Wise men ne’er sit and wail their loss, but cheerily seek how to redress their harms. —William Shakespeare
As many of you would suspect, I am troubled by the early poles showing Mr. Trump’s significant lead over other Republican candidates (well, at least a couple) and the statistical tie between Trump and Biden.
I have tried to divine the reasoning behind this but so far have failed. So, I come here seeking enlightenment.
Would someone, anyone, in a cool, calm, and cogent manner, explain why it makes sense for the American voter to choose to return Mr. Trump to office?
Please don’t focus on what you may perceive as the failings of President Biden. I want a rationale discourse on the benefits of a change of administration, not the idiotic, childish nonsense of Let’s Go Brandon. Leave the moronic sayings aside.
I want to know with specifics what Mr. Trump accomplished in his term that positively affected the country and the world. I want to know what a second term for Mr. Trump would look like and what to expect.
Please be specific and cite verifiable sources for any contentions, be they diplomatic, economic, or defense-related matters.
I will publish the piece here in its entirety without comment other than an author credit disclosure.
I look forward to someone explaining the benefit of a second Trump administration and the, at least for me, hidden value of the first four-year term.
I’ve written to you in the past in this form of an open letter. (Promise Me, Joe) and I am compelled to write once more.
The time has come for a new generation to rise to the occasion. You have said this yourself as I will remind you in this piece. Now is the time to put those words into actions.
Now is the time, Mr. President, now is the time.
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, a time to reap that which is planted;
Pete Seeger, Turn, Turn, Turn! (or Ecclesiastes 3-1 if you prefer)
But first, let me say this.
Thank you. Thank you for restoring sensibilities in government. Thank you for rebuilding America’s standing in the world. Thank you for leading the world coalition supporting the Ukraine.
Thank you for leading the country out of the disaster of the pandemic. And thank you for putting an end to our presence in Afghanistan. Anyone who understands the reality of that commitment knows it was the right thing to do no matter how ugly it may have appeared.
Thank you for what you have done for this country. I only wish your opportunity had come sooner.
But there is what we want and what we have and that reality is what we deal with.
I heard you speak once after the release of your book, Promise Me, Dad. One thing you said, that brought to mind the Camelot of the Kennedy years, was it is time for a new generation to assume the mantle.
You were right.
Yet when circumstances arose, with no one stepping up, you did. Again.
You were there in our time of desperate need for a return to stability. And while the danger has not fully passed, time has.
Now is the moment for you to make your mark as one of our greatest Presidents. One who rose to the occasion as history demanded then recognized the limitations of that commitment.
Go out, find that new blood, and push them to meet destiny as you have.
Turn your words into more than a speech. Encourage this new generation, following your example, to set a new course with a new leader at the helm.
Don’t let the country merely vote against the disaster from our past, give them a choice with a limitless future.
Do this, and there is no doubt that future historians will mark this moment as another example of true American courage.
“It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are 20 gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
― Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia & Confession of Nat Turner
Until such time as a person who is…
White, hurts me
Or Black, hurts me
Or gay, hurts me
Or Muslim, hurts me
Or atheist, hurts me
Or had an abortion, hurts me
Or Catholic, hurts me
Or Jewish, hurts me
Or Non-English speaking, hurts me
Or says they are male or female or neither, hurts me
Or an illegal alien, hurts me
Or Republican, hurts me
Or Democrat, hurts me
Or carrying a gun, hurts me
Or conservative, hurts me
Or liberal, hurts me
Or spent time in prison, hurts me
Or in any way is different from me, hurts me
Or any other human hurts me or any innocent person
I will hurt them back in unequal and exponentially worse measure
But it will have nothing to do with who or what they are and everything to do with what they did
Until then… I, and we, should live and let live. As Jefferson said, “it is none of my concern.”
Please take a moment to share my work on social media. Agree or disagree, the more who read this the bigger the opportunity to share with others and promote meaningful dialog. It would be greatly appreciated.Thanks.
JEBWizard Publishing (www.jebwizardpublishing.com) is a hybrid publishing company focusing on new and emerging authors. We offer a full range of customized publishing services.
