Today is the anniversary of my Mom's birthday.
And why do I mention that to you, here?
I mention it because it's also the anniversary of the bombing the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Builing in Oklahoma City, all those years ago, in 1995 that killed 168 people and injured 500, all by one Timothy McVeigh.
Ever since this event, I resented Mssr. McVeigh's incident in my own small way, for having his action be associated with her day.
Silly, sure, I know, when put next to all these people's losses but I felt it was something that was very fair, too. My biggest sense of outrage from his actions were for the people lost and hurt that day but this was one more important way, for me, to mark the day and event.
It wasn't fair what he did and I thought then and still do now, that we each need to keep these things in our memories, just like the Holocaust, so we see they're not repeated.
My bigger point today is that Timothy McVeigh's (I don't want to refer to him as "Mr. McVeigh", so I show him no respect) actions that day were an important lesson in why we should not and can not let hate and ignorance and fear of one another rule our lives and overtake our actions.
It is precisely right-wing hate that overtook Timothy McVeigh and this was the result.
So now, here we are with an African-American President for the first time in the history of our country and what's happening? People are purchasing large amounts of both weapons and ammunition, "to prepare", they say.
And there's such racism, hate, intolerance and ugliness in emails and on the internet since last November. Some of the emails, though blatantly racist, were created and sent with the thought that they were funny and/or cute and so, entertaining.
Pitiful.
President Obama has done quite a few good things for our country already, though that's debated, of course. But his theme is absolutely, undeniably correct and on target--and that is, we have to talk to one another and we have to work together for the benefit of each other and the country.
Unfortunately, for a lot of people, they want to either ignore or deny that message.
I see in the paper yesterday where hate groups--neo-nazis, actually--are back to recruiting heavily in Idaho again and it's troubling, at least.
We need to keep repeating: we need to refer to all of ourselves as Americans, first and last and we need to work together to help one another and to solve our problems, no matter our place, physically, in the country, no matter our socio-economic class, no matter our color, no matter what.
"A nation divided against itself cannot stand."
Remember that?
Link to front page of The New York Times cover story that day:
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0419.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/aryan_nations
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