THANKSGIVING – ITS MEANING IS VERY, VERY PERSONAL!

By Edwin Cooney

Thanksgiving Day is not only one of my favorite days of the year, it’s frequently for me a very personal day.  Five times every 28 years I celebrate my birthday on Thanksgiving Day.  Even after all these years, I’m still trying to grasp the depth of its purpose and its meaning.

To say “thank you” is, of course, an expression of gratitude.  It’s a testimony to the value you and I place on an event, our appreciation of the society in which we live and of our very lives.

Our first Thanksgiving was held in the fall of 1621 when Pilgrim Governor William Bradford invited a bunch of Wampanoag Indians over to their settlement for dinner (or if you prefer “to their place”) to celebrate the Pilgrims’ first bountiful new world harvest. 

That historic Thanksgiving was a multi-day occasion.  Although there was likely no pumpkin or mince pie, no cranberry jelly, and probably no dressing, it’s possible that they might have had roast eagle instead of turkey along with their lamb, venison, goose, turnip, squash and various kinds of fish.  Whether the Indians brought along any “fire water” or perhaps even some local wine isn’t recorded, but it’s hard for this observer to imagine that the Pilgrims and the Indians feasted and danced for three days only drinking water and tea!

Our “Pilgrim Fathers” insisted that the purpose of the occasion was to thank both the Indians and the Almighty for assisting Bradford and company in getting through their first New England winter and successfully sowing and reaping a generous harvest.  From all reports, the occasion went well.  Everyone apparently had enough to eat and drink, supposedly everyone danced with the partner of his or her choice, and a good time was had by all.  The question then is what, if any, was the long-term value of the Pilgrim’s expressed gratitude?

There were two more pre-Revolutionary War Thanksgiving Day celebrations.  In 1623, in the wake of a nourishing rain following a long drought in Pilgrim New England, Governor Bradford invited his Wampanoag Indian friends to another Thanksgiving feast.

However, just 53 years later, the Puritans who’d taken over the New England colony from the separatist Pilgrims invited only one Wampanoag Indian to their 1676 Thanksgiving Day celebration.  He was Metacom, the son of the great Massasoit, the Wampanoag leader who had originally befriended our Pilgrim Fathers. Metacom, who was then known by the Puritans as “King Phillip” for his European style of dress and bearing, was the very reason for that Thanksgiving feast.  Having turned on the Puritan settlers, he led a long period of warfare against white New Englanders before he was finally conquered and slain.  It was Metacom’s head atop a pike that served as sort of a centerpiece in 1676 at our third day of thanksgiving.

In 1621 and 1623, Thanksgiving Day signified friendship, unity and peace.  Beginning in 1676, Puritan Massachusetts altered the meaning and perhaps the very nature of “thanksgiving.”

Friday, October 18^th, 1777, the newly minted United States of America would celebrate its first official “day of thanksgiving.”  The occasion was our victory over British General John (“Gentleman Johnny”) Burgoyne at the Battle of Saratoga, New York.  The hero of the day was General Horatio Gates.  The long-term benefit of the victory was the heretofore reluctant intervention of both France and Spain on the side of the American cause.  Thus, the fourth celebration of Thanksgiving was gratitude for triumph in war.  The score at that point was peace and friendship, 2, gratitude for victory in war, 2.

In November 1863, President Lincoln, responding to the insistence of Sarah Josepha Hale (the editor-in-chief of a publication called the American Lady’s Magazine), declared that Thursday, November 26^th would be a National Day of Thanksgiving.  Surely Thanksgiving Day in 1863 celebrated the increasing advancement of Union troops over the Confederacy (which included our army and naval conquests of Mobile, Vicksburg, and Gettysburg) as well as Lincoln’s issuance of The Emancipation Proclamation.

Certainly no commentator can suggest, with much hope of influencing readers, what we ought to be thankful for this Thursday.  However, I can’t resist the following observation.

If we only focus on the blessings of yesterday, whether they be victory in war or the hard-earned freedoms and prosperity we enjoy today, what does that say about our hopes and expectations for tomorrow?  Perhaps, then, the real significance of yesterday’s blessings is the opportunity that is still ours to make future Thanksgiving Days even more worthwhile.

Two Thanksgiving Days ago on Thursday, November 22^nd, 2012, at the Erie, Pennsylvania home of two very close friends, a very special lady and I agreed to share the rest of our lives together.  As wonderful as the memory of our engagement is, the opportunity it offers for gratitude throughout so many tomorrows gives an extra special meaning to Thanksgiving Day!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

UNITED – ARE WE REALLY?