Everyone has a story to tell, let us help you share it with the world. We turn publishing dreams into a reality. For more information and manuscript submission guidelines contact us at info@jebwizardpublishing.com or 401-533-3988.
First, before I get inundated with offended country music lovers defending the genre, I like country music. Bearing this caution in mind, there is a commonality within these songs: God, Guns, and Whiskey, which I find both amusing and troubling.
My wife up and left me out of the blue. Some rich guy with a new car, but I know what to do. I got me a gun, and I got me a bottle And my old John Deere's faster than any electric model. And when I'm sitting in my trailer and sippin' my whiskey I'll just pray to heaven for God to forgive me... forgive me... forgive me.
Now that I think about it, God, Guns, and Whiskey is an excellent name for a country song. It has all the hallmarks of an Academy of Country Music hit. Put that Bud Light right in their place.
While I can appreciate the sentimental value of these songs, this religious fascination with these elements is disconcerting.
I can understand one of them. I mean, who doesn’t like a nice whiskey occasionally? But mixing whiskey and ammunition is downright dangerous. Add in that third element, and you’re just begging for trouble.
There used to be a saying that you don’t discuss politics or religion. Perhaps we should return to those practices. You embrace your faith however you like. Vote for whatever candidate you prefer. And leave others to theirs.
You can still hold onto your god, guns, and whiskey. But keep them within your castle, not out hunting down ex-wives, girlfriends, or boyfriends, to be inclusive. Or, the most dangerous of the native predators in America, those who turn around in your driveway or ring a doorbell.
And after every election, you can go to church, the shooting range, or a bar and talk about things that matter… like whether you drink whiskey on the rocks or neat. Perhaps a country song is the best place for God, Guns, and Whiskey. Well, not whiskey, but a pretty strong argument can be made for the other two.
Please take a moment to share my work on social media. Agree or disagree, the more who read this the bigger the opportunity to share with others, and promote meaningful dialog. It would be greatly appreciated.Thanks
JEBWizard Publishing (www.jebwizardpublishing.com) is a hybrid publishing company focusing on new and emerging authors. We offer a full range of customized publishing services.
Everyone has a story to tell, let us help you share it with the world. We turn publishing dreams into a reality. For more information and manuscript submission guidelines contact us at info@jebwizardpublishing.com or 401-533-3988.
In 2016, 62,984,828 Americans voted for Donald Trump, a mostly unknown albeit suspect political commodity. Perhaps it was the frustration with the existing system and the perception they needed to send a clear message they wanted change.
Most were sincere in seeking change; but some sought a return to the days of white hegemony and cultural homogeneity, longing for a delusive memory of a better America.
But whatever the reason, Mr. Trump won, and the country soon came to understand what it had done to itself.
It didn’t take long for a rise of white supremacist groups, ignored at best or encouraged at worst by the President, to rise up all over this country and show the dark underbelly of the nation.
Now, four years later, armed with the painful memories of shooting ourselves in the foot to support a man who clearly assumed a position way beyond his snake-oil salesman abilities, 70,903,094 (and still counting, although thankfully it won’t matter) Americans voted for that same train wreck of a President.
In 2016, many of those who voted for Trump could be forgiven since, to borrow a line used before another injustice, “they know not what they do.”
In 2020, there is no such excuse.
Maybe those of us who think of America as a nation of civility and tolerance are going the way of the dinosaurs.
Those of us who yearned for the respect and admiration of the world, not their fear.
Those of us who see science as the way to the future, not an inconvenient truth to be mocked and ignored.
Those of us who seek to embrace our differences, not suppress or subjugate those with whom we differ.
Those of us who long for tolerance and openness.
Those of us who see the greatness of America not in our military power, but in the character of those of us willing to defend this nation against those who would do us harm. They act as defenders, not conquerors.
Those of us who would then offer those same enemies a path back into the global community.
Those of us who are outraged by violent protests against those of different philosophies.
Those of us who are offended by white (or any other) supremacy,
Those who remember our cultural melting pot makes America unique globally.
Those who do not seek to homogenize the country by forcing everyone to our own image.
Maybe those of us, confused by so many of our fellow Americans embracing the tired old philosophies of nationalism, militarism, and global confrontation, are the ones fading into history.
