“When you come to the fork in the road, take it.” Yogi Berra (sort of)
Ozymandius
I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.” -Percy Bysshe Shelley
America faces the most challenging crisis since the Civil War. Our government of checks and balances is now woefully unbalanced, controlled by those with checks and deep pockets.
The distortion of power between the uber-wealthy and the majority of Americans teeters on the brink of totalitarianism and total loss of our constitutional rights. And the most frightening thing about it is the willful blindness or stunning indifference of a significant number of American citizens.
We have a President who lacks even the slightest element of empathy or commitment to the greater good. His callous pronouncements about others, be they those recently deceased or the weakest and most vulnerable among us, are a sad commentary on his lack of humanity.
Like Ozymandius, he struts to engrave his name all over the country as if he deserves such honor, failing to learn from history the emptiness of such efforts by other maniacal egos. First, it was the unlawful and shameful renaming of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (it’s only a matter of time before the only events they can book there will be UFC and some failed country-western acts who mourn the loss of the Old South).
Then it was the unilateral decision to tear down the East Wing of the White House to build another testament to ego and self-aggrandizement. It is only a matter of time before he decides to dynamite Mount Rushmore, rename national parks (Trump-Yellowstone, Trump-Grand Tetons) after they pump out all the oil and decimate the environment, and imprint his picture on the one-hundred-dollar bill.
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
We have a neutered majority in Congress who sit silent in the face of these outrages, using the cowardly argument that they hold their tongue to prevent Trump from seeking vengeance on the states they represent.
Is there any worse example of cowardice than that?
These Senators and Congresspeople have forgotten the lessons of the great women and men who came before them and, while working for their particular districts, kept in mind the greater responsibility to do what is in the best interest of the American people.
We may be a nation of Irish-American, Italian-American, Jewish-American, Catholic-American, Muslim-American, African-American, and a host of other hyphenated Americans. Yet, we need to keep in mind that the word before the hyphen is but an adjective. The essence of all people in the country is American, and we deserve a President and a Congress that keeps that in the forefront of all their considerations.
Our commonality as Americans is our most cherished characteristic, and we should resist with all our will any effort to segregate us into the haves and have-nots.
2026 is America’s crossroads. Unless we send a clear message that we will resist this march toward an authoritarian President with unrestrained power, we may not survive as the country our founding fathers created.
When a President can order the military to kill wounded individuals, even if we accept they are enemies of the United States and wish us harm, how can we object the next time an American pilot is shot down, captured, then executed by others?
Combat, despite the horrors and fog it engenders, has rules of engagement. We cannot hold ourselves up as people to be admired and emulated if we descend into the behavior of those we most criticize.
Mr. Trump has denigrated, diminished, and demeaned the Office of the President of the United States and this country in the eyes of the world. That most people outside this country are shocked by the sudden decline in our standing is telling. That many people within the United States are blind or indifferent to it is horrifying.
The list of acts that confirm this contention is long and dismaying, but there is hope. There are positive signs of resistance within the once-admirable Republican Party and encouraging signs of a revitalized and refocused Democratic Party.
Let’s strive to put people in office who will re-establish the balance of power among the three branches, remember their oath is to the Constitution of the United States, not partisan political parties, and seek a consensus among differing perspectives to preserve and protect this country.
Now is the real moment to make America great again. If these last few months have not demonstrated the danger of the alternative, nothing will.
Okay, class, we are going to start the day with a pop quiz. Simple two question test on current affairs. Ready?
Who WAS Alejandro Carranza?
Who IS Juan Orlando Hernández?
Come on, now. This should be easy. Okay, times up. Can anybody tell me the answers? No? Okay, I’ll explain.
Alejandro Carranza was the name of a Columbian fisherman on a boat allegedly smuggling cocaine into the United States. While the identification is unconfirmed, as is the allegation of drug smuggling, Mr. Carranza now resides in the digestive tract of any number of species of fish or other ocean going carnivores having been obliterated by a US Navy missile(s).
