By Edwin Cooney
I’m trying to remember if
there has ever been a time when America wasn’t in a domestic or international
crisis. Of course, one can always identify some less than satisfying
social, political or human uncertainty and label it a crisis. Since no
one can predict what tomorrow will bring with any assurance that life will
continue safe, prosperous and secure, uncertainty creates in the minds of
millions a sense of ongoing personal crisis.
When life began for me on
November 28th, 1945, World War II had only been over since Sunday, September
2nd -- a mere 87 days. By the time I was 5 in November 1950, we had
already passed through several national and international crises including a
series of economically crippling strikes in 1946. Responsibility for rebuilding
Western Europe became an American challenge in 1947. Next came the Soviet’s
blockade of Berlin which lasted from April 1948 to May 1949. The conquest
of China by Mao Tse-tung’s Communists was complete on Saturday, October 1st
1949, and the explosion of Soviet Russia’s first atomic bomb in 1949 gave us a
real sense of crisis. Finally, the Korean conflict technically remains with us
62 years later, because only a truce exists between North and South Korea
rather than peace. The truth of the matter is that we Americans really and
truly wallow in crises!
Take the situation
brought on in 1957 when the Russians beat us into space with Sputnik 1.
Instead of taking it as a mere matter of fact, we panicked! “How,” we
wondered, “could the heathen hoards of Soviet Russia beat God-fearing America
into space?” What might be the ultimate result of Nikita Khrushchev’s
triumph? Surely there would soon be a “flying orbital Soviet bomb”
soaring over our “…fruited plains!” We’d better get off our behinds and
get moving again!
Ah, and then the
politicians swooped in! Their names included Nelson Rockefeller
(Republican of New York), Stuart Symmington (Democrat of Missouri), Henry
(Scoop) Jackson (Democrat of Washington State), and, of course, John Kennedy
from Massachusetts with all his youthful eloquence and sex appeal.
Despite the reassurances of that old soldier in the White House who told us
that Russia wasn’t really that far ahead of us, we all chose to be afraid and
so we were! According to author Evan Thomas, in the spring of 1954,
President Eisenhower had observed in a letter to Winston Churchill that “it is
remarkable how men have so little concern with logic, statistics and even
indeed for survival. We live by emotion, prejudice and pride!”
Some six years after
Ike’s letter to Churchill, convincing his fellow citizens that there was a
serious missile gap with the Soviets, JFK slid into the White House. His
success was due in part to Mayor Richard Dailey’s well-lubricated Cook County,
Illinois political machine thus creating a crisis in Richard Nixon’s psyche
which would have repercussions a decade later. The U-2 crisis had
occurred earlier in 1960 followed by another Berlin crisis in 1961, and, of
course, the Cuban crises of April 1961 and November 1962.
Crises kept coming on
each other’s heels. There was JFK’s assassination in November 1963
followed by Vietnam, Watergate, the American hostage crisis, Iran Contra,
election 2000 and, of course, 9/11, Iraq and Hurricane Katrina.
Today, Americans find
themselves chewing their proverbial fingernails up past their elbows over the
danger posed by ISIS or, as President Obama prefers to call it, ISIL. GOP
firebrands, like their Democratic Party cousins once or twice removed from some
50 years ago, see our fear as their opportunity to take a firm hold over the
fortunes of the great republic. Easily spooked by barbarianism, we are
sure that America is about to be gobbled up by an Islamic Caliphate.
Somehow Americans have come to believe that these radical Islamic rascals have
demonstrated their ability to rule the whole world by merely chopping off a few
heads in front of iPhones.
Having surrendered our
ability to unite behind a president of either of our major political parties,
we blame the presidents instead of blaming ourselves. Feeling deceived by
the politicians of both parties, we look to a new brand of national savior: the
network talk show host armed with his or her ideological talking points but
possessing no responsibility or accountability to the public.
Therein lies the real
energizing force of today’s crisis-driven mentality. We make too
little time available for perspective. Someone’s fate, whether
trivial or significant, invariably stands in the balance. Continuous
crises numb our sensitivities. Crisis for its own sake prevails at almost
every point of our existence.
I confess that the older
I get, the less I am overwhelmed by national political, social, and even
spiritual, crises! I’m even a little bored by them, primarily because
history demonstrates that ideologically oriented politicians rather than
statesmen take the lead in their solutions.
As for most of my fellow
citizens, I suspect they not only enjoy crises, they depend on them. Ask
yourself this question: what is more alluring -- crisis or wisdom?
Come on, now - you know
you’d rather be entertained by crisis than be bored by wisdom!
Oh, please don’t let this
get out of the room, but I, too, would rather be entertained than
bored!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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