Humanity And Compassion

Sad 44th Anniversary Of The Passing Of Hubert Humphrey, My Original Political Hero!

Ronald 2 Comments

On this day, January 13, 1978, 44 years ago, my original political hero, Senator, Vice President, and Presidential nominee Hubert H. Humphrey passed away from cancer at the young age of 66.

When I was young, Humphrey became my political hero, with his strong liberal championship of views on civil rights, and introducing many ideas that became part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society in the mid 1960s.

Not well utliized by Johnson, Humphrey became the nominee of the Democratic Party for the Presidency in 1968, a divided party that had elements rallying around Senator Robert F. Kennedy before his tragic assassination, and also those who backed fellow Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy.

In a three way Presidential race, Humphrey would fall short, losing to Richard Nixon, and with George Wallace being a strong third party candidate.

Humphrey, who had been Mayor of Minneapolis, and then a US Senator from 1949-1965, returned to the Senate in 1971, replacing the retiring Senator McCarthy, and competed unsuccessfully for the Presidential nomination in 1972, and remained a major figure until his untimely death in 1978.

This author and blogger literally wept when Humphrey died, as I was drawn to his humanity, empathy, decency, and compassion.

And once he passed away, I looked around the US Senate for a successor leader I could believe in, and found the young Delaware Senator Joe Biden, still in his first term at age 35.

I feel fortunate that although there were many barriers to Joe Biden’s advancement to the Presidency, that after serving in the Senate for 36 years, and as Vice President under Barack Obama for eight years, that four years later, on his third try for the Oval Office, Biden finally won, and saved the nation from the menace of Donald Trump.

Neither Humphrey nor Biden were or are perfect, no such situation exists, but the two men shared characteristics that caused me to fall in love with them as political leaders.

I am sure that Humphrey would be very proud of Joe Biden, and the two men stand out as uncommonly models of leadership!

Trump Policy Of Separating Children From Parents At Border A Massive Violation Of Basic Human Rights That Must Stop

Ronald 2 Comments

It is shocking news that Donald Trump’s government has made it a policy of separating young immigrant children, many of them babies and toddlers, from their parents at the border, when these people escaping gang violence, drug cartels, and bloodshed in Central America arrive at the checkpoints, and apply for safe haven status.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency have become the center of mistreatment and lack of basic humanity and compassion toward these immigrants, while Donald Trump talks as if these mostly mothers and young children are terrorists, drug dealers, and rapists, as he has been doing since he announced his Presidential campaign three years ago.

The shock is even greater that it is now documented that at least 1,500 children, many of them infants, have been handed over to foster care at a crucial age, and the government has lost contact as to where these children are.

That means many may never be reunited with their mothers or fathers or both, and in many cases, are too young to even remember who their parents are.

The emotional trauma that these children are being put through, including those old enough to remember their family members, is incalculable, and is a crime against humanity.

It seems that many of these children may have been handed over by miscalculation, lack of concern, and corruption to criminal elements, human traffickers, who will sell these children on the international market, leading to potential sexual abuse and mistreatment, and in many cases, making them slaves to those who are illegally “adopting” them.

With all of the outrages Donald Trump and his administration have been engaged in, this action and the blunders and lack of concern coming out of it, in many ways is the most egregious legal violation and crime of all.

And this from a President who claims to be “Pro Life”, and is backed by extremist right wing Evangelical Christians who have no concern about the lives of immigrants, but only about abortions being prevented, and who has a wretched Attorney General in Jeff Sessions, is enough to infuriate one beyond belief.

Every day, Donald Trump becomes more Fascist oriented, and the urgency of removing him and his ilk from office sooner rather than later, is urgent!