Tag Archives: opinion column

DL Opinion columns

Playing the political discourse game – By Deborah Levine

Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

 Remember those playground rumbles after school? “You’re wrong!” “No! I’m right and everybody knows it.” In case you’re wondering, this back-and-forth wasn’t between a couple of kids arguing over kickball. This was the former President and Vice President arguing over the United States constitution. Will this conversation be quoted by future generations? Who knows? Maybe it’ll sound like Shakespeare given how the Republican National Committee (RNC) is trying to redefine the violence of the Jan. 6 Capital riot.

The RNC condemned the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 and censured Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) for participating in the almost 400 interviews about the “Stop the Steal rally” that day.  The investigation was called a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in “legitimate political discourse”.

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DL Opinion columns, Editor-in-Chief

Armageddon gets personal – by Deborah Levine

 Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

These days, everyone I talk to sounds anxious, scared and miserable. My first reaction is sympathy and empathy, the way my mother taught me. My second reaction is relief, since misery loves company.  And when I feeling a bit guilty for that, I say to myself, “How can we not be?” Every time, I turn on the news, there’s another calamity. It feels like our world is  imploding and none of us will escape unscathed.

First there’s a sense of world disintegration with the mess in Afghanistan. Seeing thousands of folks trying to cram into the airport to leave – scary. Watching people clinging to planes to get out – horrifying. Hearing the fears of women for the future – words escape me.

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Art of Healing – by Deborah Levine

originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

Of all the inauguration speakers, the one that truly hypnotized me was Amanda Gorman, the first National Youth Poet Laureate. The tiny young powerhouse joins the roster of famous inaugural poets like Robert Frost and Maya Angelou. Reading “The Hill We Climb”, she had us all climbing with her. It was a joy to see her energy, hear her inspiring verses, and be reminded that poetry heals the soul.

The words bring optimism about the future. A colleague messaged, “The seed of hope has been planted. It is up to each of us to build upon that hope in order to cultivate and strengthen the ties that bind us together as a People —one Nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all!”

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DL Opinion columns

Hate: Everything old is new again – by Deborah Levine

Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

DEBORAH LEVINEThe United Nations designated International Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorated this week, to remember the six million Jewish victims and millions of other victims of the Holocaust. This Day marks the anniversary of the 1945 liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, a set of work-death camps in Nazi-occupied Poland. The hope is to confront hatred and make sure that we do not forget, ignore, or stay silent on the lessons of this history.

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DL Opinion columns

Don’t Underestimate Putin’s Threat – by Deborah Levine

Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

Ukrainian-born Comedian Yakov Smirnoff jokingly said Russia’s secret police, the KGB, stood for Kiss Goodbye Your Butt. That was decades before another comedian, Volodymyr Zelensky, became Ukraine’s president. But Zelensky knows there’s nothing funny about Russia’s annexation of the eastern part of his country. Fortunately, we have helped guard against further Russian encroachment. So what was Trump thinking in using our aid as a pawn in this political chess game?

The Russians have never been muted in their aggressive global reach. From Vietnam to Cuba, the United States and the former Soviet Union wrestled in a Cold War. As the Soviet Union, Russian invasions included Poland, Ukraine, Latvia and what became the communist republic of Eastern Germany. A relentless dictatorship from czarist times to the present, the number of people who tried to escape Russian rule are legendary.

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Holocaust Lessons at Memorial Auditorium – by Deborah Levine

(originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press)

DEBORAH LEVINEWhen I heard that Holocaust Survivor Eva Schloss was speaking in Chattanooga, I seriously considered staying home. I know Holocaust stories all too well from my work in Holocaust education, the hand-typed memoirs of survivors sent to me, and my father’s World War II letters. Dad was a US military intelligence officer assigned to interrogate Nazi prisoners of war. His letters described their education into fascism and its authoritarian ultranationalism, dehumanizing minorities and suppressing opposition.

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DL Opinion columns

Who You Callin’ Old? – by Deborah Levine

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Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press

DEBORAH LEVINEBirthdays that end in zero are milestones to be celebrated, or completely ignored, depending on your point of view. I choose to celebrate my milestone by writing about the beauty and value of older women. Too often, the presence of older women can be used to delegitimize a good cause. There were several editorials about Women’s Marches calling them irrelevant because so many of the women involved were old, limping, and decrepit.

Maybe I should be used to this dismissive language, I’ve heard it often enough. I’m reminded of the time I gave a presentation at a national interfaith workshop in Huntsville. Wrapping up, I asked for comments from an audience of woman chaplains and pastors. The first question had everyone nodding their heads, “How do you get people to listen to you? Once I turned sixty nobody cared what I thought or said.”

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