WHO SAYS WE’RE TOO OLD?

by Eleanor Jaffe

Where political action is concerned, I’d say we are not too old.  I’d say we have strong ethics and opinions that are well informed by our personal lives and professional experiences,  and we have potentially strong voices.  BUT – we must use them!

We watch our beloved country overrun by scoundrels, those with no moral compass or sense of history.  Those who cannot (or will not) defend the rights of children separated from their parents at our borders.  Under this administration, we see  families that have trekked many hundreds of miles from their homes where they lived in danger from gangs and governments unable to protect them  to our borders seeking asylum.  (They are highly motivated;  wouldn’t they make ideal citizens?  Highly motivated, strong, ambitious people, sacrificing and striving for democracy and safety for themselves and their children.)  And we watch, dumbstruck by cruelties performed in our names by our government’s benighted policies:  these official asylum seekers, whose entry is not illegal,  are being separated from their traumatized children.

Thousands of children have been separated from their parents and are being “warehoused” in large detention centers, suffering the cruelties of fear and separation  that will shape their lives forever.  And our own government is the perpetrator of this policy!  And our tax dollars are supporting these arbitrary cruelties!

No matter what you think of our immigration policies…do you think they are inconsistent, have loopholes, need attention and correction?  Do you really believe this is the way to implement our current practices?  

Who says we are too old to do something about this heinous, cruel “immigration policy?”

Many of  us already make our voices heard by writing letters and making phone calls to our elected officials.   Others financially support organizations like the ACLU, the League of Women Voters, or other worthy organizations.  I hope that all of us might raise our  voices, write those postcards, support voter registration and candidates whose policies we admire so that our government represents the policies and programs that are synchronous with who we are as  moral persons   Ask yourself, does your government now reflect your ideals, experiences, and hopes?  If it does not, get active!  We are not too old!

One way to “get active” is to attend the meetings of our newly formed Make A Difference special interest group at BOLLI to see what we are doing.  We will be meeting on June 12 at 1 pm.  We will also meet once a month in July and August.  We will then set a regular meeting time come September.  You and your righteous anger and determination to “Make a Difference” will be heard.  We are not too old!

After serving as a delegate to Chicago’s 1968 Democratic Convention, Eleanor’s activism took a back seat to her other pursuits.  But today, she says, fear and loathing of the Trump administration has propelled her from “arm chair activism” (talking back to TV anchors) to small acts of resistance.  In the 2017 fall semester, she was sufficiently motivated to create a BOLLI course, “Resistance and Resilience in Politics and in Life.”  Now, she and Elaine Dohan are leading, “Make a Difference,” a new special interest group devoted to doing just that–through phoning, writing, and other acts of protest.  She invites others to join.