Injustice
I’ve been asked to be a guest on a political podcast program. In preparation for the preparatory phone call (yes, I did mean that alliteration) the host’s questionnaire asked what my area of focus is and I had a hard time declaring that. I had never thought of self-defining in that way. Still, it was a worthy question, so I’ve been thinking about it.
Regular readers will have realized long ago that I wade in on many different political and social topics, like Republicans trying to destroy our democracy (they are) and ordinary citizens voting against their own interests (they aren’t – at least not consciously). Looking for a theme among so much variety has been a bit daunting, but I’ve had a breakthrough. It came via a recent Twitter post – more on that in a minute.
What I realized is that most of the posts that I offer, much of the passion and sometimes outrage in my gut, is in reaction to injustice – cruelty to people who deserve none of that,
like the War on Drugs, which was and is actually a war on poor Black men;
like the kaleidoscope of voting rights destruction laws and the perps who crush others’ rights;
like unjust, stupid and illegal wars, like Dubya’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which accomplished little more than getting a lot of people killed, displacing millions and causing yet greater chaos and cruelty.
That last was the trigger to my clarity, because I read Daniel Ellsberg’s Twitter letter last weekend and the dots started looking like a picture. Here’s why.
l graduated from college In 1968 and instantly lost my 2-S deferment, setting me up for a letter from Lyndon Johnson instructing me to show up for a pre-induction physical. Through a slightly engineered quirk, I became a 1-Y, which was likely life saving, as LBJ had ramped up our presence in Vietnam to 549,500 men. A total of 2,594,000 men were destined to become canon fodder in that hopeless war. I could have been one of them, pointlessly slogging through rice paddies with a bulls eye on my back.
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In 1971 Daniel Ellsberg copied the Pentagon Papers and they were published first in The New York Times, then in The Washington Post and other newspapers. They revealed the ongoing years of lies that kept the Vietnam death parade going.
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I don’t know if it’s measurable, but my notion is that his actions helped to end that war sooner. Perhaps some men slightly younger than me were never called to their pre-induction physicals because of Ellsberg’s courage.
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He’s now nearly 92 and has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Here’s a link to his Twitter letter about it all, including the Pentagon Papers, his lifelong crusade to prevent nuclear war, his cancer and more. In the process of reading his letter, especially his comments about the Pentagon Papers, I came to realize that he was fighting against cruel injustice back then and, really, has been ever since.
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That’s when those aforementioned dots crystalized into a vivid picture. It’s the injustice and the lies of the powerful that trigger me. That’s what I’ll tell that podcast host is my focus.
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I’m no Daniel Ellsberg. I don’t know that I would have had his courage to stand up to the liars in and around government in that critical moment. The connection is simply about the clarity that came to me thanks to Ellsberg’s words and actions.
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I urge you to click through and read Ellsberg’s letter. It’s about a life well lived in service to others. Those others include all the boys who didn’t have to go to Vietnam to die for the injustice of cruel and lethal lies.
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Late Addition: Walgreen’s Update
From STAT:
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state would no longer do business with Walgreens in response to the pharmacy chain’s plans to stop dispensing abortion pills in 20 states. Walgreens now appears to have backtracked, saying in a recent statement it “plans to dispense Mifepristone in any jurisdiction where it is legally permissible to do so.”
That’s a turnaround, as Walgreen’s previously appeared to have caved in to threats from 20 Republican state attorneys general to sue the company for doing something legal.
Today is a good day to be the light.
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- Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
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JA
Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
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