Juan Orlando Hernández, on the other hand, is the former president of the Honduras arrested, tried, and convicted under our due process procedures after an extensive multi-year investigation by the Department of Justice for orchestrating and benefitting from smuggling 400 ton of cocaine into the United States.
Now, here’s an easy bonus question. Besides one being alive and breathing and one being disintegrated, what is the difference between them?
In Mr. Carranza’s case, the President of the United States unilaterally ordered him executed. In Mr. Hernández’s case, the President ordered him pardoned and released.
So the policy of the United States government, this most Christian nation born of the doctrine of Jesus of Nazareth and, apparently, less than enthusiastic about innocent until proven guilty, is to kill people on the lower end of the drug cartel hierarchy we “think” might be smuggling drugs and to pardon those of the upper echelon we CONVICTED of smuggling drugs.
I can see how this will indeed make us great again.
While we are at it, in keeping with our new naming policy of various departments within government, i.e. Department of War, let’s rename the Department of Justice to the Department of Smiting Offenders without Having a Trial (SO WHAT)
If you were to ask most Americans to name the longest war we have ever fought, they would say the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
They would be wrong by a factor of three. This one is still ongoing.
The longest war, a war the President declared at the time with the advice and consent of Congress, is the war on drugs. President Richard Nixon, in 1971, a few months before his fateful decision to authorize the Watergate break-in, announced drug abuse to be “public enemy number one” (don’t you miss the days when we declared public enemies?) and began increasing the funding for federal, state, and local law enforcement.
For ten years, the war on drugs was more public relations than combat. It took President Ronald Reagan, in 1981, fresh off his “success” with the Iranian Hostage crisis, to fully ramp up the effort.
Focusing almost exclusively on enforcement and incarceration, the number of people imprisoned for non-violent drug offenses went from 50,000 in 1980 to 400,000 in 1997. Reagan’s wife, Nancy, contributed in her own way with the wildly “effective” Just Say No campaign.
The U.S. Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, which allocated $1.7 billion to the War on Drugs and established a series of “mandatory minimum” prison sentences for various drug offenses. A notable feature of mandatory minimums was the massive gap between the amounts of crack and powder cocaine that resulted in the same minimum sentence: possession of five grams of crack led to an automatic five-year sentence. In comparison, it took the possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine to trigger that sentence. Since approximately 80% of crack users were African American, mandatory minimums led to an unequal increase in incarceration rates for non-violent Black drug offenders, as well as troubling indications that the War on Drugs was fundamentally racist.
This is not a Republican or Democratic policy issue; it is shared across the political spectrum.
When the use of civil process to seize drug dealers’ assets became available, it was like winning the lottery. We took cars and cash and, as the theory held, used them to enhance drug investigations. Making drug dealers pay for the investigations into drug dealing seemed genius.
It turned out to be our own form of addiction. Many agencies became more focused on seizing the assets to pay their budgets than on stopping drugs. They lost sight of the goal. If an agency became aware of a kilo of cocaine in a location, they could get a search warrant and seize it. But, if they waited a few days, they could seize the remaining cocaine AND get the money from the sale of the rest.
Don’t believe that happened? It did, all over the United States. A very astute Assistant U.S. Attorney in Rhode Island at the time predicted as much in a conversation we had one day.
Not every agency engaged in such questionable activity. Still, it was enough to create a challenge to effectiveness and a stain on the whole purpose.
Now I was a loyal soldier during these halcyon days of the war, having served in a police department and working in various units focusing on drug enforcement. But over time, it became apparent that we were fighting a single-front war on a multi-front battlefield.
The majority of people we arrested, while engaged in breaking the law, were as much slaves to the drugs as those in the higher echelons were to the revenue.
If one is going to fight a war, one needs a strategy that identifies the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses.
In the war on drugs, we face three enemies. First, those engaged in the manufacture and distribution of drugs, both domestic and foreign. Second, we face the powerful force of addiction. And lastly, we face an even more powerful force, greed.
Putting all of our resources into targeting just one aspect of this three-pronged front is self-defeating. Over the years, the type of drugs has changed, the methods of smuggling adapted, and the avenues for laundering the proceeds have grown more sophisticated. Yet we continue fighting with the same strategy.