By Edwin Cooney

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Yes indeed, that’s our solemn pledge of loyalty to America as the guardian of the sanctity of our families, our friends and our political and spiritual faiths.  Perhaps the pledge is the most sacred classroom moment since the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the required utterance of prayer in America’s public schools.  Even more, as we pray at church, during the seventh innings of major league ball games, and during intermissions of NFL and NBA games that “God Bless America,” we preach to ourselves and to the whole world as to the superior beauty, culture and spirituality of our nation. The question is, do we really believe what we sing, preach and pray?

Even as some of us display the Confederate flag in public buildings, on automobiles and on apparel in competition with the U.S. flag, we insist that the United States of America was created by the Almighty as the land of opportunity and liberty for all.  We insist that it ranks above Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the great British Empire of the 17^th, 18^th, 19^th and half of the 20^th centuries.  It’s even greater than the nation of Israel established by God and for God’s chosen people.  Ah, but what do we really think of America?  What do we say about it in the privacy of our homes, in our places of recreation, and even more in our hearts and minds?  Will it forever be the land of the happy and united, free, and the home of the united brave?

Not long ago I got a letter from a reader of these writings who looked at the world, and ultimately at us, in a most disheartening way.  I wish I could dismiss what he writes as the fulminations of a desperate radical, but I’m far from certain that I can.  Here’s what my friend, I’ll call him “Mr. Jersey,” writes in response to some observations I recently made about unity governments:

Regarding Iraq, the only conclusion that can be drawn from your observation about unity governments is that they are ephemeral and thus impossible to sustain. Thus, Iraq as a nation is simply a loony, contrived European idea destined to fail. All the countries in the Middle East are make-believe nations as was Yugoslavia after WWI, and all their borders will be changed over the next decade or less.

Eventually, the evolving bifurcation between the political Left and Right in the U.S. will bring about the same effect at the next severe economic crisis.  We will have the same massive blood-letting we now see in the Middle East resulting in our own national sundering into 3 or 4 geographic regions with separate governments, just as was the case under the Articles of Confederation. Why so extreme a view? Just as you yourself asserted, as Americans we are beginning to view each other as irreconcilable political and economic adversaries, not as fellow Americans with a differing opinion. "We certainly show precious little love or regard for our fellow Americans unless their religion, politics and personal lifestyles mirror our own!"

For example, on a personal level, I am not at all interested in compromise with the Republicans. I want them arrested along with half of the Supreme Court as enemies of the people with public hanging as the minimum sentence. I'm getting tired of the Constitution too. Ideas and trends are either adopted or crushed. There is never a real compromise.

Isn’t he a nice fuzzy cuddly liberal?

I’ll bet most of my conservative friends are shocked that liberals are as aggressive as Mr. Jersey comes off here.  After all, haven’t liberals since the days of Vietnam been “peaceniks?”  I’ll bet Mr. Jersey believes of conservatives, as does Ann Coulter about liberals, that they ought to be in an asylum for the feeble-minded.  I’d join my conservative cousins in condemning Mr. Jersey’s draconian reactionism, except that conservatives react toward liberals the same way Mr. Jersey reacts toward conservatives.  Hence I’m alone wrapped in my wimpy and cuddly security blanket of tolerance mewing like a kitten for peace abroad and especially at home.

One of the most constant threads that runs through our history from Jamestown and early Puritan Massachusetts through the 17^th, 18^th, 19^th, 20^th and 21^st Centuries is the suspicion we have of our neighbors, whether they be Catholic, Masons, Jewish, Irish, Mormon, Central and Eastern European, Asian, Gay, Lesbian, disabled, able-bodied, or black.  We expect them to betray us, cost us money, subvert our political and religious beliefs and commit a dozen additional crimes that will violate our space, our values and wreck our future.

Okay, here’s the skinny!   As tragic as it has been from the very beginning to the very present, the truth is that we Americans love America.  All we really hate are our fellow Americans!

In that historical web of prejudice, mistrust, and suspicion toward those who even appear to be a little different from the norm, we’re almost totally united!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

Posted November 17, 2014

SO, WHAT ELSE ISN’T NEW?

By Edwin Cooney

As an enthusiastic partisan of President Barack Obama, I’m disappointed that the president’s prestige is sufficiently low for him to be blamed for his party’s debacle in last Tuesday’s election.  Disappointing or discouraging as the results are for Democrats and Progressives, most two-term presidents have suffered serious political, and very often personal, setbacks in their sixth year in office.

