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![\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/fe-logo-13-feb-09-250-px1.jpg?resize=250%2C133&ssl=1\" "\\"Fe\\"")
<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\nWe like to imagine that we can be a progressive country. On the blue coasts, especially here in the San Francisco Bay area, our community is filled with opinion on what our country should be (progressive) versus what it is. These thoughts can also be dismissive of conservatives living other areas of the country, fiercely protective of their second amendment rights and their resentment of government interference. Their beliefs are as hard-wired into conservative consciousness as a woman’s ownership over her health decisions and equal rights for all is for me, a liberal San Francisco Democrat.<\/p>\n
Yet, we all live together under this great roof called the United States, and when we are on our best behavior, we agree to disagree. Even in its birthplace of ancient Greece, democracy was never a quiet affair. It’s a messy cantankerous thing. I do not carry a gun, but I will fight to protect the rights of those who do believe they need to have one, because even though I don’t always agree with everything in the Constitution, I still believe in what it still and must represent. I also believe that its a living document that can evolve with the people who use it to govern themselves.<\/p>\n
We live in a country where it can all turn on a dime. All it takes are words, spread like seeds on fertile ground. And for those of us on the ground, words are weapons as much as they are lights to guide us. Democracies, no matter how long they’ve been in existence, are as fragile and strong as the words we use to summon the people to action. How do we bridge the differences between us without the rhetoric that lays the groundwork for more attacks like what happened to Gabrielle Giffords? What can we say to counter the hatred and fear that stirs up emotions like rage and retribution against innocent people with whom we disagree? How can we do this and still protect for all our right to free speech, which is the baseline of our democracy?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I remember the English saying that they never required a Constitution. They had the Magna Carta and believed in civilization. We have a Constitution, and people in Congress who read it, or read it, maybe for the first time. But it remains the comprehension of it and its implementation by those who still believe we are a nation of laws, a culture and a civilization — that we need to insure. Given the interests that drive us to further isolate ourselves out of fear, there is much that we, with OUR words must fight against by teaching.<\/p>\n
The horror and numbing we feel because of the events of the last 24 hours makes me look forward to the day we can rise up against people who use cross hairs as political logos with more than just more rhetoric, righteousness and divisiveness of our own. There has to be a meeting place. We are not the Weimar Republic. We are not the former Soviet Union. We are something else — the United States. And as violent a history we’ve had, we can still overcome and move forward. We can define ourselves with this event as something better than we appear to be right now.<\/p>\n
This is a day for all of us to mourn the dead and pray for the survivors. It’s a time to hold together the delicate balancing act that is our society. If and when they try to pull this apart from within, to put firing range targets on people with whom they disagree to keep us apart, it is still up to all of us to keep this beautiful, complex and fragile thing, our democracy, together. Democracy is the body politic, and like our own individual bodies, mortal and tender and in need of constant diligence to insure it continues to thrive, healthy, alive, inquisitive, curious and courageous. That goes for being in the face of danger as well as in the fear of change.<\/p>\n
Yours and truly,<\/p>\n
Fe Bongolan
\nSan Francisco<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When I got the email Saturday afternoon from Judith Gayle about Gabrielle Giffords shooting in Arizona, the news struck me with that same familiar feeling I learned first in the early Sixties when Jack Kennedy was shot. Then Martin Luther King. Then Bobby Kennedy. It’s a body and mind shock, but yes, we kill our … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33022"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33022\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}