It hasn’t made us drug-free. It has put us in the top five countries in terms of the number of individuals we incarcerate per capita. We are just behind El Salvador, Cuba, Rwanda, and Turkmenistan at 541 per 100k.
And, one might argue, one of the “benefits” to come from the war on drugs is private prisons. Now, there is something we should be proud to have invented. Good old capitalism at its best.
To put it in the context of a war. If we had focused all our efforts on fighting Japan during World War II, because it was the only nation that directly attacked us, what would have happened in Europe?
Some Presidential administrations and some state and local authorities recognize the need to expand the war to address these other fronts. But not consistently. Treatment facilities for addiction, alternative sentences for non-violent drug offenses, and targeting the banks, businesses, and financial institutions reaping the largesse of drug money are not conducive to public relations campaigns.
Blowing up boats makes for great theater, like a 21st-century Circus Maximus. It is all show and little substance. It makes people who don’t understand the complexities involved excited, gives the politicians a moment in the public spotlight (their own addiction,) and accomplishes nothing.
I dare say some would embrace the idea of putting drug dealers in the middle of a stadium and letting lions devour them for the entertainment of the masses. It would generate excellent TV ratings, even better than UFC. But it would have no effect on reducing the level of drugs being consumed in this country, would be another waste of efforts, and do nothing for the lions but make them lazy and fat.
Our fifty-five-year war on drugs drags on, casualties mount—and not just the ones clinging to an overturned boat miles from shore—and we are no closer to our goal.
The last time I wrote about this, 2016, we had just elected Trump to his first term. Somehow we survived, chose not to re-elect him to a second term, had four years of relative stability, then exhibited the most common symptom of insanity by repeating an action and expecting a different result.
I will give him this, we are not engaged in any active combat at the moment, but it would seem he desperately wants to try out the effectiveness of his renamed Secretary of War department by starting his own. (A bigly, better war. They say it’ll be the best war we ever had.)
We now find ourselves acting in the manner of enemies we long despised, where someone in the military chain of command orders a second strike to kill wounded combatants (I’ll grant the assumption for now, absent evidence to the contrary) in clear violation of the rules of engagement.
We have a President who supports the Secretary of War’s assertion that the decision for the second strike did not come from him, but from a field commander instead. This raises important questions about accountability and the chain of command in our military actions. There is no denial of the order. No announcement that this field commander has been relieved of duty pending an investigation. Nothing.
And keep in mind, while the designation of these alleged drug runners may be lawful, it does not mitigate the rules of engagement. Even if we assume the initial strike is lawful, no one has ever claimed these vessels posed a danger to the military assets engaged with them.
No one was shooting back at the Navy and one would be hard pressed to claim that two likely wounded men floating in the ocean posed any hazard to a 100,000 ton displacement aircraft carrier. They wouldn’t have even left a spot of the hull had they been run over by the ship (which would have been a less messy explanation of their demise.)
“Come to heading 250,” “Aye aye sir,” Bump! “What was that?” “I didn’t hear anything” “Sir, there’s a small red stain on the hull.” “No worries, we’ll paint it later”
2028 is on the horizon. Let’s hope we regain our senses before then. A new President, not a recycled one, will (hopefully) take office. We have frightened the world enough for this cycle.
We live in a time of chaos with a President whose behavior mirrors that of a petulant child rather than a statesman. The Oval Office, once a symbol of dignity and deliberation, becomes a stage for tantrums, impulsive decisions, and self-serving theatrics. The “childish miscreant” is not merely immature; they are dangerous in their recklessness, wielding power without restraint or reflection.
Want to make America great again? Then recognize that the single greatest threat to the success of that goal is sitting in the White House like Jabba the Hut.
If you agree with his policies (why and how do you even articulate his T.A.C.O. gyrations), then find someone with a modicum of civility and put them in the position. This poisoned tongue, inarticulate, uncouth, uncivil, unkempt, unkind, uncaring, unrefined, unsophisticated, unintelligent, unworldly, inept shell of a human is an embarrassment to this country, to the world, and to humanity.
