Letter: Condemn Trump/Bannon
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To the Editor:
My statement to the North Adams City Council: Nov. 22, 2016
I stood before this City Council in 2003 to ask the council to stand with other communities, to pass a resolution requesting the federal government to revise the hastily written and adopted so-called Patriot Act, an act that eroded many of our civil liberties and paved the way for further erosion of them. The good members of that council sat by and did nothing.
I stood before this City Council in 2006 to ask the council to impeach Bush and Cheney for acts of treason; for purposefully and willfully lying to the American people to take us into an illegal and ongoing failed war of aggression. A war that continues to kill untold thousands, foment terrorism and is bankrupting our country. The good members of that council sat by and did nothing.
Our country has elected a dangerously incompetent demagogue as our as next president.
I stand before you today as an American and I salute you: Seig Heil!
And, I ask you how did that make you feel? That is the hateful salute of a growing Neo-Nazi movement within our country as unleashed by Trump.
If that salute offended you, then you, as a council must condemn the appointment of Steven Bannon, an avowed white supremacist neo-Nazi, as trump's chief strategic adviser. There is no place for neo-Nazis in our government, period.
This condemnation must happen at every level of government, in every house of worship and in every community. Failure to condemn this appointment, normalizes it and allows the evil reach of the Neo-nazis to expand.
As civic leaders you act as a moral compass for our community and our children. If we tacitly accept racism, bigotry, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and Islamaphobia in the White House, we are teaching them to our children.
To say that it is not within your purview as city councilors to condemn a presidential appointment is cowardly. It is every citizen's responsibility to condemn racism, bigotry and hate. It has been said: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." (Edmund Burke)
Today, on the 53rd anniversary of the assassination of President John F Kennedy I quote: "My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." As in no other time in my lifetime, has our country needed us more.
Peter May
North Adams, Mass.
