By Edwin Cooney
Seventy-eight years ago today, the Empire of Japan surrendered to America and its allies thus ending World War II. Several of the world's leading nations socially and economically including Germany, Italy, Japan, and Soviet Russia were led by ambitious, cruel, and self-centered egotists. Most of the industrial world was just recovering from the Great Depression which began in October of 1929. Even worse, a cold war between capitalists and communists was in the process of being born. Backing these contrary systems of government and society were the forces of both personal and racial prejudice, generosity and expectation. On top of all that, we, the freest and most enlightened people on earth, had just created the atomic bomb which had the potential to destroy all human life! A new president named Harry Truman had just succeeded America's greatest modern president and lots of people were prepared to neither like or respect him. Although Adolf Hitler was dead by his own hand, Joseph Stalin was very much alive and determined to advance a “godless" system that threatened and frightened a lot of people like you and me! Yes, indeed, the world of 78 years ago was both chaotic and contradictory.
The middle years between 1945 and 1969 constituted a continuation of mid twentieth century enlightened liberalism as Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson built a highway system for our convenience and national defense, conquered space, established a Peace Corps, and launched the civil rights movement. Congress was focused on compromise, collegiality and jobs for working men and women. Republican and Democratic presidents and congressional leaders shared drinks at the White House with one another several times a week after working hours. Colleges and universities were designed to fill careers in the social services for a sense of national well-being.
Beginning in 1969, the painful adjustments brought on by the civil rights struggle and the legitimacy of Vietnam became politicized via division. Conservatives and traditionalists began weaponizing the Christian religion and politics became a contest of morality versus secular humanism. This struggle was intensified by the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973. Then a presidential scandal arrived as a new political weapon. (Note: there had been scandals within presidential administrations, but no president until Richard Nixon, not even Warren G. Harding and Ulysses S. Grant, was considered a crook!)
Today, political cordiality has been replaced by angry partisanship. Today, it is almost immoral for political leaders to be accommodating — forget about being friendly or even polite to one another!
The year that Japan surrendered to the allies, science developed the atomic bomb, and the U.S. and Russia instituted the Cold War, there was still clearly a future to educate for and to build on.
As we approach 2024, the big question seems to be: who is mostly to blame for our national sins? It appears that Jimmy Carter's era of “malaise” (a word President Carter never uttered) is truly upon us. But wait a minute, as the late great Yogi Berra often insisted: it ain't over till it's over!
After all, there remains political and social justice to be done. There's environmental healing to be accomplished. There's the elderly to be assisted and the young to be nurtured. There are medical cures to be researched and applied.
Finally, there are wonders to be realized. After all, even those of us who are about to be age 78 and even older won't really and truly be “old” until we assert that the future doesn't matter!
Surely, we're too smart to be that old, aren’t we!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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