The terms idiot, imbecile, moron, and their derivatives were formerly used as technical descriptors in medical, educational, and regulatory contexts. They have fallen out of favor, but I think we need to resurrect them to accurately describe the individual currently occupying the Oval Office.
There is something seriously deranged with that man, and more consequently, with any individual who can, with a straight face, ignore, tolerate, or justify the unmitigated idiocy of the verbal projectile vomit expelled from his mouth.
This poisoned tongue, inarticulate, uncouth, uncivil, unkempt, unkind, uncaring, unrefined, unsophisticated, unintelligent, unworldly, inept shell of a human is an embarrassment to this country, to the world, and to humanity.
Joe Broadmeadow
That anyone, A N Y O N E, in this country can stand silent in the face of him calling their fellow human beings retarded, piggy, stupid, or any other epithets is abhorrent. There is no justification, no rationalizing, no mitigating the damage this causes.
That anyone voted for this man after he openly and publicly mocked a handicapped individual is disgusting. And for those evangelicals out there who find it convenient to embrace this man because he echoes (but doesn’t practice) what you want to hear, I hope, should your belief turn out to be true, that you’re working on your defense for when your God asks you to explain your tolerance of this most unchristian behavior.
Those who either laugh it off as Trump being Trump or think it harmless are enablers. Those who are shocked by it but remain silent are cowards. Those who embrace it are the lowest form of life in the universe.
Suppose a high school freshman were to call someone retarded, or piggy, or stupid in front of the entire school, or mock a handicapped person. In that case, they’d be suspended in a heartbeat. But if you’re the President of the United States, using these terms against those who disagree or challenge him is somehow acceptable.
Until everyone in this country recognizes this boorish and uncivilized behavior for what it is and challenges it, this country will never be great again.
In one of the better examples of how failing to understand history can lead to repeating the same mistakes, we have this.
1960 The Catholics are Coming; The Catholics are Coming.
2025: The Muslims are Coming; the Muslims are Coming
This latest baseless hysteria arises from the election of Zohran Kwame Mamdani as Mayor of the City of New York.
In 1960, many saw John F. Kennedy as a threat to America because he was Catholic and would be subservient to the Pope. I’d love to hear Marilyn Monroe’s take on how strict a Catholic Mr. Kennedy was, but she is unavailable.
Before Kennedy there were other examples of hysterical fear based on race, national origin, or other unchangeable aspects of individuals.
No Irish Need Apply
Whites Only
And here we are amid an administration, set on widening the gaps between those who agree with their policies and those who are horrified by them, doing everything it can to fuel this raging inferno of ignorance and intolerance.
And the good ole’ evangelical Christians are right there leading the ‘moral’ charge. The “all men are created equal” line in the founding documents be damned,
I would venture to say much of this fear and loathing arises from those Christians who—having never actually read the Bible, or even a Cliff Notes version—fail to embrace the nuanced allegory of religious doctrines and went right to the inerrant word of God version. They are driven by the same religious hysteria that caused the Crusades, witch hunts, and the stoning of heretics.
And they add the finishing touch of wrapping themselves in the flag of patriotism.
That they cannot see the contradiction in their proclamations is astounding.
“Mamdani is a democratic socialist!” they scream, making the same mistake as those who embraced McCarthyism, lumping the propaganda-driven definitions of communism and socialism and bundling them into one. Given the challenge to define either term, they’d fail. Most would point to countries like Russia, China, or North Korea as examples of communist or socialist states.
They are not. In the history of the world, no true communist or socialist state has ever existed.
Communism is defined as,
“a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned, and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.”
Socialism is defined as,
“a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.”
Some aspects of these systems sound attractive; the problem is that every form of government involves people, and they are not naturally inclined to live in such systems.
Democratic Socialism is defined as,
“Democratic socialism is a socialist economic and political philosophy that supports political democracy and some form of a socially owned economy, with a particular emphasis on economic democracy, workplace democracy, and workers’ self-management within a market socialist, decentralised planned, or democratic centrally planned socialist economy.”
