Learning from history 2

Those of us who lived through the 1960s and 70s remember the Nixon era, those who did not should read about it.

I lived in Frankfurt, Germany at the time, and experienced the sad situation of young American soldiers being sent to Germany and then deployed to Vietnam. Those who survived told us later about those who did not.

At the time I participated in demonstrations with American friends who spoke out about the political situation in their homeland. They called out “Nixon Murder” after President Nixon had sent troops to American towns trying to stop the demonstrations and killing young people in the process. Crosby Stills and Nash wrote the song “Four dead in Ohio” during this time.

Sound familiar?

How could American people forget? How can they stand by watching history repeating itself?

Our president has posed exactly the same threat to our democracy right now! He sent soldiers into our cities with the motto of “law and order” while he himself makes unconstitutional decisions.

As Americans did decades ago, we have to do the same now and hold our president accountable for his actions.

The U.S. was built as a democratic society, not as a dictatorship. If the slogan “Make America Great Again” means something, then it means to go back to equality and rights for everyone, back to a president who wants to do well for all people and not just for himself and a certain elite.

A couple of presidents come to mind who did this; they were President Carter and Obama. Let us learn from history!

In order to keep our democracy, we have to be aware how easy it could get lost and how difficult it may be to recover.

Rosi Jansen

La Conner