Go to the mobile version of this Web site.

Login | Contact Us | Site Map | Paid archives | Electronic edition | Subscription Questions | Extras

PUNCEC: A quick tour of the Centennial State for delegates to the Democratic convention

By Harry Puncec

Published August 24, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

Text size  

More DNC Speakout

More stories »

Welcome to Denver all you Democrats, Democratic Party hangers-on, media muffins, lobbyists of all stripes, and especially you, the anti-everything above. You are about to see how we miraculously keep the United States afloat. It's Civics 101 come to life.

If you want to really see how it works, I'd suggest you skip a day or two of convention, perhaps all the nominating speeches - an ordeal for even the most devoted - and skip to Civics 102, the advanced class. The buses will be leaving shortly.

Bus 1 will take you to the Kansas border and back via Interstate 70, and will give you a chance to get a taste of how huge our country really is. You will travel for hours and you'll see little. After a while you'll start to marvel at the strength and resolve of those heroes who crossed it by wagon train and foot more than a century ago. Many risked death along the way just for the chance to start over in a new place.

We travel faster now but it's still part of our spirit that we may start over and try again. Remember that part of what you are doing is to assure that freedom. Also, when gazing at the plains know that there is still lots of room, figuratively and literally, to succeed.

Bus 2 is leaving soon for Camp Amache outside Granada, 225 miles from Denver but a million miles from our ideals. Here you will see a heart-tearing emptiness that once housed more than 7,000 Japanese-Americans from 1942-'45. Look around and know that your government committed this, and vow that government must never turn on its citizens like this again.

Bus 3 is a shorter trip, a mere 180 miles, to Ludlow. On April 20, 1914, national guardsmen activated at the behest of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. opened fire on a camp of striking miners and their families. When it was over, one guardsman was dead, as were six miners, two women and 12 children.

Like Camp Amache, Ludlow is not a remarkable place, but it was a place where a remarkable thing happened; the powerless were struck down by the powerful. When your bus returns to Denver remember that and discharge your duty to speak for all Americans.

A quick trip you might take if pressed for time is south - or "down," as local Democrats prefer to think - to that Republican bastion, Colorado Springs.

Here you will find fine buildings, clean streets and a reminder at New Life Church that mindless murder doesn't strike just public institutions like nearby Columbine High School, but also private churches where we go for strength and insight. Church and state are separate under the Constitution, but in daily living equal targets for the estranged.

Your job is to remember and stand forthright in defense.

The last bus will take you west to the mountains. Here you will learn that those peaks are not actually purple but, oh lord, they are majestic. You can only see them by looking up which is perhaps the way we should wish the world to always view America. Stand for a moment beside the bus, breathe the clean air and gaze the great distances open to you as that, too, is what we are all about. It's no accident that you are now in our nation's very heartland.

I hope you enjoy your visit and I pray you take home the lessons to be learned here.

Harry Puncec is a resident of Lakewood.

Comments

  • August 24, 2008

    9:58 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    fatheromalley writes:

    Ah, Henry, by all means remember the "bad" things done when a country had it's Pacific Fleet sunk. Allow all Japanese to "swim with the fishes" and "contribute as citizens towards the war effort"..when a people's civilization was at risk..

    Ironic that I've met several Japanese who were interned and they don't "blame America" as you do. What would it have been like to be American in Japan at the time? Were Americans even allowed to be citizens of Japan? What of the German's that were regulated to farms and ranches too?

    By all means Democrats should remember too, the slaughter of the innocent Union organizers.. of course it took place, and we evolved. Better that you said that we walk with pride that we have evolved beyond that than never to have evolved at all, much like fundamentalist Muslims. They too we should welcome with open arms while they lift not one finger of protest against innocent Muslims, Jews and Christians around the world being slaughtered by fellow Muslims.

    We too should embrace all illegal immigrants because as Obama says, America can no longer enjoy the fruits of their labor but must share it with whoever that "wants" it. We are asked to commit suicide in an orgy of self sacrifice.. drink the kool-aid?

    Then too we should remember we slaughtered the Indians who never tortured, never raped, never burned alive anyone, but only was one with the eagle and the bear... living in peace and harmony...

    We should be ashamed of America.. oh, yes, always remember the bad.. that is your message to Democrats? I scarcely think it neccessary, most can already recite the litany already...

    Feel good too, that the editors of this rag "backed" you by featuring your article. They do this for many of your mentality. That is their agenda..internment camps? We've had several articles already about that in the past 6 months.. wow..
    We be baaaaaddddddd.. riiiiiight...

    www.fatheromalley.com for more than what this rag can offer..

    Love to you and yours..

    Father O'Malley