Maybe our time has run its course, and the virus of intolerance has rendered this country unable to sustain our multicultural society.
Image Huff Post
If this is our new reality, I fear the promise of an America with a long future ahead will follow us into the fog of history.
We will be the vestiges of a once-thriving experiment uncovered by those seeking to answer what happened.
America deserves better than this. The world now knows the dark secret of this once-promising nation. And, as long as the potential for such a repeat of self-destruction exists, they will see us with a jaundiced eye. They will no longer look to us as a beacon of hope but as a bellwether of lost promise and the faded shadow of a better future.
In 2016, America lost its moral compass. While we may not have drifted as far into the darkness like some other nations in history, we were teetering on the brink.
And over 70 million Americans voted for us to stay the course. SEVENTY MILLION!
Once our Presidents accepted the will of the people with grace and humility, calling upon our better angels. Now one summons the devils of our own destruction.
We can only hope this election was not the last desperate grasp of rationality but a portent of a return to our higher calling. But we would be wise to be vigilant to our own potential for self-destruction.
JEBWizard Publishing (www.jebwizardpublishing.com) is a hybrid publishing company focusing on new and emerging authors. We offer a full range of customized publishing services.
Everyone has a story to tell, let us help you share it with the world. We turn publishing dreams into a reality. For more information and manuscript submission guidelines contact us at info@jebwizardpublishing.com or 401-533-3988.
Signup here for our mailing list for information on all upcoming releases, book signings, and media appearances.
(This is a bit of a long one, but it is an interesting topic and, hopefully, worth the read)
The good ‘ole days may not have been as good as we’d like to believe, or were they better? An intriguing question. As I often do, I like to use the words of others with my own to illustrate the commonality of our experiences.
Here’s a quote one of my most influential teachers,
“The past is delusion; the present, elusion; the future, illusion.” Dan Walsh
With the past, we often twist Shakespeare’s words about the evil men do. Instead of “The evil men do lives on, the good is oft interred with their bones.” We change it to, “Our fondness for the wonderful memories of the past live on, the evil is oft interred in the deepest recesses of our brain.”
In a reaction to a recent piece, https://joebroadmeadowblog.com/2020/06/13/a-eulogy-for-the-police/, Paul Edward Cary, who enjoys debating many of my positions (respectful of our differences and, on the rare occasion, our agreement) argued the United States has declined in moral character over the past 50 or 60 years.
It sparked an idea.
Was America a better place in the 60s and 70s? Are we a nation in decline? I decided to see what I could discover.
While measuring morality is subjective, there are other benchmarks we can use to test the hypothesis. I looked at various historical events and national attributes—health, infant mortality, education, civil rights, Supreme Court cases, and crime.
Supreme Court
Time magazine did a project several years ago seeking opinions from a variety of law professors and legal experts on the most influential—for good or bad—Supreme Court cases.
Often the court serves as a catalyst for change in society, righting wrongs embedded within the fabric of American lives. Some would argue these decisions were not always for the better. But here are the most beneficial and the most troubling in the 1960s-70s contrasted with those the court decided in the 2010s.
In the 1960s, several cases sparked major changes and controversies. Fifty or sixty years sounds like a long time ago. But to those of us alive in those years, thinking back, it’s hard to accept such cases were necessary.
Loving v. Virginia (1967), which found restrictions on interracial marriage unconstitutional.
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964), which protected freedom of the press in the realm of political reporting and libel.
Baker v. Carr (1962) and Reynolds v. Sims (1964), which established the one-person, one-vote concept in legislative apportionment.
2015 saw the landmark case of Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 same-sex-marriage ruling.
Perhaps the cases necessary in the 60s and 70s set us on a better, more moral path. The law professors saw them as positive cases. Yet, that they were necessary paints a troubling picture of a segregated and less open society.
On the negative side, many professors were critical of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010). The case removed campaign-spending limits on corporations and unions, and Bush v. Gore (2000), which resulted in George W. Bush’s winning the presidential election.
Of all the cases I looked at, this one from 1973 troubled me. San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973).
