked. The problem is, whom does the influence serve? It is them or us, or none, but another entity that is neither.  

There are those even now who would stir up the old hatreds that we worked so hard to over come post Civil War. After the initial end of the war and the death of Lincoln, things were stable for what seemed like minutes, then the reconstruction of the south heralded some very difficult and terrible times for the very people who had just won their freedom. In the end, we know how that rolled forward, segregation, and persecution in the south, the lynching and lawlessness, but still right prevailed. The civil rights movement, the ability to vote, that had been truncated after the rise of the south for blacks, was restored to its proper intention, to allow equal voting rights to all. On the very heels of that civil rights movement, many more rights for women and minorities were won. Yet some are still fighting the Civil War and as their rhetoric continues to heat up and challenge, we will surely be again brother against brother. How can it be any different? Who motivates this hatred, who gives it voice? Who works to now turn back the clock? How can we honor the KKK founder with a License Plate?

Redemption and Forgiveness

Redemption and Forgiveness are concepts not lost on me. I have been both redeemed and forgiven, and I have given forgiveness and redemption. It is in my nature to be empathetic and understanding and to seek balance, but not at the cost of what is morally wrong. I struggle with the people who meet redemption and forgiveness with hatred and bask in the sense of righteousness when all that is seemingly ‘righteous’ amongst them is wrong, but I have seen this change too. When calmness can prevail and wisdom can be heard, there is change. I have experienced many losses, yet I do not hold that up as my reason for hatred. I am not without great injustice being done to me, but in a way, those acts of hatred were built on a prerogative of power, that kind of power I do not want, or even want to assume I would ever have. The power to crush and punish is not what I want to see. Power to reason, to build, to bring forward ideas, to conceive a better nature for all, that is the kind of power I want. 

I do know that ultimately I would use my power, to fight hatred. I have done it before, and it has brought great calamity to me but I would do it again.  

I don't think there is room for mob mentality when deciding the fate of our nation, that being a decision which will come. If the mob participates, let it be as it has been in Wisconsin, a presence, a voice, but not an violent, destructive movement. Make no mistake I am on their side, 100%, but I know that if anything happens, it will become one of the tipping points in this nation, not because of violence or hatred, but because it cannot stand, what their governor proposes cannot stand as the solution to our economic problems. 

Our president wisely reminded his nation yesterday that these people are your neighbors. These are the very ones that are being demonized for being in unions. I respect him so much for reminding the nation of that. I also know that the Tea Party in the process of whipping these frenzies up has several kinds of supporters some who are maligned and angry beyond reason. I also know that in a back room somewhere, a foreign national perhaps, or several of our own, watches this and plans more disruption because in the end it benefits not that maligned, angry person beyond reason, but them.

I am prepared to stand by my beliefs, I am prepared to acknowledge the leadership of the President, and I am prepared to forgive. Must I, and you go Across Five Aprils to reach an end to this? Will there be a nation, we can heal? These are the questions no one is asking now; they are too busy getting into the fight. In the beginning of Miss Hunt’s book, the main protagonist is a young boy, modeled after her young and idealistic grandfather, called Jethro Creighton. He, like so many others of his time, do not see the bloodshed and sorrow coming, they are still listening to the brass band and watching the waving flags. The very personal nature of our differences, the loss of life of those we love, has not happened in this Tea Party movement, but I guarantee it will be coming. You cannot turn back the clock on human rights in this country, you cannot deprive a nation of its livelihood, and you cannot create chaos when greed becomes the standard and not honesty in business and government.

There will be blood, and we will be asked to fight our brothers, our neighbors and then we will look back and say, why did we listen to all that propaganda? Who did gain? None of us, the people, frustrated and angry on either side will have not have won anything, only the people who orchestrated the hatred. We must challenge the influences, it is our only hope. Reverse the recent Supreme Court decision on political contributions by corporations. Restrict campaign spending and eliminate foreign contributions, restructure the lobby system, restricting influence and monetary contribution and corporate interests. Everywhere where corporate influence overrides the citizens rights, benefits and prosperity, limit them.

The ultimate request would be to cut all benefits for those who serve in government everywhere, restrict salary and then, only then let them consider restructuring anyone else's benefits and salaries, such as our teachers.

This country functions best with a middle class. It is not in anyone's interest to eliminate it, except a very few, and unfortunately they are the same few who are at the head of this current crisis, plotting and scamming this nation's demise.  The incompetence created by deregulation has made us, the citizens, the buffoons. We keep thinking the systems work and yet we are continually being made the victims, the corporate walls grow higher and our abuse by those within those walls grows daily, with terrible consequences. That is the enemy, not each other.

I am certain that if Irene Hunt were alive today, and we could sit together and talk, she would see the same parallels I am seeing. She would relate to me what her grandfather said to her and how everything changed and how everyone suffered and how the healing, well, the healing did not quite take. She would say, he would say, it was a process, a nurtured process, one that when weak, could not withstand the hateful stirrings of those few who would benefit from chaos.

Copyright 2011 by SheilaTGTG55