The New Jersey countryside is slipping by, not very attractive here, just outside New York City, just before Newark, a maze of train tracks and freeway overpasses, industrial complexes and abandoned buildings. This is the second of the four trains I will be taking today and tomorrow on my way to Minneapolis — actually St. Paul because that’s where the depot is.
Every year I go to Minneapolis to visit family and friends. And this year I thought taking the train would make it more of an adventure and I routed myself through DC so that I might take the Capitol Limited, the train from DC to Chicago, which I have never taken beyond Martinsburg, WV.
Trains as a way of travel are good to give me time to think. And I and we have much to think about. Yesterday’s New York Times Weekend Briefing had a link to an article advising us on how to cope with such a bad news week. One suggestion was to curb your exposure to news and to spend time with family and friends. “Listening is curative.”
And that was posted before I went to Church, where I lit candles for people and causes I care about and who need caring for and as I was lighting candles, one for peace, my pocket vibrated and I saw that three police men were dead in Baton Rouge, killed, we now know, by an ex-Marine who targeted them. In my pew, I lowered my face and felt defeated.
In all the talk we have had, pro and con about police killing people, and now people killing police, we have not taken the time to accept that violence happens with appalling frequency and we need to take responsibility for it, each and every one of us.
The US is not in the top ten most violent countries nor are we one of the ten most peaceful countries. Australia and Canada are in that category though. We feel about as safe walking around in our neighborhoods as an average European does. That’s good… However, CriminalJusticeDegreeHub.com says we are “in a pandemic of homicides,” as other kinds of crime seem to be “stifled.”
And what has gotten us all worked up is this pandemic of homicides, particularly ones that involve the police. For the most part, we seem to respect our police. But murder marches on.
And I want to do something about it. I want to do something more than light candles. And I don’t know what that is.
Many of us do feel anguish and impotence because we don’t know how to move our country into being a more peaceful place than it is. And that is what we want for our country, to be a more peaceful place. Governor Edwards of Louisiana said, “Emotions are raw. There’s a lot of hurting people.”
And there are. I am hurting and I am nowhere near Baton Rouge or Dallas though will not be far from Falcon Heights when I arrive in Minnesota. This last week of violence has hit me hard and has hit everyone I know in some hard way. My friends seem hurt and bewildered, not angry, confused not infuriated.
Mix all of this with the attempted coup in Turkey which failed and has resulted in a harsh crackdown by Erdogan on anyone he suspects, pour in the wounds from Nice, France, sprinkle with Brexit and add a dash of any personal suffering we are enduring, stir with the healthy mix of dismay we are having over our incredible political season and there is no wonder we are confused, bleak and anguished, feeling just a little more fragile than is our wont or want.
Perhaps there is some revelation that will come to me while I traverse half the country, back to Minnesota, where I was born.
Letter from the Vineyard 
Letter from Claverack 09 25 2016 A bit of a rant…
September 26, 2016In my last letter I wrote: Two of the most deeply disliked individuals in America are running for President. There is no joy in Mudville.
It was the only reference in my letter that I could find in re-reading it twice to Hillary Clinton.
Some of my readers took umbrage with me as they were disappointed in my characterization of Hillary Clinton. To say the least, I was surprised.
It seemed to me a factual statement, not a judgement. Tonight, at a party, I mentioned this to Tiffany Martin Hamilton, the first Democratic woman to be Mayor of Hudson. She too was surprised it would bring umbrage.
I am voting for Hillary Clinton for President. She is the most qualified person to be President. By the time this over, I will probably have given Hillary Clinton’s campaign more money than I have for any other candidate in my life because the idea of a Trump Presidency scares the hell out of me.
That does not change the fact that one of the challenges of this campaign is that a significant number of Americans dislike her; it is one of the challenges for those of us who support her to help her overcome.
One of my smartest friends, sighed one day to me: there is no situation the Clintons can’t make worse. [He was and is a Clinton supporter.] And it has been demonstrated time and again. I confess that the handling of her pneumonia drove me to distraction.
The reality is that those of us who support her must help address the concerns over her apparent lack of transparency and encourage her campaign to do better. It is infuriating to me because she is so qualified and has managed to garner a visceral dislike that is beyond reason.
One of my closest friends, a very liberal Democrat, will not vote for her. He lives in New York and, if he lived in a swing state, would vote for her. But because he lives in New York, a state he doesn’t consider a swing state, he will vote Libertarian because he has a visceral dislike of Hillary Clinton.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the problems we must honestly face to help Hillary Clinton become the next President.
This race should not even be close. But it is because for two decades the Republican Party has demonized both Bill and Hillary Clinton and have waged an effective campaign to discredit them. And they have not always helped themselves.
It is so frustrating to me.
At the Hudson Bed Races on Saturday [more about that in my next column], three acquaintances of mine are making active plans to leave the country if Trump wins.
These are people who are taking concrete steps to leave, putting together an action plan and putting in place the steps in that action plan to make it happen.
It makes me crazy that anyone would be thinking this way over a Presidential election but we are. It feels like we have reached a desperate moment in America’s history.
A few minutes ago I watched a video of college students being asked fundamental questions of American history which most of them couldn’t. They could answer all the questions about popular culture. It is a sad fact that has been realized in a number of different studies of college students and by my own experience in teaching.
This may be the closest to a rant I will do.
Please understand I am frustrated and I am frightened. A Trump Presidency will be a catastrophe for this country. The Republican Party I grew up with and respected is unrecognizable and has lost all the respect I had for it once it made Trump its candidate.
We are at once of the most critical moments in our Democracy and there are those who say the future of our Democracy may be decided by this election.
Tags:Claverack, Donald Trump, Hilary Clinton's pneumonia, Hillary Clinton, Hudson, Hudson Bed Races, Mat Tombers, Mathew Tombers, Republican Party, The Donald, Tiffany Martin Hamilton, Trump
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