{"id":1359,"date":"2019-09-22T19:53:12","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T00:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/staging\/1734\/?p=1359"},"modified":"2019-09-22T19:53:12","modified_gmt":"2019-09-23T00:53:12","slug":"if-you-see-something-say-something","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/if-you-see-something-say-something\/","title":{"rendered":"If You See Something, Say Something"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
National Park Service photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We have become so accustomed to a certain Homeland Security\nphrase since the events of September 11, 2001, that we have never seriously\ncontemplated its larger meaning. \u201cIf you see something,\nsay something<\/a>,\u201d for most people simply means that, if you notice something\nstrange, someone leaving a package on a train platform and walking away, for\ninstance, you need to call 911 or point it out to a nearby security official.\nHaving done our civic duty, we can go on about our lives and hope for the best.\nWe may save someone\u2019s life, or we may simply be exercising caution. Check it\nout. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But suppose we interpreted that phrase in the context of our\nduties as citizens of an endangered, or even potentially endangered, democracy.\nSuppose the threat were to our democratic institutions and not just to the\nlives of those in a single public place. Suppose the threat involved policies\nthat affected thousands of people threatened by racism, ignorance, or hatred?\nOught we not to speak up? How different would the history of the world have\nbeen if millions of Germans had spoken up about what they saw even in 1933? How\nmany Russians in the past two decades have risked their lives and their careers\nto speak up about the threats they see to a democracy being strangled in its\ncradle? In the past year, the people of Sudan have arisen against a brutal\nmilitary dictatorship and forced remarkable changes. Are we Americans somehow\nso special as to be free from such obligations? Do we not eventually lose our\nmoral authority to speak for democracy in the world if we fail to speak for it\nat home?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you see something, say something. <\/em>Let me tell you\nwhat I see:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see children\nhoused in filthy cages at the southern border<\/a> by the U.S. government, separated\nfrom their parents, their eyes full of fear and bewilderment, when their only\nalleged crime was to be brought here by parents from Central America who sought\nto remove them from gang warfare, violence, crime, and corruption in\ndesperately poor countries. I see a U.S. President, as a form of retribution, cutting\naid to those countries<\/a> that was meant to promote reform and economic\nopportunity to reduce people\u2019s need to flee such chaos in the first place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see Temporary Protective Status (TPS) denied to survivors\nof Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas, a neighboring country with deep ties to the\nU.S., even as that nation struggles to rescue and house its own people in the face\nof mind-numbing devastation. The rationale from the President was that \u201cvery\nbad people<\/a>\u201d would harm our country if this were allowed, although TPS has\nbeen standard practice in the past in the very same circumstances. It is\nunclear, other than being people of color, what makes the Bahamians especially\ndangerous in his eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and Ku Klux Klan\nmembers marching and chanting \u201cJews will not replace us\u201d through the campus of\nthe University of Virginia and the streets\nof Charlottesville<\/a>, defended ardently by a President who sees \u201cvery fine\npeople\u201d on both sides while an innocent young woman is run over and killed by a\nyoung Nazi sympathizer with his car. I see this rhetoric emboldening an ever-widening\ncircle of mass shooters who sow terror in American cities with unlimited access\nto weapons of war, but I also see a widening\ncircle of brave citizens rising to demand effective action<\/a> against such\nterror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see America losing the moral courage of the Emma Lazarus\npoem<\/a> at the Statue of Liberty<\/a>,\npleading for the world to \u201cgive me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses\nyearning to breathe free,\u201d and nearly mocking Lady Liberty as she seeks to lift\nher lamp beside the golden door. The Golden Door is becoming instead the Great Border\nWall built with money never legitimately appropriated by Congress, and members\nof the President\u2019s own party unable and unwilling to stop him or even raise the\nweakest of objections lest they be expelled from the halls of power\u2014or are they\nbecoming halls of obeisance, like the Roman Senate in Nero\u2019s time?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am telling you what I see because I understand the moral\nand civic obligation to say something. We must all be whistleblowers for the\nfuture of democracy. What do you see? Are you prepared to say something as well?\nAnd what shall we do once we have spoken?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jim Schwab<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have become so accustomed to a certain Homeland Security phrase since the events of September 11, 2001, that we have never seriously contemplated its larger meaning. \u201cIf you see something, say something,\u201d for most people simply means that, if you notice something strange, someone leaving a package on a train platform and walking away, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[76,243,504,138,604,563,358,120,226,1327,1205],"tags":[1384,1391,1388,1386,438,1379,40,1381,1383,1394,1387,1390,1392,888,786,1018,340,1393,1380,1382,1389,1385,192,345,338,623],"class_list":["post-1359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-civil-rights","category-crime","category-immigration","category-national-security","category-politics","category-public-policy","category-public-safety","category-racism","category-terrorism","category-volunteerism","tag-bahamas","tag-border-wall","tag-cages","tag-central-america","tag-children","tag-civic-obligation","tag-democracy","tag-dictatorship","tag-dorian","tag-emma-lazarus","tag-gang-warfare","tag-golden-door","tag-gun-policy","tag-immigration","tag-ku-klux-klan","tag-nazis","tag-racism","tag-roman-senate","tag-see-something","tag-southern-border","tag-statue-of-liberty","tag-temporary-protected-status","tag-terrorism","tag-trump","tag-violence","tag-white-supremacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1359"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1361,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1359\/revisions\/1361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jimschwab.com\/Hablarbooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}