{"id":2562,"date":"2017-05-14T15:10:34","date_gmt":"2017-05-14T15:10:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.reggiemorrisey.com\/?p=2562"},"modified":"2017-05-15T14:16:38","modified_gmt":"2017-05-15T14:16:38","slug":"forget-never","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reggiemorrisey.com\/?p=2562","title":{"rendered":"Forget? Never!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Indelible Memory I<\/h4>\n

It's a sunny day in the 1960s, and I'm a teen on a date, strolling around the famed Wildlife Conservation Society's Bronx Zoo. Opened in 1899, the 265-acre park within the City of New York houses creatures from the tiniest tree frogs to elephants. This is a memory of an elephant. <\/p>\n

My date and I stand with a lively crowd facing the fenced, open-air pen of the elephant exhibit. One elephant is working the line as people fling peanuts at him. But a creep of a guy tosses a lit cigarette butt into the elephant's trunk and grins. The elephant turns from the crowd and lumbers to a water trough, dips his trunk, then walks back to the fence and aims his full hose to douse the miscreant, wiping the grin off his face. Those of us who witnessed the exchange cheered. Still, after that encounter, the elephant is done with humans - even those with peanuts - and joins the herd in the shade.<\/p>\n

Noble Beast Besieged<\/h4>\n

Given my regard for the long-suffering pachyderm, you may appreciate my dilemma over its service as a symbol of the Republican Party or formerly Gallant Old Party (GOP). Though that symbol took hold in the 1870s, it does not seem fair to identify the elephant with this century's \u201cParty of No.\u201d  <\/p>\n

Indelible Memory II<\/h4>\n

I find it hard to forget an ugly encounter with Republicans in West Palm Beach, Florida, in 2000. <\/p>\n

With my husband and two friends, I had traveled across the state to join vocal picketers carrying handmade signs and urging election officials to ignore the intense political pressure from Republicans and continue to count the contested presidential vote. The state's mind-numbing Bush, Buchanan, Gore and Nader ballot was reason enough to doubt the results. (See the photo of my husband's sign.)<\/p>\n

For  days, news cameras panned stone-faced Republican operatives who packed a West Palm municipal building. Like aging frat-boy bouncers, they blocked the halls as local officials struggled to move from office to office to decipher ballot issues. Outside, we encountered these same thugs, their bullhorns in hand, corralling picketers and issuing a dismissive shout in our faces, \"Go home, losers!\"<\/p>\n

Note<\/strong>: With the 2016 popular vote for Hillary Clinton exceeding the \u201cwinner's\" popular vote by nearly three million votes, history repeats itself for today\u2019s \"losers.\"<\/p>\n

Lest We Forget<\/h4>\n

We know an election has consequences. Remember 2000 - 2008:<\/p>\n