Not if you can set aside your fear-based revulsion of socialism, and take a step back, you would see we have a blended version of a socialist democracy. We have a free-market economy with many restrictions and controls in place. Just a brief look back in history at the abuse of labor by big businesses, the monopolies created in some industries, and the environmental damage done absent legislated controls will demonstrate the reality.
Whether Mr. Mandami is a Muslim, a Christian, or a non-believer does not, by our laws and practices, matter. All that matters is he follows the laws and rules of government in setting policies.
Whenever I hear the nonsense claims that “sharia” law is coming to New York, I find it hard to believe there are people who believe such idiocy. Then again, many of these are the same people who would welcome a Christian-based government imposing Christian-based rules and morality on the nation.
They are blind to their own hypocrisy. But, just in case, they are investing some money in a Pakastani company that exports hijabs.
By most estimates (except, of course, by those who routinely produce attendance numbers of the crowds at MAGA Events that are beyond believable), seven million Americans took to the streets all across the country to protest the abomination that is the Trump Administration.
And the reactions of those who support Mr. Trump were pathetically predictable.
Speaker Mike Johnson called them “unAmerican.”
Veterans Affairs Secretary Douglas Collins wrote on X,
“Good Morning to my fellow Americans who are celebrating No Kings Day today. While most of us celebrate this reality on July Fourth, you do you.”
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Douglas Collins.
Note to Mr. Collins and Mr. Johnson.
The Fourth of July celebrates the end of the Revolutionary War where we fought to rid ourselves of a King. It was the culmination of decades of protests and resistance over unfair government policies and the use of military troops occupying the cities and towns in America. Actions that ultimately ended with troops firing upon protesting civilians under orders of this Monarch.
Perhaps you missed this in history class. Perhaps you prefer willful ignorance. Perhaps, since you enjoy the favor of this wannabe King, you long for a return to a monarchy.
Does any of this sound familiar? Could this be one of those moments of history that rhyme?
There is nothing more American than peacefully protesting the wrongful actions of the government. You’ll also notice the lack of violence by these millions of Americans and the low number of arrests. These protests are clearly anti-fascist in nature, yet none of these protests in any way resembled the actions of a “militarist, anarchist enterprise that calls for the overthrow of the U.S. government…” as Mr. Trump has designated them.
Mr. Trump sees opposition to his policies as anarchy, something to be suppressed by all means. Those of us who have actually read the Constitution and support it understand better that these disagreements are the very foundation of our success.
At least up to this point in history, the future is more precarious.
Perhaps Mr. Johnson would have preferred these protests take the form of violent storming of the US Capitol building and the threatened lynching of government officials? It is clear Mr. Trump, by pardoning the J6 insurrectionists, and Mr. Johnson, by supporting such actions, prefer that form of “American” protests.
Their concept of a patriot also has precedents in history, generally attired in brown shirts and particularly proficient at breaking glass.
We should take heart in the number of Americans peacefully voicing their open disgust at this march toward totalitarianism. Seven million Americans of courage and conviction took the most patriotic of actions and “petitioned their government for a redress of their grievances.” Something those patriots of the Revolutionary War gave their lives to obtain for future generations, Mr. Collins, but you’ll ignore that reality out of blind fealty to your dear leader.
Take heart, for this large gathering of Americans is the sign of hope rising.
Come this mid-term election, and, more importantly, the next Presidential election, the world we see that the American people can weather the worst of storms raging against us, even those we create ourselves, and restore these United States to the country our forebearers intended it to be.
Mr. Trump and his maniacal band of charlatans will become just another scab on a long history of self-inflicted wounds in this country, soon enough to heal and fade away.
I simply wanted someone to explain why Trump remained popular and the reasons Americans would or should support him. I wanted just cool, calm, logical discussion why Trump would be good for the country and why we should vote for him.
Many of you wanted to know the result of my asking the question and to see the response. Well, after almost 10,000 views of the piece here is the results.
