EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 LEADERS

When I started my professional career, I had the opportunity to work for many of the cities in our state. Without fail, the leaders of those cities, not necessarily the elected ones but those holding power, looked like I do today.

Old fat white men.

Yep. And as time passed, I heard a consistent message from younger potential leaders. “Those old men won’t step aside and let us assume leadership positions.” Of course, women and minorities weren’t even part of the conversation. But that’s how the baby boomers felt.

Now the baby boomers are in charge, today even joined by selected females and people of color. Guess what the young folks are saying?

Yep. As a friend pointed out during a lunch yesterday, it’s probably true with each generation.

“They just won’t get out of the way and let us in to lead.”

That’s one—just one—of the magnificent aspects of President Joe Biden’s speech this week. The most powerful man in the world, not the leader of some mid-sized town in Arkansas but the most powerful man in the world, is “getting out of the way.”

One immediately hears the opening of the fourth movement ofBeethoven’s Fifth symphony erupt.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 NEW DAYS

There is an old British idiom that warns, “There's many a slip twixt cup and lip.” Who in their right mind would predict the results of a November election in these troubled times? Too much could happen in a country already weary from false and hyperbolic dialogue. There are too many chances for a “black swan” that could topple our dreams.

But some things are starting to simmer in this stew we call American politics.

Using racial slurs and “dog whistles” against political opponent is so “1950.” Even though transporting America back to that age is the avowed platform of one of the parties, racial foghorns don’t seem to be selling tickets for the ride. Good for us.

Another idea floated to the surface in a speech last eve is the idea of sacrifice, the notion—out of favor in recent years—that a person should sacrifice personal aspirations for the good of the country. It resounded with me, and I’m sure others who made such a decision during the Vietnam War era. "What's in it for me" does mock the very premise of the Sermon on the Mount. Oops, forgot.  The evangelicals on the far right recently redacted that passage.

Then there is the concept of reaching bottom and looking up. Four nearly eight years, many Americans have asked themselves, is there a bottom to the depraved words and actions of politicians on the national stage? First it was mocking the disabled, then veterans, then it was medical professionals, and only this week it was women who have not given birth to a child.

That all may be over. It’s like Americans looked up from dark pit and saw the sun break through.

May its rays reach us all and everyone.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 CHANGE

Events of this week have touched me to and amazing extent. First of all, they demonstrated once again how wrong I could be.

Yes wrong.

I had avowed that the drag on one political party was the thought that a mixed-race Californian as a vice-presidential candidate would be come president sometime before 2029. America wasn’t ready.

Seems I was wrong.

So what happened?

I’m thinking the events caused some sort of cosmic shift in our national psyche. That happens, often negatively. Look at what happened in my part of the country when America elected an African American president. Bigotry didn’t simply emerge as valid political weapon. It exploded like a dormant volcano.

No, this enervated something good and decent in our genetic banks. Maybe America was tired of the sight of two grumpy old men dominating the media and our national psyche.

Sometimes we just want to see the image of what we think America needs. I think it happened to some extent with the emergence of Ronald Reagan as a presidential candidate. After the nightmare of the Nixon debacles, America longed for a kindly old uncle, or at least an actor who could play one.

Too late we discovered that our kindly old uncle wasn’t averse to taxing Social Security payments so the rich could pay less taxes.

But now.

Now I think we want to see a fresh face of decency. We remember civility. We remember love of country. We remember respect for our military personnel. The so-called “suckers and losers,” along with their friends and families, longed for some sense of decorum.

At any rate, the news has shaken things up. One can tell by the reaction of the opposing party. I longed for an apt description. I searched and researched my memory.

Finally it came, attributable I think to Henry Miller in his Tropic of Cancer:

They are sh*****g arpeggios.

Yep.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 STEREOTYPES

Interesting day yesterday was. A sitting president finishing his first term and actively campaigning for a second ended his effort. He endorsed his vice-president who is female and of a mixed-race heritage. Most Americans know little about her other than her party affiliation.

That’s all that matters to many.

For the sake of argument, we might for a moment consider that she is, in fact, the chosen candidate to run for the seat in November.

