Father's Day?

Father's Day.

Really? Usually a day of looking forward to calls from Daughters One and also Two, Mary suggesting a nice dinner, sitting reading and writing and scratching the dogs. In short, usually a really nice, relaxing day.
But not this year.
This is the year I can't avoid the admission that I am complicit in the incarceration of innocent children (innocent by any reasonable measure and yes, children!) in what amounts to gaily painted concentration camps.

We have become the people to whom we have always held ourselves to be morally superior. We have become the monster in the closet, the foul breath in the room, the scratching at the window. We have become every child's dread fear - separation from Mom and Dad, lack of the comfort of the familial cocoon, confirmation that never again - even if and when returned to their parents - can they feel truly safe and watched after.

One of the fundamental tenets of my belief system is that ANY child should be able to rely on ANY adult for protection and succor. Anywhere. Any time. Under any conditions.
I have failed to meet that measure. We all have.

History will record our failure. This will become part of our 'permanent record,' along with Nagasaki, Manzanar, the Trail of Tears and Bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

But today is not about future history. It can't be. Today is today and what we see is what we must deal with.

Yesterday a candidate walked up our driveway on his canvassing rounds to make his pitch for local election. I scanned his brochure and noted no mention of party affiliation, so I asked. He visibly breathed in before answering, "Republican." I told him as politely as I could that I was a former life-long Republican who would not vote for any member of that party at any level for the foreseeable future. I shared that he could thank Trump, Ryan and McConnell and their minions for my defection. He tried to rally, saying this was a local election and didn't I care about car tab taxes? When I said yes, but I care far more about my country putting children in camps, he got it and instantly turned on his heels.

They say all politics are local and to some extent that's true.
It's no longer enough to plan to sweep them nationally in the mid-terms or to vote Trump into the dustbin at next opportunity. We must do those things but also we must be vocal at the local level so that every time they get together in any numbers as a party, they hear the stories of how this national horror is coming back on them. Politicians care about the next election.

As long as children are held in cages - even cages of drywall with gay murals - I am complicit in child abuse.
And so are we all.

Father's Day, indeed!