RADIO SILENCE
Not one person made any effort to explain Trump. Either they wouldn’t or couldn’t. But I bet I get some nasty reactions to this one.
We are left with the mystery of why rational, intelligent, and competent American voters would consider putting this man back in the White House after the disaster of the first four years and the chilling sight of people storming the Capitol when the vote didn’t go their way. And before you start parroting the nonsense about a stolen election, show us the evidence. Try something different for a change instead just repeating a lie over and over.
What can we conclude from this? I have no idea, and I am still befuddled by the man’s continued popularity. But then again, right up until the bombs started to fall on Berlin, another maniacal tyrant enjoyed great popularity espousing similar philosophies about protecting the “purity of the blood” and eliminating vermin from the country. He didn’t have any evidence either, just bigotry and brutality.
But I know a place where we can go That’s still untouched by men We’ll sit and watch the clouds roll by And the tall grass waves in the wind You can lay your head back on the ground And let your hair fall all around me Offer up your best defense But this is the end This is the end of the innocence
Don Henley, The Age of Innocence
Ever since the phenomenon of Making America Great Again took root with many Americans, I’ve been trying to figure out when, exactly, America was “greater” than it is today, by what definition, and when the decline began.
For the first few years, we were a loosely affiliated collection of former colonies whose primary goal was subjugating or eliminating the indigenous people who were here long before anyone “discovered” America.
We’d fought a war for independence, assisted by the centuries old competition between France and Great Britain, then largely ignored by both. We fought another war with England in 1812-1814 that resulted in no significant territorial changes, contributed to the demise of the Napoleonic era, and yet, on a positive note, started two centuries of a strong partnership with England.
After the War of 1812, we committed on a grander scale what amounted to genocide of Native Americans and, tragically, continued our policy as a slave holding nation unlike most of the western world.
Not much greatness so far.
In 1860, the slavery issue reached a boiling point and plunged us into the most destructive war ever fought in this country. 450,000 Americans died in the war with over a million wounded. But this country was also the site of even more horrendous acts of violence. One almost never mentioned in high school history classes.
Depending on various sources—actual numbers are difficult to determine—somewhere between 10-114 million Native Americans died because of US Government action (note: most historians estimate between 6-11 million deaths during the Holocaust because of actions by the German Government, thus making the Nazi Holocaust the second largest mass murder in history. Let that sink in for a moment.)
Certainly not much greatness here, but at least there was a glimmer of hopeful things to come with the end of slavery. Although the road to freedom traveled the treacherous territory of Jim Crow Laws, the rise of the KKK, and almost universal discrimination against those of African descent. Yet it was a start.
We fought a war with Spain. “Remember the Maine” was the battle cry when the ship exploded in Havana, Cuba Harbor. But unlike the looming attack in Pearl Harbor some years later, questions arose as to the validity of the incident. While initially blamed on a mine or torpedo, and trumpeted by an outraged media deluge, subsequent investigation determined it was more likely a coal bunker fire aboard ship.
As a result of the war, Spain ceded the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam to the US (which many agree was the entire purpose of the zealous claim of attack even though evidence to the contrary was known to those in command.)
Geopolitics at its best, but I wonder if one can claim that as indices of greatness.
In 1941, the Japanese would attack Pearl Harbor and thrust the US actively into the war, although we had been providing matériel to England since the war’s inception.
Here perhaps America took on the mantel of greatness. But the history taught to many of us, me included, gave the impression that the US won the war single-handedly. But if one examines the reality of the war and takes into consideration the number of dead resulting from it, it becomes clear that no one nation was responsible for victory.
History would show it took English Intelligence, American Steel, and Russian Blood to defeat the enemy. We certainly became the dominant power after the war, and if by greatness one uses military might as a measure, no country on earth could challenge us.
Then, with the Marshall Plan, America showed true greatness. Rather than harsh treatment of the Japanese or German people, we tried those responsible for the war and helped rebuild the infrastructure of the defeated countries.
Clearly, we showed signs of how great we could be. Yet the undercurrent of racial discrimination still pulled us down.