How will the press stereotype her?

The press does that. It stereotyped Gerald Ford as a harmless, but clumsy, nobody when he tripped exiting Air Force One.

It stereotyped Jimmy Carter as a clueless, hardheaded outsider.

It stereotyped Ronald Reagan as America's favorite old uncle.

It stereotyped Bus the Elder as America's rich uncle, but invisible.

It stereotyped Bill Clinton as a lovable rogue. (Yes, they do get close on occasion.)

It stereotyped Bush Jr. as a cowboy. (Go figure.)

It stereotyped Barrack Obama as cool, except in the South. The South viewed him differently.

And Joe Biden as dottery.

Then there was the one who defied stereotyping, one who simply, like a pinball, bounced from one display of idiocy and malevolence to another so quickly that labels didn’t stick.

Now what?

An angry woman out to avenge her sex?

A liberal icon who will sacrifice the future of working families in order to protect the least of those among us?

An accidental president?

A surprise?

A sheep among wolves?

It would be a simple matter of speculation if the future of our planet didn’t depend upon it.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 POPULARITY

One hears it often during this political season in America: “I don’t like either candidate.”

That’s all. No policy analysis. No review of historical records. No consideration of past actions. No prediction of future implications. No educated guess about what either candidate might do to hurt or help the people of America if elected.

Just, “I don’t like either candidate.”

The election of a president of the United States of America might be likened to a taste test of two sodas. 

Elections have more potential consequences.

Germany had an election in 1933. It’s very likely that a majority of Germans didn’t like any of the candidates involved. Perhaps many stayed home.

The Brownshirts didn’t.

In 1945, General Dwight David Eisenhower, head of the allied troops in Europe, forced the people of selected villages in Germany to march past the final result of the 1933 elections. The programs and intentions that brought about these results had been spelled out very clearly in a 1925 manifesto that sold over 12 million copies, including a braille edition for the blind.

People had known.

How many people in these sad lines do we imagine might have been thinking, “But I didn’t like either candidate?”

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 EGOS AND EMPIRES

I helped win World War Two. I can help free the Cubans.

I’ll not be the first American president to lose a war.

I’ll not be brought down by a third-rate burglary.

I can pardon whomever I wish.

I’ll say who uses the tennis courts and when.

Go ahead and sell them the weapons. I can act my way out of anything.

I’ll raise taxes just a bit to straighten out his mess. Who can stop me?

Who will care in the long run? If it feels good, go for it.

I’ll get the man who tried to kill my daddy.

People will love me in a brown suit.

Let them drink bleach.

It’s mine, my precious.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 AGEISM

America is dealing with a new “ism” lately. That would be ageism. I never thought about it when I was younger for they always told us that old folks had more sense than we did. Now it seems old folks, that would include me, don’t have any sense at all.

I’ve only encountered ageism once in my professional career. That occurred during a political campaign, and I was doing some work for the wrong candidate. I don’t think the other party hated me as much as she did society at large. She hurled the word “elderly” at me like a Roman centurion throwing a spear.  I didn’t pay it much mind for I spent a year of my life hoping to live long enough to be an elderly anything. In the interim, I dealt with experts, even professionals, in the area of mendacity. Amateurs amuse, more than provoke, me.

I have come to believe that ageing is a remorseless fact, but I’m not sure we measure it effectively. I have young friends, even relatives, who quit learning at the point where logic became binary and facts were only useful when they agreed with emotions.

On the other hand, I have friends and acquaintances, some older than I, whose minds are, as they say down in LA, “sharp as tacks.”

I do think old folks tend to be a bit forgetful and hesitant in their responses to stimuli. I’m not sure that this is due to malfunction as much as to overloaded hard drives. They also maintain an imbedded acquaintance with the "law of unintended consequences." That can slow a response as much as anything.

Stories of achievement by those termed elderly—such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Grandma Moses—counsel against ageism. Stories of youthful folly abound. Think of the Cuban invasion and the refusal of 20-something “me” to buy Walmart stock when his wife told him to.

