2019 will be the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. President Ronald Reagan had urged Russia to tear down the wall. A staunch conservative, he was aware that the Berlin Wall was a symbol of captivity for millions of people suffering under the cruel regime of the Soviet Union. Two years later, the Soviet Union was no more.
Vladimir Putin is slowly trying to reconstitute Russia as a global superpower and has a strange ally in another president of the United States who falsely claims to be a conservative, Donald J. Trump.
What a tragic irony that this president is seeking to replace Lady Liberty, a symbol of hope and freedom, with a grotesque monument to fear and division.
There are walls that unite us and walls that divide us; it’s all in the way we choose to see.
A wall on America’s border is seen by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter as a protective measure to keep undesirable people out. The core problem is that when we judge others to be undesirable, we are echoing dictators around the world who use xenophobia as an instrument of fear, hatred and violence.
Gen. James Mattis understood that our current president’s foreign policy makes America neither safe nor great. It strengthens our enemies and weakens our allies. His eloquent resignation letter should be read by every American. We are not a nation that cowers behind a wall of our darkest fears. Our heritage and destiny is to be a beacon of light, not only for others but for ourselves.
FRANK WARMAN
Hopkinton