The relevant question here is, how popular or politically strong have past two-term presidents been at the end of their sixth year?  The answer is their apparent lack of influence has been pretty constant throughout history.  For the sake of brevity I’ll review the political fates of only recent two-term presidents although sixth year woes go back to George Washington’s unhappy second presidential term.  As the legendary Alfred E. Smith, the “wet Catholic” governor of New York and losing Democratic 1928 candidate, used to say: “let’s look at the record!”   

In the 20^th Century, absolutely no two-term president escaped embarrassment in his sixth year.  Teddy Roosevelt’s GOP gained three votes in the Senate in 1906 but lost 25 in the House.  Keep in mind that back in 1906, U.S. senators were still largely elected by state legislatures, not by popular votes.  Hence, to some extent the 25 seat Democratic gain was something of a referendum on TR.

In the year 1918, Woodrow Wilson’s sixth year in office, the president as Democratic Party leader made the conduct of World War I an issue asserting that only Democrats could bring peace.  That November 5^th, Democrats lost 19 seats in the House and a vital 4 seats in the Senate.  Thus, Wilson’s mortal Republican enemy, Henry Cabot Lodge, Sr. of Massachusetts, gained the chairmanship of the Senate foreign relations committee and the president’s postwar dream, the League of Nations, died an inglorious death.

In 1938, Franklin Delano Roosevelt inadvertently scuttled the New Deal.  To begin with, he was still suffering politically for his 1937 Supreme Court packing plan.  Second, the country was in a severe recession because he had decided to stop financing the economy.  He then tried unsuccessfully to purge the southern conservative element of the Democratic Party.  Thus, that November, Democrats dropped 72 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate.  The GOP, which had been steadily declining since 1930, gained six seats in the Senate, a modest gain, but gained 80 seats in the House going from a mere 89 to 169.  (Not all of these were Democratic Party seats; some were held by fringe parties.)  Although the Wagner Labor Relations Act was passed in 1938, the New Deal was over.  “Dr. New Deal” became “Dr. Win the War.”

In 1950, during the Korean War, Harry Truman’s Democrats lost four vital seats in the Senate while the Republicans gained five and came within one vote of taking over that body.  As if that wasn’t bad enough, President Truman’s party lost 31 seats in the House, dropping from 265 to 234.

Dwight David Eisenhower was always personally popular, but his influence wasn’t enough to prevent an overwhelming Democratic victory in 1958, his sixth year of presidential service.  The GOP lost 13 seats in the Senate and 48 in the House.

By Richard Nixon’s sixth year, he was gone from the presidency. However, his party was severely spanked in the 1974 election.  Although it only lost five Senate seats, it lost 46 in the House. Ronald Reagan in his sixth year saw his party lose its majority, dropping from 53 to 46 Senate seats.  In the House, Republicans dropped from 183 to 177 seats.  That was the year of Iran Contra.

In 1998, Bill Clinton was about to be the target of two articles of impeachment.  Gleefully and hungrily, Republicans anticipated big gains from Clinton’s alleged misconduct. Republicans were shocked when they lost five seats in the House while holding steady in the Senate.

Bedeviled by the Iraq War in his sixth year as president, George W. Bush saw his party lose both Houses of Congress.  Republicans lost six Senate seats with their majority going from 55 to 49. Democrats picked up 5 seats, going from 44 to 49.  Two Independents, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, would caucus with the Democrats, giving them the majority.  Nancy Pelosi became the first woman Speaker of the House when Democrats gained 31 seats, going from 202 to 233.  Republicans lost 30 seats, ending up with 202.

President Obama’s setback in the 2014 congressional elections is substantial.  However, unlike Franklin Delano Roosevelt (whom many still regard as the most capable 20^th Century president and politician), Obama didn’t come close to losing 72 seats last Tuesday.  Nor did he come close to losing 48 House seats as the popular Dwight D. Eisenhower did in 1958.  (Note: he did come close to the Roosevelt record in 2010 when the Democrats lost 63 seats to the GOP, but Obama recovered enough to win re-election in 2012.)  At this writing, Republicans are expected to increase their seven-seat majority by nine votes giving them a sixteen-seat advantage.  In the Senate, the Democratic majority is expected to evaporate by seven seats giving Republicans a 53 to 47 majority.

