I must be crazy and you crazier to touch on these subjects in today’s environment. In today’s environment, one must talk apps, talk data, talk of the town: anti-aging not anti-war, and anti-immigrant not anti-growth.
Charlie Wilson of GM once answered a congressional inquiry this way, ” what good for GM is good for the country”. In other words, we are inter-linked on a floating planet. In a blink of an eye, things that once were, could no longer be.
Post-war rebuilt was a result of paying forward: Japan and Europe are strong today thanks to US tax payers who chipped in. Selective memory aside, people back then acted out of conscience and compassion: conscience that took a stand, and compassion that lent a hand.
Fast forward to today’s digital environment, with surround sound and artificial intelligence, we forgot that once upon a time, in America, existed bootleggers, dirty cops and politicians, union bosses and mafia bosses.
America is a beauty parlor that bleaches people of colors who came in late. Instead of ICE, we should have ice-cream to greet kids who cross the borders. Send in the clown. Re-ignite that dormant conscience and deeply fatigued compassion. Make it once again, in America, the land that I love, where people would risk their lives and livelihood to come and build new ones.
I drove by Hope, Arkansas last week. A man used to live there, in a house facing the railroad tracks. Out of a seemingly hopeless town rose a leader of the free world.
If Bill of Hope can make it, so can you and I. So can those new immigrants and infants. Together we shall overcome, any adversity and any obstacle. Pain ain’t hurt. Separation does. If not for conscience or social contract, then have compassion. May His Mercy endure forever.
Thang Nguyen 555 