WHO GAVE PERMISSION

Is Milwaukie, this time around, being attacked by justifiable anger?  Who will pay the price of giving permission to this anger allowing anarchy?  How proud are the community activists that feed their neighborhoods the putrid food of injustice and blame?

The local news cameras were more than happy to display a Milwaukie councilman explain why the mob activity was justifiable.  This councilman sincerely proclaimed this mob should be understood, why the police should be better, why the schools should be better and why society should be blamed.  There is no better example of implied permission than this type of rhetoric by someone who should be a positive role model, but is not.  How do you help solve a local, and what is now a national, problem by lauding the reasoning behind a mob movement?

My generation was so much more fortunate than those in the teen generation of today.  We had heroes with a definite distinction between good and bad, right and wrong.  That distinction has been highly muddled for the generation of my grandchildren, and I deplore their plight.  My concern is not for those fortunate enough to be born into families with sufficient means and who are already a couple of steps up on the ladder but rather for those who are striving to grip the first or second rung.  

Our society does not need reminding and our awareness does not need to be shaken for us to realize that there is a problem.  We see it, we know it exists, we know it requires a solution.  What I don’t understand is why some of the community and national leaders are focused on the awareness factor rather than what it will take to fix the problem.

I am often reminded of a Clint Eastwood movie, “High Plains Drifter”, in which an entire city was too afraid to face their real shortcomings.  That fear brought them under control of the one person they chose to save them.  That fear caused them to paint their entire town red.  I see that same fear painting many of our cities and towns that same color but with the blood of their children and the blood of those who would protect them.  

We have neighborhoods who expect someone else to save them, a segment of our population who places the blame for their plight and their blight on injustice.  The past offers no savior.

Be careful, anger leaves you open for manipulation and the end result is the color red, the color of the blood that flows within the bodies of every human on this planet.  Do not give the manipulators power over your communities.  Do not let them use your angers to create mobs that tear down your own communities. I plead with those who feel they are getting the short end of the stick please do not let those seeking their own form of power seduce you.  Mob rule and anarchy are no solution.  Burning your neighborhoods, attacking authority will not bring you fairness or favorable understanding.  Murdering your protectors will not bring peace and prosperity.  Following those who seek recognition and power through racism and divisiveness are absolute traitors to your needs.

 

Now is the most important time in your entire life.  Don’t squander it on the failures of the past or the injustices you have suffered through.  Make positive use of now to change the future using the past only to see how you have failed yourself.  Correct your own actions, that is your responsibility and it is within reach of your power.  I will never condone the past that has treated you with injustice nor do I think that past should give you the permission or motivation to ruin your today and lose your tomorrow.  Ask yourself the question, am I adding to the solution or am I accepting the result of anger and blame?

You do not have to accept the crime in your neighborhoods, poor educational systems, lack of representation but you are not going to get any better if you give passive permission to mob rule and anarchist who would decimate your communities.  Take back your lives. Easy for me to say and I realize that fact, I realize that I have been fortunate through birthright and skin color not to be plagued with the same angers of historical cause.  I realize all of that.  Those facts do not make me a racist.  Do not let that same history turn you into one.  

Our nation and our precepts will not survive as individual loose strands of the powerful entwined cable we could be.

God Bless our Country.  Love your neighbor and remember him in your prayers.