As the centerpiece of the recent victorious Republican campaign, President Obama appears likely to be politically shackled for the remaining 26 months of his Presidency or so his opposition believes.  Don’t count on it, however.  President Obama still has the presidential veto pen and the power to rule by executive orders which needs a two-thirds total vote in both Houses to override.  The continuing economic recovery may also be a presidential ally, although the economy as anyone’s ally can be pretty fickle!

As to whether the president deserves this setback, sure he does.  However, a setback is just that – it is by no means a sentence.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, remember no one is elected president because he is made of “sugar candy.”  Anyone who thinks the president is “cowed” by Tuesday’s vote is delusional!

If you’re in doubt as to the president’s nerve and determination, remember who finally engineered the elimination of Osama bin Laden!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

CERTAINTY AND PERSPECTIVE ALL PART OF THE STRUGGLE

By Edwin Cooney

Most conscientious people struggle on a daily basis to understand the world around them.  There are, as I see it, two major types of seekers of understanding: seekers of truth and seekers of perspective.

Most of my friends, many of them readers of these weekly musings, are seekers of truth. (All glory to their names!) As a seeker of perspective, I find in their conclusions serious ambiguities.

Just for fun, I’m about to share with you some of the public issues that nettle a few of these earnest truth seekers.  I’m even going to go out on a limb and generously provide antidotes for their angst!

Let’s see now, I’ll call this friend “Mr. Radio.” (He loves NPR, National Public Radio.)  However, he has discovered the root of all evil:  religion.  Religion, he lately scolds me, is at the root of most international conflicts and much domestic political turmoil.  Not only is religion too often the horsewhip of the morally self-righteous, it flies in the face of all logic and reality.  If only, he insists, people would be rational and realistic and get over this need to be religious, we would have a much more peaceful world.

Ah, Mr. Radio, I share your pain.  Here’s the reality.  Religion is far from the main cause of domestic and international strife.  Although Mr. Radio is presently quite anti-religion (he also periodically threatens to stop voting as well!), his interest in money and food (two other causes of violent conflict) has never flagged! 

Another reader of these musings, I’ll call him “Mr. C” because he’s very proud of his political ideology, is quite preoccupied with abortionists.  Yes, indeed, according to him abortionists are the root of all evil.  (By the way, this gentleman is quite religious.)  To him, the modern Democratic Party, the party that encourages abortions, has come pretty close to being the root of all evil.  President Obama committed an unpardonable sin the day following his 2009 Inaugural when he withdrew the restriction of contraceptives and birth control material which the Bush administration had made as a part of our aid to Africa program.  According to Mr. C, hundreds of thousands of babies have been murdered by Barack Obama.  That action by the then new president subsequently muddied everything he has done since he made that decision. 

The difficulty with Mr. C’s judgment is that the war in Iraq, which he enthusiastically supported, invariably cost the lives of thousands of God’s little Iraqi babies.  Of course, he will respond that Sadam Hussein caused the war and must be regarded as the prime cause of these little Iraqis’ deaths. What he won’t look at is the genuine dilemma -- personal, psychological, social, practical and economic – that a poor or abandoned mother faces.  Her decision to use abortion to end her pregnancy often is an attempt to survive very unhappy and often degrading circumstances.

Mr. C’s myopia here, as I see it, is self-righteousness. He and other “pro-lifers” carelessly trivialize, minimize, and politicize other people’s personal tragedies.  The abortion question ought to be above politics. 

Then there’s my friend “BK,” an unabashed tea partier.  BK worries about class warfare.  Liberals, of course, primarily cause class warfare by politicizing the plight of the poor.  Why, he wonders, are the poor the public’s business, especially when they largely create their own plight through lack of ambition?

My antidote to BK’s assertions is twofold.  First, both the rich and the poor are very often inheritors of their stations in life.  From the first days of this republic, the government has legitimately protected the path to prosperity for industry and private enterprise by such means as protective tariffs, tax breaks and subsidizing worthy projects.  Adequate assistance to the poor, as I see it, is ultimately beneficial to private enterprise.  People with money inevitably become capitalism’s best customers.  Finally, I think that the greatest national defense against tyranny, foreign or domestic, is a happy citizenry.

It’s my experience that seekers of truth, although they invariably enjoy the satisfaction of certainty (which is often self righteous) too often saddle themselves with a gloomy outlook on the future.  Of course, value judgments on the practical and moral events of the day, as well as of the leadership that drives these events, is as natural as breathing. Still, it is vitally important to remember that all of today’s issues and events will be diluted by tomorrow’s headlines.

I insist that truth means little unless it provides you and me the space to objectively evaluate the past and optimistically anticipate the future with a balanced perspective.

What say you?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY