"My grandparents house in El Paso...." echo opinion

Border Wall- Echo opinion letter published in the El Paso Times:

Fortunate to be born in a family with a home on the border

My grandparents’ house in El Paso was right on the border. I spent every summer there as far back as I can remember.

Numerous sports games. Hide and seek. Dart guns. Bicycles. Walking down the street to Tía Celia’s house. That walk seemed like 10 miles. It’s less than a mile.

Looking back, I never remember a wall or fence on the border just beyond the neighbors’ backyards. My mom said when she was a kid, they’d walk along the Rio Grande riverbank and see workers outside, just across the border.

Years later, when I visited, I saw a tall fence along the freeway.

Some people are angered by calls to “build the wall.” It used to anger me. Years back, I thought, “Why do people hate people that look like me and my family?”

Over time, it dawned on me that they simply haven’t had the experiences I’ve had. They don’t have the memories of family, the smell of tortillas on the comál in the morning, the desert heat and the unconditional love of a family that, yes, came across the border in the 1910s to escape death.

Today, I don’t hate people that say, “Build the wall.” I just think, “Wow, you have no idea the richness that could be within your heart, and the absence of it is likely not even your fault.”

Fortunate to be born in a family with a home on the border

My grandparents’ house in El Paso was right on the border. I spent every summer there as far back as I can remember.

Numerous sports games. Hide and seek. Dart guns. Bicycles. Walking down the street to Tía Celia’s house. That walk seemed like 10 miles. It’s less than a mile.

Looking back, I never remember a wall or fence on the border just beyond the neighbors’ backyards. My mom said when she was a kid, they’d walk along the Rio Grande riverbank and see workers outside, just across the border.

Years later, when I visited, I saw a tall fence along the freeway.

Some people are angered by calls to “build the wall.” It used to anger me. Years back, I thought, “Why do people hate people that look like me and my family?”

Over time, it dawned on me that they simply haven’t had the experiences I’ve had. They don’t have the memories of family, the smell of tortillas on the comál in the morning, the desert heat and the unconditional love of a family that, yes, came across the border in the 1910s to escape death.

Today, I don’t hate people that say, “Build the wall.” I just think, “Wow, you have no idea the richness that could be within your heart, and the absence of it is likely not even your fault.”

Marcel Hernandez

Nashville, Tennessee

An echo from the Tennessean about Donald Trump's vocabulary

Opinion by David Plazas in the Tennessean

Phil Bredesen* had every right to strike back hard after President Donald Trump dismissed him, then insulted him, and then could not stop talking about him.

Governor Bredesen ~ rising above Donald Trump insults

Trump mentioned Bredesen early into his remarks at his political (beer hall) rally at the Municipal Auditorium in downtown Nashville.

“I never heard of this guy, who is he? Who is he?” said Trump, before then declaring: “He's an absolute total tool of Chuck — of (Senate Minority Leader) Chuck Schumer.”

Bredesen, a Democrat and former two-term Tennessee governor, is running for U.S. Senate against Republican Congressman Marsha Blackburn, who introduced Trump.

The president was in town for a Blackburn (beer hall) fundraiser

Bredesen responded by staying civil, which does not mean ignoring an insult, but rather directly addressing the slight without becoming disagreeable.

These days, that is not easy to accomplish.

Bredesen’s campaign Press Secretary Alyssa Hansen issued this statement:

“Governor Bredesen has made it clear that if President Trump proposes something that’s good for Tennessee, then he’ll support it. Likewise, if the president suggests something that’s bad for Tennesseans, then he’ll oppose it. That’s what senators ought to do.

"Bottom line: Phil Bredesen is an independent thinker with a proven record of working with Democrats and Republicans. 

In Washington, he’ll vote in the best interests of Tennessee and Tennesseans.”

Even as there is a desire among people to improve civil discourse, it is not uncommon to get distracted, especially when the most powerful man in the world does not set the tone.

That is too bad, because while Trump’s political rallies are notorious for being all about political theater, for exaggeration of facts or obsession with his extremities (“Look at these big, beautiful hands”), they are circuses that do not reflect real life and create the impression that a diatribe of insults is okay.

It is not. What the president says matters to the nation and to the world, and the president should set a tone that unites, that empowers, that inspires and that enlightens people.

There were several names that Trump did not mention, like:
Roseanne Barr (whose racist tweet caused the cancellation of her popular show); John McCain (though the president alluded to the Arizona senator's vote against repealing Obamacare);
James Shaw Jr., the hero of the Waffle House shooting; or
The heroes of the civil rights movement, such as Diane Nash or John Lewis, who in the 1960s defiantly sat at racially segregated lunch counters at the Woolworth (now Woolworth on Fifth), just a half mile from the auditorium.

The latter makes the conclusion of Trump’s speech so disappointing.

“We are taking back our country,” he said. “We are returning our country back to our great American patriots.”

What does that mean? Who does that mean? Does that mean returning to a time when Nash and Lewis had to fight for their right to get served at a lunch counter?

Our nation was designed to move forward and to help us rise above our basest instincts and away from those things, like slavery or segregation, that favored some and marginalized others.

The preamble to our Constitution is our north star: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Past presidents' quotes can also illuminate us on how we can elevate the tone.

“… the moral force of the Presidency is often stronger than the political force,” said President Lyndon Johnson.

“You have to appeal to people’s best instincts, not their worst one,” said President Harry Truman.

We need our leaders from the mayor to the president to provide a selfless, civil leadership at a time when basic facts, history and institutions are under assault.

During her introduction of Trump, Blackburn did not say anything inflammatory, however, she was forced to be a bystander as Trump performed.

Then, the president introduced the members of Tennessee’s congressional delegation. When he mentioned Sen. Bob Corker, with whom he has clashed, some members of the crowd booed loudly.

Trump said nothing about it though it would have been a good time for the president to urge the audience to be touched by their better angels.

That might have dampened the emotion of the show, but it would have been the right thing to do.

David Plazas is the opinion and engagement director for the USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee. Call him at (615) 259-8063, email him at dplazas@tennessean.com or tweet to him at @davidplazas.

* Phil Bredesen is an American politician and businessman who served as the 48th Governor of Tennessee from 2003 to 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he was first elected in 2002 with 50.6% of the vote, and was reelected in 2006 with 68.0%. He previously served as the 66th Mayor of Nashville from 1991 to 1999. Bredesen is the founder of the HealthAmerica Corporation, which he sold in 1986. Since 2011, he has been chair of a firm that develops and operates solar powerstations.

Republcian unhealth bill is about taxes- The Tennessean

Breaking! Health care bill is about cutting taxes (really enjoy these "echo" posts from national newspaper opinion pages!)

Letter to the editor in The Tennessean

NASHVILLE Tn- Consensus seems to be that the Republican unhealthy insurance bill will hurt the poor and the sick. 

True enough. Nevertheless, the purpose of the GOP bill is not to improve or maintain the current level of health care in the country.

There's much more to this danergous bill.There also is a reduction in taxes for the insurance industry, the medical device industry and tanning salons. With the exception of tanning salons the entire benefit of these tax cuts goes to the wealthy and connected. This includes many senators and the majority of the Cabinet.

This is the story that needs to be told. 

Please, call Senators and tell them to vote no on the cruel GOP attempt to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich.  Robert Law, Nashville