“This decision held that inequities in school funding do not violate the Constitution. The court thus said that discrimination against the poor does not violate the Constitution and that education is not a fundamental right. It played a major role in creating the separate and unequal schools that exist today.” (From the Times article)
The controversial decision in Roe v. Wade (1973) appeared on the lists of both the best and worst decisions. Without once again venturing down this rabbit hole, I’ll leave it to you to decide if this contributed to our “moral decay.”
I know my lawyer friends will all pipe in with their own favorites. Still, the very need for the cases decided in the 60s and 70s casts a shadow on the perception of a more fair or moral American society.
As further proof of the importance of court-imposed mandates, one need look no further than our own backyard and the 1970s desegregation of the Boston School system.
The case—Morgan v. Hennigan, 379 F. Supp. 410 (D.C. Mass., June 21, 1974)—decided by U.S. District Court Judge Arthur Garrity, required Boston to bus students to various schools to achieve a racial balance.
That a court, in 1974, had to force a city the size of Boston—a city which prides itself on its contribution to the very founding of this nation—to comply with the findings of Brown V Board of Education, a twenty-year-old refutation of the concept of separate but equal school systems, is astounding. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/boston-bussing-case/
But before we take too much comfort in this decade being better than the past, there is this. In Cleveland, Mississippi, the school district finally stopped contesting a ruling from 1965 regarding the desegregation of its high schools.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala., May 3, 1963 (UPI) – Five firemen stood less than 50 feet away today sweeping methodically with a high-pressure hose and sending hundreds of racial demonstrators tumbling in the street.
The force downs a man as fast as a charging tackle on a football field and is no less damaging.
I was in a corner telephone booth dictating a story as a crowd of chanting, singing, gyrating Negroes surged time and again into the face of a police blockade. Spray hung across the intersection like fog.
When the first powerful blast hit the front line of anti-segregation marchers, they toppled and rolled in the streets, clinging to the curb and to each other.
As the hose swung away, they jeered the firemen, taunting with catcalls. But the ones who didn’t flee at first soon were routed by the full force of spray.
Then the firemen turned their attention to a small group of Negroes on the corner where I was standing.
“Let’s get those people out of there,” an officer shouted.
The firemen swung the hose quickly and the gush of water splattered the seven Negroes on the corner. They fled into a restaurant and the firemen followed, playing their hose in the restaurant for two or three minutes.
“They’re turning the hose on us,” I shouted to another newsman.
Elvin Stanton, of radio station WSGN, jumped into the phone booth with me. We braced for the blast of water which hit the glass wall with a roar.
The water was brown, then a boiling white froth which roared through the cracks in the booth, sloshed under the booth and soaked our feet. Then they turned the hose on an upper ventilating slot and our shoulders were soaked.
I kept yelling that we were reporters, but the torrent kept pounding on the glass booth. Somehow, the glass held until they turned the hose around.
We walked out. As we strode soggily by the firemen, one turned and asked: “Did you get wet?”
SELMA, Ala., March 7, 1965 (UPI) – State troopers and mounted deputies bombarded 600 Negroes with tear gas Sunday when they knelt to pray on a bridge, then attacked them with clubs. Troopers and posse men, under orders from Gov. George C. Wallace to stop the Negro “walk for freedom” to Montgomery, chased the marchers nearly a mile through town, clubbing them as they ran.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960 into law on May 6. The purpose of the law was to close loopholes from the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and dealt primarily with voter disenfranchisement. The act created penalties for anyone who tried to obstruct voter registration and extended the life of the Civil Rights Commission which had been set to expire. It also established federal inspection of local voter registration polls in an effort to counter-act discriminatory laws in the South that worked to disenfranchise voters on a racial basis.
Vietnam
And then we had Vietnam, or more correctly Viet Nam.
While our involvement in Viet Nam began long before the 60s, most Americans wouldn’t have a clue where the country was until 1965.
Here’s one interesting tidbit of history.
June 8, 1956: The first official American fatality in Viet Nam is Air Force Technical Sergeant Richard B. Fitzgibbon, Jr. He was murdered by another American airman as he was talking with local children. His wife lobbied for years, finally succeeding in 1999, to have his name added to the Viet Nam Wall Memorial.
