Unity Rally, September 21, 2019

Father Frank’s Remarks at the Unity Rally held at Academy Green on September 21, 2019

The Prophet Jeremiah cried out, “People, hear the cry of the poor from far and wide who are in your land.”  Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and the interests of money at one and the same time. “And for those of you who are not people of faith Jesus would say, “You cannot serve basic human decency and money at one and the same time.”

I am here as a member of the Ulster Immigrant Defense Network, the Kingston Interfaith Council and the pastor of my own parish, Holy Cross/Santa Cruz Episcopal Church, who together with our organizational allies in the community: The Workers Justice Center, Nobody Leaves Mid-Hudson, Rise Up Kingston, and Citizen Action, are committed to serving, protecting and seeking justice for poor immigrants and refugees.  While this takes money, even more does it take generous hearts. We need your generous heart.

I don’t know about you, but I am sick and tired of beginning and ending each day with having my attention called to idiotic tweets, like, “We are going to buy Greenland”, and to the cruel, inhumane, destructive, and deadly actions of a narcissistic sociopath, who apparently is able to go to sleep each night having traumatized thousands of children and having caused the deaths of some.  I for one am suffering Trump Fatigue.

But to hold the baby exclusively responsible, or even primarily responsible, does not do justice to the enormity of the problem and the extent of culpability that has become so transparently evident.   We expect a baby to be a baby and to do what babies do. But even a cute baby, which he isn’t, is only interested in getting its own needs met, which he is. Baby Trump’s biggest need right now is get him self re-elected to escape the prison time that he rightly deserves and is long overdue. 

Remember how the narcissist, when he was running for office, declared that he could kill someone on Fifth Ave and get away with it.  Well that is one of the few promises of the many he made that he has, in fact, kept.

Not on Fifth Avenue, but seven children have met their deaths because of his directives and the actions of his minions at the southern border.  News cycles move on but human decency requires that we never forget and continue to seek justice for these innocents.

But we have a bigger problem than one big baby who wallows in a dirty diaper and delights in playing with his own feces.  The so-called system of checks and balances has failed miserably either to check or to balance.  

Congress wastes time drafting moribund legislation that it passes on to a morally vacant Senate. This business as usual is a far cry from an appropriate and adequate response to a humanitarian crisis.   If you come upon a man bleeding to death on the street do you instruct the ambulance driver you called to stop for a needed oil change before become coming to the scene? Children continue be made to suffer trauma from which they will never fully recover.  Families continue to be separated and some permanently. Our undocumented neighbors continue to be terrorized by ICE agents. International law, which binds us to provide safe haven, basic human needs and due process to all who cross our borders to secure their lives, is violated on a daily basis.  It was reported just last week, that in a tent courtroom in Laredo, Texas, the cases of fifty asylum-seeking families were processed in one half. Can this be considered anything other than a travesty on justice? 

Congress also wastes its time investigating whether or not crimes have been committed.  Based on only the evidence that the public has been given, only a moron would deny that baby Trump has committed multiple serious crimes.  He continues to commit crimes on a daily basis, and he is brazenly planning future crimes for which he has granted pardons in advance.

The Justice Department is owned and the Supreme Court is morally compromised.  Now two men who have been serial violators of women sit on the bench. 

The time for a revolution is now.  The system is broken and impotent. It has demonstrated its inability to police itself and to hold itself accountable. This is the heart of the nightmare that we are living.

We must mobilize voters to bring this government down.  We must take to the streets as often as the call goes out to bring this government down.  Who says the one American Revolution was enough. It is clear that it was not and we need another.  May we be truly one in this effort.