Volume 2, Issue No. 15
OPINION/COMMENTARY
/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /
. . . . . A community service of The Filipino Web Channel (TheFilipinoWebChannel@gmail. com) and the Philippine Village Voice (PhilVoiceNews@gmail.com) for the information and understanding of Filipinos and the diverse communities in North America . . .
Our latest as of Tuesday, September 8, 2020
~ The way President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden present themselves and court voters, it would seem they own America, the land of immigrants, and many unfulfilled dreams. Trump would say Biden's America to describe a breakdown in law and order. For his part, Biden would tell the world it's Trump's America that has gone down the drain because of racism Trump himself advocates. As the November 3 election in the United States approaches, we're left to wonder how much of America is the People's America.
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NEITHER DONALD TRUMP'S NOR JOE BIDEN'S
America Is the People's America
By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ
Editor, The Filipino Web Channel
"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em".
- William Shakespeare Twelfth Night
America is neither Donald Trump's nor Joe Biden's. Nor of Mike Pence and Kamala Harris. Neither the Republicans' nor the Democrats'. Trump's America is a misnomer. As is Biden's America.
America is the People's America.
"We the people . . . " are the soul of America. "We the people . . . " are what makes America America.
An election does not change the indestructible spirit of America; it merely affords people we choose to manage the length and breadth of America in a guaranteed cycle of transformation.
To change that spirit is to disregard the sacrifice in blood of the millions of people - the Native Americans, the Euro-Americans, the African-Americans, the Hispanic-Americans, the Asian-Americans, all of us, regardless of color - that created a new America beginning on the 76th year of the 18th century.
America is America because the people will it that way . . . America of justice and a noble cause, welcoming, affectionate, impartial, tolerant, color-blind.
Trump and Pence, Biden and Harris, - they who are now before us for our blessing, would deserve our imprimatur only if they would stand by what we have made of America.
Peace and justice are not aspirational, they are the very essence of what we all are. We love peace as much as we want justice every day of our lives.
That Trump and Pence, Biden and Harris, come to us manifests our inherent power to fashion America. We will extend to either of them that power but only in the mold the founding fathers have created America, in this wise:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity . . . "
The preamble of the Constitution enshrines America's fundamental purposes and guiding principles. It is inviolable.
No Trump, no Biden, none of their cohorts should breach it for any reason.
In recent days, however, we stand witness to how Donald Trump and his underlings brutalize it. In our America, the People's America, that should never be countenanced nor allowed to happen again.
(Fact check by AP: https://apnews.com/37d23266a1c10496574b6be3d54eb4ca?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=morningwire&pnespid=gLBko.peBwWNYGXQDlnSYeM052X.QZNAy0fFvnau).
The color of our skin does not define America, rather, the mixture of colors, ethnicities, and cultures is how we define America. I am Brown, but I am no different from Black, Yellow and White. And none is superior to either.
The greatness of America rests upon us. Though I am Brown, I can lay claim to having contributed to America's greatness. My folks - uncles, a brother, nephews, cousins, and their families - fought for America in the Second World War, and served America well into their old age.
My folks had waited for General Douglas MacArthur to redeem his promise to return to the islands America had stolen, and because they trusted his words, they waited and waited while enduring the slaughter and atrocities committed on them by the enemies of America. The Philippines was no enemy of Japan. America was.
My Brown folks did the fighting and the dying for America. And the same is true of Blacks and countless others in the race color spectrum. (Related videos at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9JK3Q8_gq0 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYtUlxT-H84).
That can't be said of Trump who had repeatedly dodged the military five times, thus avoiding service in Vietnam. (Full story at: https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-avoided-the-military-draft-which-was-common-at-the-time-vietnam-war-2018-12).
And Biden, too, who got draft deferments because he was pursuing a college education, and once graduated, because of an asthma condition. However, his son, Beau Biden who, at age 46 died from brain cancer in 2015, had joined the military and deployed in Iraq as a major in 2008-2009.
Let not Trump create America in his image of brazen lawlessness. Let not Biden forget either, that his America is what the People's America tells him to form and nurture. (Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved).
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