Think about that for a second. The first official American casualty in Viet Nam was murdered by a fellow American. It gets no stranger than that. Perhaps had we taken that as an omen, we might have decided the avoid the whole thing.
But we didn’t. And when I said it could get no stranger, I was wrong. Fitzgibbon’s son joined the Marine Corps…and was killed in Viet Nam.
Here’s a brief historical timeline of the 60s and 70s and the routes of involvement.
1960 The United States announces 3,500 American soldiers will be sent to Vietnam.
July 1964. Gulf of Tonkin incident. U.S. warships come under fire by North Vietnamese gunboats in two related incidents. There is little doubt the first incident happened. The NV Gunboats were responding to an earlier bombing attack on two North Vietnamese held islands by U.S. and South Vietnamese Naval forces.
The second incident, which Lyndon Johnson would use to escalate American involvement, is in doubt. Johnson secretly confided to his advisors, “for all I know, the goddamn Navy was shooting at whales out there.”
On March 6, 1965, two battalions of U.S. Marines waded ashore near Danang,
March 16, 1968 The My Lai massacre—known as Son My in Viet Nam—where American soldiers killed nearly all the people—old men, women, and children, including infants—in the village of My Lai. The months-long military campaign known as the Tet Offensive (January 30–September 23) topped Vietnam news.
Amid the carnage of Viet Nam, on July 20, 1969, Americans put a man on the moon.
1973 The Paris Peace Accords, negotiated by the Nixon administration, reached agreement after five years. Nixon secretly orchestrated a delay in the talks during the 1968 Presidential Campaign through back-channel communications with the North Vietnamese government promising better terms. He then took 5 years, at the cost of almost twenty thousand more dead Americans, to settle the war.
1973 All U.S. Combat troops leave Viet Nam. 500 American POWs return from North Viet Nam.
Military advisors remain until 1975
April 1975
The U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government surrendered to the Communists on April 30, ending three decades of war in Vietnam. Hours later, the first Communist tanks rumbled into the capital.
During Viet Nam, anti-war protesters and racial strife tore apart the country.
May 4, 1970, National Guard troops fire on war protesters, killing four, at Kent State University. Allison Beth Krause, 19, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, 20, Sandra Lee Scheuer, 20, and William Knox Schroeder, 19.
Several National Guardsmen were charged in the killings, but they dismissed the cases.
1971
Attica prison riot
Native Americans forced from Alcatraz after citing an 1868 Treaty allowing them to live on the island
1972
Supreme Court rules against the death penalty
The last man to walk on the moon, Eugene Cernan, aboard Apollo 17 in December 1972, brought an end to the Apollo program.
AIM seizes Wounded Knee, SD The American Indian Movement (AIM) seized the hamlet for 90 days before surrendering. It was a protest of violations to American Indian treaties over the past centuries.
The 60s and 70s were the decades of hard rock ‘n roll.
Crime and Punishment: Police, Violent Crime, & Prisons
Police
The debate over racial bias in Law Enforcement is the latest controversy to roil the nation. In 2014, the Obama administration passed a law— the Death in Custody Reporting Act—requiring Law Enforcement agencies to track all in-custody deaths and report them to the Justice Department.
The Justice Department has never created the database or received any information from the nation’s law enforcement agencies. We cannot identify a problem if we operate in the dark.
But we can compare the nature of a policing, and the relative dangers associated with being a cop, by tracking the numbers of officers killed in the line of duty. These numbers take into consideration all manners of death, not just violent encounters.
Officer Killed in the line of duty
1970
240
2010
181
1971
253
2011
188
1973
240
2012
144
1973
279
2013
135
1974
285
2014
161
1975
257
2015
167
1976
206
2016
181
1977
202
2017
184
1978
218
2018
185
1979
224
2019
147
One officer killed is too many, but the trend has been declining. In the 1960s and 70s, during the height of racial tensions and anti-war protests, they targeted police officers with snipers and bombs. Yet, over time these incidents have grown less and less frequent. The media hype of today amplifies and distorts the level of violence beyond reality.