We stood firm in Korea against a communist invasion, albeit defending a section of a country arbitrarily divided after World War II, and fought to a stalemate that technically exists today. It would be just prior to this war that President Truman desegrated the military over the objections of many military commanders and public outcry.
It was another glimmer of hope,
In Vietnam, we attempted to recreate the Korean situation, failing to recognize the significant differences between the circumstances. In Korea, there was little local resistance supporting the communist aggression. In Vietnam, the Viet Cong, once known as the Viet Minh, with a long history of resistance to foreign invaders, offered significant military challenges throughout all of Vietnam.
The American military fought with bravery and determination but were left floundering because of the limitations of the US policy on the war (not directly invading the north) and the level of determination by the Viet Cong and their supporters.
Vietnam changed America, for many reasons. Draft deferments for those in college created a chasm between those drafted and sent to Vietnam and those who could avoid it. While significant numbers of those who could avoid service volunteered, there remained a divide within American society. And during this war, simmering racism contributed to tensions among the troops.
On the home front, riots rocked major cities as racial tensions flared.
The 1990s saw the first Iraq War. We liberated Kuwait after the Iraqi invasion and ended the war when it turned into a massacre. Some would argue we should have kept going, but the UN mandate deemed otherwise and we showed great restraint in following it (as we would expect all UN nations to do.)
With 9/11, America was again challenged and rose to the occasion. Afghanistan was both justified and necessary under any measure of international law.
But then the wheels came off with our misadventure into Iraq. Once again, the American military performed flawlessly. While incidents of prisoner mistreatment tarnished our reputation, it was not representative of the overall actions of our men and women in uniform.
Using torture to extract information, however, was more than a blemish. It contradicted everything this country represents. Despite many more rational people calling for abandoning such practice—one that anyone with any common sense will realize is the least effective way of obtaining information—the reality was we as a nation forgot the moral standards we demanded from everyone else because we could.
More has been written in the last few days about some picture on a beer can than about two people shot—one fatally and one seriously wounded—for going to the wrong address or innocently getting into the wrong car. That is hardly an indication of a great nation.
Joe Broadmeadow
Along with the troubling international escapades came a new antagonism and abandonment of compromise in the political world. We were no longer a people of different opinions working toward a common goal. We demanded absolute loyalty to one perspective and ignored, or actively thwarted, any who disagreed.
If one looks at history just from this perspective, it is difficult to see exactly when America was great and when the decline began.
Yet it is important to remember we also put humans on the moon and made enormous strides in science and medicine. All examples of America’s greatest asset, its people.
What I think our problem has always been is that we forget the details of history, particularly the horrors and tragedy of warfare, and embrace the elements that place us in the best light. Our memory is like an old war movie, devoid of the blood-drenched horrors of lost limbs, horrendous wounds, and the screams of dying soldiers calling for their mother.
In school, much of the history I learned about colonization of the US and the western expansion ignored what amounted to a genocide on a scale that exceeded the Nazi Holocaust.
Not Making America Great
What they taught about slavery amounted to a few Lincoln speeches, the Emancipation Proclamation, and Reconstruction told in a Cliff Notes manner.
The Civil War brought an end to slavery and replaced it with the shackles of discrimination.
Time and reading more developed studies of history have put things in a better perspective. The Civil Rights Act happened in my lifetime. Brown v Board of Education was only two years before I was born. Integrating Boston schools happened the year I graduated from high school. The last school desegregation case, in Mississippi, happened in 2019. 2019!
One cannot claim to be a great country when such inequality exists. What one can claim is these same examples are signs of our great potential. We have risen to the occasion in times of war. We need to do the same when we can focus on domestic issues.
Now we face another crisis. One of violence, particularly gun violence. It is not just a question of bad people with guns, or simply a mental health issue. It is infinitely more complex than that.
Thus, even if one argues guns don’t kill people, people kill people, people are still dead in the end because of violence. Nobody is better at killing Americans than their fellow Americans, with guns or otherwise. But the comparison to other nations should still shock everyone. We are an inherently violent nation for reasons we refuse to even try to investigate.
