Coup de grâce: an action or event that serves as the culmination of a bad or deteriorating situation. a final blow or shot given to kill a wounded person or animal.
I became fully aware that the events of the world DID indeed impact me, the day I sat and watched Walter Cronkite explain to all Americans the FACTS we had to understand and confront regarding the Cuban embargo, February/1962. Mr Cronkite, removed his glasses, almost leaning in toward the camera as if he was about to step inside our living room. He had sweat dripping from his forehead, he wiped his eyes as if a tear or two would stain his vision of looking into our hearts. I remembered he choked, and as he did, my mother let out a sigh, and my father always, the rock of my family, sat back in his chair away from the television set, as if he was protecting himself from some evil monster. America, and the world were on the brink of something always considered a possibility, but never a reality, the World War III.
My understanding of the world around me, and my importance in helping to shape the politics of this nation as best as one voice could continued. It was the speech Richard Nixon gave to the nation, insisting he was NOT a crook, nor did he know ANYTHING regarding the break in of the WaterGate Tower offices of the DNC. In 1974, Mr Nixon resigned his office in disgrace as the facts of the WaterGate conspiracy danced around his presidency like the winds of a tornado. Not only was this an unprecedented historical moment but in discovering the crookedness by which Nixon operated we also became aware of his enemies list. A list of people who, like the days of the Republican Senator Joe McCarthy, were deemed enemies of the state to be disposed of.
Both the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Watergate Break In were events this nation had never experienced in our American history. To have nuclear weapons in the Western Hemisphere directed at our shores a direct act of aggression by the Russians…to have the president of the US, compel and direct a break in of an American political party…Now, we are witnessing the same actions of aggression toward our democracy, by a president elect co-conspiring with the Russians, the president elect’s political party covering up those treasonous acts toward our democratic process. The Republicans manipulating changes in the governance of this nation with no mandate by the people. We have seen the potential for disaster and death from our past…and somehow we are permitting it to repeat!