2010-2019 155,034 (4.8 per 100,000 of population. 2019 numbers projected based on average # of homicides of the previous nine years as final numbers from FBI not yet available. Again, there are racial disparities in murder rates, but the overall numbers even among various races are lower.)
Violent crime per 100,000 populations. Rates climbed in the mid-1960s, peaking in 1990-91. They have consistently declined since then.
1970 451
2019 387.2
Prisons (Number of prisoners)
1970 196,000
2010 1,570,00
Health and Education
MVA Fatalities Rates per 100,000 population
1970 25.67
2018 11.18 (last year data available)
Infant Mortality Rates
The U.S. is far behind other developed nations in infant mortality. Comparable country average (nations with similar levels of development such as Canada, United Kingdom, France, Japan) is 3.4 per 1000 live births
US Infant Mortality Rates per 100,000 population
1970 26
2015 5.8
Literacy Levels
The U.S. is 7th in the world in literacy rates. The ability of most Americans to read sits at about 99%, although there are racial disparities. Educationally, Americans sit in the middle of the world curve in terms of analytical abilities in math, science, and reading.
In the 1970s, the U.S. led the world in education. Clearly, we have failed in the promise of public education.
Defense spending as a % of GDP
1970 7.8%
2018 3.16%
Education vs. Military Budget
1970 Military $79.1 billion Education $1.0 billion
2020 Military $989 billion ($160 billion increase over 2 years) Education $64 billion (10% decrease over 2019)
Culture
#1 in Music Billboard Chart
1960 Theme from A Summer Place (Percy Faith)
1970 Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon & Garfunkel)
2010 Tik Tok (Kesha)
#1 Movie
1960 Swiss Family Robinson
1970 Love Story
2010 Avatar
#1 T.V.
1960 Andy Griffith Show
1970 Marcus Welby, MD
2010 Breaking Bad
In the culture category, while I may be prejudiced here, but the 60s and 70s win this one, hands down.
Can we say the U.S. has suffered a decline, moral or otherwise, over the past 50 or 60 years?
Probably not.
Yet I can make an argument we have become more socially open and accepting. We embrace a more democratic form of social interaction, minimizing the once formidable lines of separation between races, ethnicities, and religions.
Despite the constant bombardment of “breaking news,” we have become less violent people. By all measures, we have seen a reduction in homicides and other crimes of violence.
The burgeoning prison population and the de-emphasis on education are troubling. The overwhelming number of people are in prison for non-violent crimes. Imprisonment has little to do with crime reduction. It turns people into career criminals doing life on the installment plan.
What drove the reduction in violent crime? Many theories abound.
Some claim the high rates of incarceration take violent offenders off the street. This seems logical, except with a fifty percent recidivism rate, it is only a partial explanation.
Increased community policing efforts is another suggestion.
Reduced opportunity to commit crimes due to the prevalence of home surveillance cameras, cellphone cameras, and other technology such as DNA evidence is a factor. The “graying of America” is another possibility with the average age rising above the mean for those most likely to commit crimes.
Two wild theories relate to reduced violence within society. One, proposed by Rick Nevin, a Virginia economist, claims a correlation between eliminating lead from gasoline and a reduction in violent crime. In a peer-reviewed study, he makes an interesting case. He even wrote a book on the subject, Lucifer Curves. (https://www.amazon.com/Lucifer-Curves-Legacy-Lead-Poisoning-ebook/dp/B01I3LTR4W)
An even more controversial theory, by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt, the co-author of Freakonomics, and John Donohue of Yale University, argued that the 1973 Supreme Court Case of Roe v. Wade legalizing abortions was a significant contributor to reduced incidents of violent crime.
Research shows unwanted children had higher incidents of psychiatric problems and propensity to violence. Eighteen years after the decision, when those pregnancies legally aborted would have reached the age of 18, the start of the range of age of most violent offenders, the incidents of violent crime decreased. Controversial, to say the least. Critics of the theory tend to oppose abortion, so a full analysis is lacking.
These matters are all complex and intimately related. I doubt one explanation can account for the data. Yet, an honest look at comparing and contrasting the America of the mid-20th century and the one we live in today would show a vast overall improvement.
We have not suffered a “moral” decline. We have entered an age where we are overwhelmed with information absent any legitimate controls over the validity or veracity.
