I always voted to add my voice, however small, to those caring to preserve the values of the country that saved my life even before I was born, as stated in the first sentence of my recently published memoir (The Speed of Dark ):
One of the most important and life-saving events of my existence occurred before I was born, when my parents and two-year-old sister, Jephta, boarded the Isle de France on September 1, 1939, in Le Havre, destined for America.
Two days later, France and England declared war on Nazi Germany. I’m writing this blog today, 79 years later, because our ship arrived safely in New York on September 9 and we were welcomed as immigrants. I was born February, 1940, in Elizabethtown, New York, as the first American citizen in my European family (French mother, Russian father). With marriages, births and advantages of a safe and prosperous country my family grew from 4 to 23. The first page of my memoir states:
Ironically, the forced immigration from war-torn Europe turned out to be an unintended gift that initiated my secure American future.
I was one (of many) lucky survivors who served my home country in my own way. One of those ways was voting.
There has never been a period throughout my life in the United States without obstacles and choices to be made by voters encapsulated in political discourse: pro-life or pro-choice, military engagement in foreign soil or tending our own garden, universal health care or private medical practices for profit, more social services or lower taxes, weighing the competing voices of labor and management, and the like. These issues are the fabric of a free country – compassion, values, responsibility. They are the substance of democracy: compromise, decided by the people with the understanding that what doesn’t work best will be revisited and modified in the near future. Common goals were targeted through different routes.
The pendulum swings, and so we vote. Thank goodness.
How can so many be taken hostage? Vote in November!
What happened? It seems that only about a third of eligible citizens vote. What about the other two-thirds? Too busy? Don’t care? Have given up on believing they have a voice or a say of any kind?
I’m not a politician. I have devoted my life to science, family and now writing. I’ve been protected by my country. I have had opinions on various political issues, of course, but I have not expressed them publicly or by attending rallies, even the major ones in the Vietnam era. I was in school studying or in the laboratory doing experiments. Shame on me.
But, now! Oh my god! It’s pointless for me to reiterate the creeping erosion of democracy and compassion and civil discussion that we are experiencing. We are sinking in quicksand of boorishness and falsehoods. An avalanche of editorials, newscasts, and social media posts broadcasts the tightening noose around our neck. It’s getting hard to breathe. Perhaps the praise by the extreme right for the present government policies and behavior is the most dangerous warning of all. How can so many be taken hostage? I have never witnessed such a situation or imagined it could happen here, the country of freedom, for I’m an American citizen, born and bred, who escaped it all by the insight and courage of my parents. It’s time to fight for what I believe, and to preserve my nation as it preserved me.
I have gone to four rallies in protest in Washington – the women’s march, the science march, the school shootings march inspired by the Parkland tragedy, and yesterday, the immigration march. At each rally I had the same reaction: pride and fury soaked in hidden tears of hope and despair.
Although a cliché, pictures may be worth 1000 words. We have become numb to words. What power does another insult add to a thousand insults, what new warning is made by another notch on a gun that killed? Whatever direction I turned my camera (okay, cell phone), I saw variations of the same discontent and anger. One of the most powerful for me was simply, “RESIST”. It felt personal. It was something that I could do.
Many signs said, “I CARE!”. Please, care too. Vote. Make the next elections a symphony, not a recital, a chorus, a voice that resonates with who we strove to be. It will be heard if it’s sung.
You have expressed so well the anxiety I have been feeling about the dangerous turn our country has taken. I fear for all of our freedom, compassion, empathy for those in need of help, such as our parents received when they arrived here. I cannot add anything to what you have so clearly and elegantly stated. VOTE if you love our country. Well said, Joram.