On this Fourth of July, I did two things to celebrate. I pondered all who have worked and suffered to make America what it's capable of being, often at great risk to their lives. And I read a book my grand daughter recommended, A Night Divided, a wonderful novel about a 12 year old girl and her brother trying to escape East Berlin weeks after the wall went up. Yep, it's a book where there's a wall that appears suddenly. And guess what? A family is separated. Published three years ago, it's a prescient and gripping tale that vividly portrays what it's like to live in an authoritarian society, early on in the oppression. I harbor no illusions that we don't have a lot of people around us right now who would volunteer in a heartbeat for a New American Stasi, the secret police always needed to impose and maintain an iron grip on the populace who have come under the heavy hand of political imprisonment in the proclaimed name of freedom and through a torrent of lies. If you have friends flirting with authoritarianism, please recommend they read this book. It will also steel your own commitment to true American values. Click on the picture above or the link below for Amazon's page on it.