Fake news is a real phenomenon, but it is not characterized by just the things we disagree with. If there has been any decline, it is in our undervaluing the benefits of education.
The world becomes a more stable, safer, and fair place when we fundamentally understand our differences. There is no single path to a better America. Yet there is one certain path to our demise and decline, ignorance.
Until we set our minds to creating the best educational system and opportunity for success in the world, we will continue to look to the false memories of the good ‘ole days.
Our success lies in seizing the day, not clinging to the past.
Friends, Americans, Countrymen (in a non-gender specific, judgment-less way) lend me your ears. I come to bury the Police, not to praise them. The Evil that some cops do lives after them; The Good by most is oft interred with their bones. So let it be with the Police. The noble protesters hath told you the Police were ambitious. If it were so it was a grievous fault. And grievously would the protesters have the police answer for it. Here, under the leave of the protesters and the rest—For these protesters are honorable people, so are they all honorable people, Come I to speak at their defunding and disbanding. The police were my friends, I once stood among them, they were faithful and just unto the country and their charge. But the protesters say the Police are ambitious. And the protesters are honorable people. The police hath brought many captives off the street Whose deeds did vex the citizens and the land. Did this in the Police seem ambitious? When that the desperate and abandoned hath cried, the Police were there when no others came to help and wiped their tears. Ambition should be made of sterner stuff. Yet the protesters are honorable people. You all did see that on their service, we offered them little in appreciation, let them suffer the demons of their work, pilloried them for being human and prone to human frailties. Yet still they chose to stay, do their duty, and stand on that thin blue line. Was this ambition? Yet the protesters say the police are ambitious And sure, they are honorable people. I speak not to disprove what the protesters spoke, But here I am to speak of what I do know. You all did love them once, not without cause. What cause withholds you then to abandon them? O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts, And people have lost their reason. Bear with me. My heart is in the coffin there with the police, As will all of us should these honorable people have their way And I must pause till reason returns.
Thanks for reading, please share with everyone!
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The hope of America lies not in her great history or in the resiliency of her people, but in the ability of our system of government to survive regardless of the level of quality in our leadership. The founding fathers understood this more than anything else; if you rely on just the good nature of most people you will leave a way for those with evil intent to thrive.
America is like a pristine beach; warmed by the sun with a gentle surf changing the shore in subtle but continuous ways. Men such as Mr. Trump come along and build intricate sand castles that mesmerize those who cannot see their vulnerability. They become enamored of the spectacle, ignoring the fundamental flaw in the foundation.
When the storm arrives, as it will, such structures last but a moment in the face of the onrushing waves. Yet the shore, with just the millions of grains of sand bound by a common purpose, not only survives but over time erases the remains of the turbulence.
We are now facing the storm of rising mistrust in America by the rest of the world. By the disdain of former allies abandoned by ill-considered policies based on a self-aggrandizing charlatan and his sycophantic minions. By opposing governments feeding the ego of the President to interfere in our elections with his consent. By the constancy of American resolve to bear any burden abandoned in the face of challenges we once welcomed.
The sand castle that is the Trump administration will not withstand the coming storm, a storm of outrage and disgust by the American people who see their country roiled in the minefields of racism, injustice, virtual foreign invasion, and nationalism. The storm will sweep away the sand castle and the shores of America will bask in the sun of a powerful but considerate, wealthy but generous, and vigilant yet hopeful nation once again.
In 1956, the year I was born, the world was a much different place than it is today. My generation came into a nuclear-armed world where the possibility of global annihilation rested on the shoulders of opposing powers, Democracy and Communism.
Or so we were told as we learned to duck and cover under our desks in case of nuclear attack. A mere twelve years before, in 1944, the world still faced Hitler, the Final Solution, and raging war. The end of the war still more than a year, and hundreds of thousands of more deaths, away.
There were no cell phones, websites, or Facebook.
Imagine.
Twelve years later, in 1968, America was being torn apart as much as our military forces were tearing apart the country of Vietnam. The ’68 Tet Offensive, live on TV, brought the war into the American living room as the body count climbed. The military defeat of the Viet Cong lost in the outrage over America’s continued spending of the blood of our young men and women for a failed policy.