Why don’t we move away from thinking of age and dwell on policy analysis? Yes, it would be harder, but the results might astound us.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 EGO

Long ago in an America far away, I stood on the edge of the Great Tide Pool in Monterey, California (actually Pacific Grove) one bright November morning. For those who don’t know, I had positioned myself very near the most western spot of dry land in our country.

In one hand I held a copy of orders to report to the Support Activity in Da Nang, Vietnam for a year’s duty in Naval security. They would soon train me to use weapons, throw grenades, and be brave even when I didn’t feel safe. Then they would set me at the edge of a jungle with a rifle in my hands, waiting for whatever happened.

In the other hand I held an offer for an all-expense-paid escape into Canada, from where I was told then I would be safe from the war but could never return to America.

I sat on a dry rock and smoked a cigarette, an infiltered Camel as I remember. The moment was too important for distillation. Finished, I put the cold butt in my pocket. That place was too sacred for despoliation.

My mind was tearing itself apart. My ego was telling me that no person or agency could make me participate in a war that I didn’t support. My life belonged to me to do with as I pleased. What I wanted stood far above what my country wanted.

My heart was telling me that my America had nourished and protected me for my entire life and deserved repayment. My family's name was worth the danger to a son and brother.

My ego screamed, “Do what you wish.”

My heart said, “America may wander afield, but she needs good people to bring her to harmony."

I stood and turned to face land. The entire United States of America lay in front of me, from where the wild Pacific pounds on her shores to where the gentle Atlantic flows past a simple public place called Fort Sumter, bought with the blood of many who may have been as unwilling as I.

Life demanded a decision.

I put my ego aside and did what I thought was best for our country.

Sometimes you just have to do that, even when it hurts, even when it hurts very badly.

EPIPHANY OF THE DAY

 PATRIOTISM

The Vietnam War generation doesn’t receive the approval that the WWII Generation did. No wonder. One lost. The other won. The Korean War generation doesn’t receive much attention at all. No one can figure out exactly what the result was. No one even knows what the current generation is doing. There aren't enough of them to matter.

The Vietnam vets have a special place in my heart though, for one obvious reason. Beyond that, there is a special place in glory for those who were faced with a situation where the justification for the war was fabricated and false, the sentiment for it was mixed, opposition to it was violent, and the rich kids seemed to avoid it if they wished. What is special about a group of young men on the verge of their adult life facing the forced encounter with such a war?

Answer: They went anyway.

Yes they went. Some because they had to. Some because they wanted to. Some, myself included, because they wouldn’t risk telling their mothers they were cowards. One supporting layer floated them all. Deep down inside, they felt America was worth sacrificing two or more years of their life for, and maybe even itself.

America was that important. They were willing to sacrifice it all for her.

Now we have politicians that don’t seem to feel that way. Either their cult, their greed, their egos, or their simple mendacity govern their actions. If they loved America as much as we did, they would step aside and let young people with fresh and wholesome ideas run for office.

On some days, reading the news, I’m not sure that our present people deserve the America for which young men once risked it all.

Leadership

 When I was a boy growing up in rural Arkansas, World War II had just been over five years or so. The results of it touched everyone, each day of the week in some fashion or other.

A playmate’s father couldn’t hold a job for a drinking problem brought on by his experiences in the war.

Mrs. So and So never smiled because her boy was killed in the Pacific.

Another playmate had a neat plastic model of a B-17 but knew nothing about it cause his dad wouldn’t discuss it after he brought it home.

The preacher talked about his comrades finding religion when the bombs started falling.

My aunt found out that the preacher spent the war as a cook who never left the states.

A good friend’s father died flying a fighter plane and he now had a new father.

A classmate’s father only had one arm and she was very sensitive about it.

Many of the cartoons we saw featured characters based on Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo.

The first kid to claim a branch of service while playing war was always a Marine.

We learned that Franklin D. Roosevelt was a true hero for bringing the country through the crisis.

Just musing today: The American military deaths from the war totaled around 330,000 in four years.

America may pass that number in Covid-19 deaths in one year.

One can only wonder what the next generation of kids will talk about on the playgrounds of rural Arkansas, if there are still playgrounds there in five years.