by Diane Proctor, Sudbury Road
This letter was published in the Concord Journal on August 31, 2020
In Samantha Power’s Pulitzer Prize winning memoir, The Education of an Idealist, she recounts a haunting exchange she had with a colleague — Jonathan Moore—while she was an intern at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. As she was learning about the Balkan crises, he asked her, “Do you think what is happening in Bosnia is because of the absence of good or the presence of evil?” Daily, as American citizens, we ask ourselves this same question.
Whether focusing on the “zero tolerance” policy that divides children from parents on the Mexican border, the blatant assaults on minorities and women, the systematic unravelling of environmental “protections,” or the attempt to eviscerate crucial health care, the list of attacks to our collective sensibilities of decency and the rule of law could easily twice fill the pages of this journal. At a time when so many of the institutions we value are being undone by the present administration, our grandchildren may one day ask us: “Were you silent? What did you do?”
Phil Villiers knows why it is important to act, and he was honored on Saturday, August 8, for his lifetime of progressive activism when Senator Edward Markey, Senator Mike Barrett, Phil Villiers, and Representative Tami Gouveia, convened on Monument Square to speak about and promote participation in the elections. Phil’s family fled Europe during the horrors of the Nazi regime, and as he said in a conversation with the Concord Indivisible Steering Committee, when some imagined leaving the country should the president win reelection, “I am not leaving home again. I am going to stay and fight to my last breath.” An inspiration to the over 800 members of Concord Indivisible and the First Parish, Phil and his wife Kate stand for our best instincts and our unwillingness to be silent.
Phil spoke eloquently about his longtime friend Ed Markey, and his courage and commitment to the very issues they both embrace: compassionate immigration policies, racial equality, genuine environmental protection, and universal health care. Phil’s leadership, philanthropy, and inspirational spirit were acknowledged by Kate Kavanaugh (the Chair of Concord Indivisible) and served as a reminder to all gathered of the importance an individual can make. Whether it is predominantly the absence of good or the infusion of evil, Phil reminds each of us that abandoning our principles, our convictions, is never okay.
The fissures in our health care system have become increasingly apparent. Families in low income neighborhoods suffer disproportionately and too many immigrants fear retaliation from ICE. As the daily death count climbs from the coronavirus—a number that has exceeded all those Americans lost in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and the Twin Towers combined—and as the US Postal Service suffers from systemic dismantling, we really cannot remain mute. Please text, phone-bank, post-card, donate or help organize; every action serves to quell rage and stoke our most positive instincts.
By committing to positive action, we can say to our grandchildren, “I was outraged, and I acted!”
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