Twelve more years pass and, by 1980, Americans were held hostage in Iran, and a new President came into office promising to win their release. What first appeared to be the success of a firm and effective policy later turned out to be political subterfuge.
In 1992, a new chapter dawns. A President takes office who would reopen relations with Vietnam and start the healing process for those who fought there, and then go on national television and lie to the American people. An unnecessary and foolish lie.
Another twelve years, 2004, would find America embroiled once again in an endless war, with no clear goals and no end in sight. A President would commit troops to combat and tell the American people to go shopping.
He would go on to declare “mission accomplished.”
Twelve years later, 2016, the troops were still there. Except, of course, for the ones who’d been wounded or killed after the mission was accomplished.
We also had a new President. In the peculiar institution of our electoral process, more people voted against him than for him but he won the Electoral College. It gives one pause to consider if we should rethink the accreditation of this college.
Nevertheless, he is the President.
Since taking office, he has shut down the government unless Congress meets his demand for money to build a wall most people agree is an ineffective solution to a complex problem.
And so it goes.
It would seem Americans have an attention span of fewer than twelve years. We repeat the same mistakes, or conveniently forget about them
If I am fortunate enough to enjoy the full extent of my life expectancy, I have two or three more twelve-year cycles to go. Let’s hope we get better at it.
We are in Harrisville, New Hampshire for a few weeks. My wife is attending a weaving workshop, and I have the entire day to focus on finishing up my next book. (More on that later!)
Harrisville (pop. 961), right outside metropolitan Dublin, New Hampshire and a mere 5 miles from Peterborough, New Hampshire is a step back in time to a different America. An America of long ago not yet overrun by urban development.
Each morning we leave the Harrisville Inn, the B&B where we are staying, and walk about a mile to “downtown” Harrisville. Harrisville is best known for its loom making and weaving design center. The building was once a sawmill and grist mill built back in the late 1700’s.
An old channel flows beneath the building and was once harnessed to power the machinery. Converted to a weaving education center, it teaches and preserves the art of weaving.
A short distance away is the Harrisville General Store/Restaurant/Community and Cultural Center. If you want to find anybody who lives in Harrisville, come here. If they aren’t here for coffee in the morning, they’ll be here for lunch.
It is a place with everything you might need and nothing you might want. Somehow, they know the difference.
A place where people leave their keys in the car.
A place where they trust their kids to know how to cross the street and expect them to say please and thank you.
A place where they say hi to everyone, using first names when they know them, introducing themselves and asking if they don’t.
A place where the flag goes up each morning at 6 a.m. and down at 6 p.m. If it rains, they do not put it up. A tip of the hat to the old rules of respect. I dare say, people would dive into the road to save the flag from touching the ground.
A place where a chalkboard in the town square reports the latest deaths and births.
A place where an ice cream social is a major event.
A place where people will leave their dog with you, telling you the dog’s name as if introducing a family member, while they run in for a paper.
Neither the dog or their owner thinks this unusual.
Meet Hero, my new friend. We meet for coffee each morning on the front porch of the country store. Not much of a conversationalist, but a great listener.
The local conversations range from how much firewood they have split and stacked for winter to how the corn is coming up to how much of the just ripened berries the bears got last night.
It’s a place where they will tell you great places to fish, but not the best places to fish.
It is not the America of Mayberry, but it is as close as we can get in 2018. I am sure they have all the same concerns of politics and world events.
I am sure they have deep feelings about the way the country is going. They keep that mostly to themselves, preferring to speak at the voting booth.
I am also sure that they are the best example of how real Americans can weather any storm, bear any burden, survive any partisan political upheaval, and still remember what matters.
As I sit there, the Simon & Garfunkel song, “America,” plays in my head.
Or so we were told as we learned to duck and cover under our desks in case of nuclear attack. A mere twelve years before, in 1944, the world still faced Hitler, the Final Solution, and raging war. The end of the war still more than a year, and hundreds of thousands of more deaths, away.
Meet Hero, my new friend. We meet for coffee each morning on the front porch of the country store. Not much of a conversationalist, but a great listener.