We went to war when terrorists killed 3000+ Americans on 9/11. Yet we are willing to ignore the senseless violence within the country that takes almost eight times that number on an annual basis. We wring our hands, wrap ourselves in the Second Amendment like some security blanket, and sigh.
We may learn that placing more controls on who has weapons may not make any difference, or we might discover the opposite is true. But in either case, ignorance just allows this senseless violence to continue. If America seeks to be a great country, wouldn’t determining a solution be a sign of such a goal?
Yet our focus is on matters with little potential for harm to others.
More has been written in the last few days about some picture on a beer can than about two people shot—one fatally and one seriously wounded—for going to the wrong address or innocently getting into the wrong car.
That is hardly an indication of a great nation.
This is a public health crisis of the most significant kind and one which, until we resolve it or at least dedicate ourselves to finding solutions, will forever taint any claim to greatness, past or future. That Congress refuses to even fund research into the fundamental reasons behind the level of violence in such an advanced society is beyond me.
It casts an enormous shadow over any claim to greatness. It is almost as if we don’t want to know the answer.
What we suffer from is a longing for the innocence of our past, albeit a nostalgic past whitewashed of reality. It is time we end the innocence of our ignorance and seek a lasting legacy of greatness that is well within our grasp if we only open our eyes, dig deeper into ourselves, and listen to each other.
Please take a moment to share my work on social media. The more who read this, the bigger the opportunity to share with others. 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.
The events of the last few months—the classified document hoard recovered by search warrant at Mar-E-Lunacy, the indictment (indicatament) from NYC decades in the making if one knows anything of history, and the more than likely upcoming indictments of a much more severe nature if there is any justice in this world—have led me to a cataclysmic decision (to borrow the wise words of the Wizard of OZ.)
I will not waste another moment, make any brain effort, construct another syllable, or expend even one iota on writing about the albatross around America’s neck, the permanently Ex President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump, more accurately represented as a cuckoo bird, acts similarly by placing his ideas and deranged concepts in the nests that are the fertile minds of America’s uneducated, uninformed, false patriots and bigots, in the hopes they would nurture them as their own and abandon any rationality to the infectious and dangerous rhetoric. Sadly, many did. But things are changing.
Mr. Trump has had his moment. He took four years and forever demeaned and destroyed any semblance of rationality and honor in politics. He sullied the once imperfect but admirable reputation and political process that served this country well. He destroyed our international reputation for reliability and gave an opening to our enemies in the fascist and communist governments that have always sought to weaken us.
Instead of Making America Great Again—we had never lost our greatness until 2016—he made us vulnerable.
But he also may have inadvertently done us a service. America’s youth as a country is over. We are no longer the new democracy leading the world as we became after World War II. We are now transitioning from the self-centered hormone-ravaged puberty of the country into adulthood. We now have to face the reality of a global economy where other countries follow what used to be almost exclusively American; scientific and intellectual innovation and domination.
Those who still bask in Mr. Trump’s orange glow will soon realize—except, perhaps, the hardcore delusional—the light is fading. The Tsunami of 2016, the MAGA movement, crashed on the rocky shore of Justice and shattered into fragments of itself.
Whether or not Mr. Trump serves even a moment in prison if convicted of these charges will not matter. History is a cruel and merciless judge, and the judgment of Mr. Trump’s place in history will not be kind.
And even if Mr. Trump finds a way to “walk”on these charges, those who truly care about this country will accept the verdict yet holdfast to the reality that ‘not guilty’ does not mean the same thing as innocent.
So, take this to heart. Even though I know it will be hard to ignore the trial antics, grammatically error-prone rants, and the death throes of the MAGA infection, I will not write another word about the man.
It is a very good riddance, sir. Time for us to Move On!
The Mariner, whose eye is bright, “Whose beard with age is hoar, Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest Turned from the bridegroom’s door.
He went like one that hath been stunned, And is of sense forlorn: A sadder and a wiser man, He rose the morrow morn.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
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.
The Writing of Joe Broadmeadow 