When I first heard the story of Trayvon Martin all I could think of was my own 17 year old grandson. How many of those trips to the store did he make? How many times did he dawdle on the way home while he text a friend or talked on the cell phone? In my minds eye I see him. I would stand at the window and watch as he walked the block and a half to the market for snacks and conversation, out of earshot of adults. When my kids were young I would watch from the window as they waited for the bus, as though my watching them kept them safe. But I know now that watching from the window can’t protect them. I lived at Lake Tahoe when Jaycee Lee Dugard was kidnapped. Her stepfather watched from the window as she was pulled into a car and driven away. It took 18 years for her to escape and find her way home again. Watching from the window is not good enough. It won’t stop our children from being dragged into a car and taken away. It won’t stop our children from being shot dead. It only makes us the witness.
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As I listen to the 911 calls, I hear Trayvon cry out for help. People afraid to leave their houses frantically call 911. One women tells her husband “Get down, they’ll see you!” Not one of them stepped out on the porch and said, "Hey there!" Nobody flickered the porch light, the universal signal for “Stop the mischief!” Nobody even wanted to be seen from the window. What the hell is wrong with us? I am so angry. I'm angry at the killer, I'm angry at the Sanford police, I'm angry at the State Attorney and I'm angry at Jeb Bush. After all, it was the mild mannered "smart Bush Brother" who pushed the damn "Stand Your Ground" law. Thanks to Jeb and others like him, none of us are safe from gun wielding crazies like the one who shot Gabby Giffords and the one who gunned down Trayvon Martin. But more than that, I am mad at all of us. We are all cowards who send our helpless children out into a world that we are afraid to face. I'm mad that we are too lazy and timid to fight the NRA and the Rush Limbaugh's and the Koch brothers and the Wall Street Bain Capital and instead we send out children out to be slaughtered and sold into slavery. When did we surrender our neighborhoods to gun toting crazies? When did we become so powerless that we will not defend our children? What the hell is wrong with us?
I've been writing about this since the summer of 1996,Clinton re-election campaign, and Hillary’s Global Village. Hillary is not the kind of person to hide behind the window and call 911. She’d be out on that porch in a heartbeat, hands on her hips saying, “Hey there! What’s going on here?” Actually, that is exactly what she’s doing. She’s out there building that Global Village. And here at home – we let children be chased down like dogs and shot in cold blood. We let known lunatics kill our babies. And we hide behind the curtains.
Read this one to see what I mean.
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