TRUTH -- HISTORY’S MOST FICKLE TRUSTEE

By Edwin Cooney

Perhaps the most precious aspect of human behavior is the capacity any one of us possesses for telling and living with the “truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!”  The degree to which honesty and truthfulness are valued is reflected in the reality that you and I readily both expect, until proven otherwise, that family, friends and associates value the truth as much as we do. 

A Churchillian anecdote I will relay shortly is the inspiration for the following set of questions and observations.

First -- How much do you suppose truth has to do with human history?  What role does truth ultimately play in determining the fate of humanity? 

Second -- If, as men and women of faith believe, a beneficent force we call God created humanity, is it likely that all truth was revealed to us or is it more likely that God granted us both mind and method to discover truth for ourselves?

Third  -- Moving from the metaphysical and spiritual to the socio/political, did Thomas Jefferson inscribe truth into the Declaration of Independence when he wrote that “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”?  There are those who will insist that Jefferson knew better than to assert that “all men are created equal” and that he was writing of equal opportunity, not the natural equality of every human being.  Thus the question: was Jefferson’s “truth” real truth or was it a promissory note that truth would be revealed some distant day when it was more convenient?

Fourth -- What role does truth play in our own lives?

Fifth -- Should we always tell and practice the truth?  Must truth be a constant presence in everything we think, say, and do?

Sixth -- Should the absolute truth be withheld on occasion?

Seventh -- Is truth always loving, kind and energizing or can truth destroy a worthy cause or a valuable personal relationship?

Eighth -- Are we wise or foolish to continue supporting friendships and loving family members who often spurn the truth?

Ninth -- Can truth be a weapon of the wicked or is it always the sword of the righteous?

Finally, tenth – Is truth either evil or good?

I’ve often quoted John F. Kennedy’s fascinating observation at Yale University that “...the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.”

President Kennedy went on to stress that we can more effectively master the realities of our time when we cast aside the myths and stale phrases of the past.  Obviously, President Kennedy saw truth as an invaluable guide to the future to the exact degree that we face it open to its full reality.  Only in the fullness of reality does the truth possess power.

As Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin met at Tehran, Iran in November 1943 to plan the invasion of Western Europe (tentatively scheduled for May of 1944), the most significant truths in Churchill’s official life were changing.  Imperial Britain was dying and, with Soviet Russia clearly surpassing Britain as a world power, Churchill’s friend FDR appeared to favor Stalin. Secrecy rather than idealism was clearly the first order of business if there was to be any chance for the proposed invasion of occupied Europe to be successful.  During a private meeting that Churchill had with Stalin on Tuesday, November 30, 1943 (Churchill’s 69^th birthday), he made the observation to the Soviet leader regarding plans for the upcoming invasion of Europe that “the truth is so precious that she must always be protected by a bodyguard of lies.”

Yes, indeed, according to Paul Reid’s The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965, that’s what Churchill said.  If the truth is sufficiently precious to be protected by a “bodyguard of lies,” is truth a matter of mere circumstance?  Is truth primarily situational?  I think I trust not, but I find it a compelling observation from an extraordinary mind and human being!

If truth is as precious as the air we breathe and the food we eat, it is also as available to us for our well-being.  It is available to the poor and the rich, the beautiful and the ugly, to the uneducated and the learned, as well as to the foolish and the wise.  Like its fellow attributes freedom and wisdom, though, truth, in its most significant and powerful guise, can be to our hopes and dreams a very, very fickle trustee!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

YOUR MOST NETTLESOME PEEVE –- OUGHT YOU MAKE IT A PET?

By Edwin Cooney

Just the other day, my bride of exactly nine months identified (for either my edification or education  -- take your pick!) one of her “pet peeves,” people who are insensitive to others’ time.  No, we weren’t quarreling and she wasn’t accusing me of anything –- although we both agreed that I’m guilty of her favorite peeve from time to time

My response to her was “what makes a peeve a pet?” I went on to insist that pets are favorite things.  There are, of course, pet dogs, pet cats, and, for a while in the 1970s there were even Pet Rocks.  Hence, if one has a “pet peeve,” isn’t one conceding that there is at least some pleasure and perhaps even some gratification in the frustration, resentment, or even in the anger?

The idea that one finds pleasure or satisfaction (or perhaps even both) in peevishness reminds me of the lyric in a song once recorded by Elvis Presley called “Mean Woman Blues.” Here’s the line:

“Strangest gal I ever had,

Never happy unless she’s mad!”

Now, there is a definite sense of relief or exaltation that’s natural as one vents negative feelings.   The danger, however, to people and especially to nations is chronic peevishness.  On a personal level, a particularly nettlesome peeve may be described as a “pet” peeve, but still there is the lingering unhealthy dynamic of peevish pleasure that can ultimately deaden the intellect or the soul.

Widespread personal peeves invariably become national peeves, the kinds of peeves political leaders are particularly sensitive to and latch onto in pursuit of votes.  It’s a matter of record that from the very beginning of her existence, on some level America has harbored peeves toward most of the major nations of the world. 

For example, during the first 80 years or so of our independence, Americans only sporadically celebrated Christmas, because Christmas was primarily a British holiday.  Not until German merchants introduced it as a profitmaking strategy for American enterprise in the 1850s did the good citizens of New York, Boston and Philadelphia lead the way in donning their “gay apparel” thus enabling them to more easily sell their products to an increasingly materialistic-hungry citizenry. Another way to put it is that Christmas was, as a British holiday, originally repugnant even to God-fearing republican (small r) oriented Americans, but as soon as it became profitable, the celebration of Christmas went from being a nonevent to becoming a “traditional” and, certainly, a sacred option.

Of course, Americans most assuredly nurture pet peeves for their fellow citizens or, more precisely, for fellow inhabitants they devoutly wish weren’t their fellow citizens.  These have historically included Catholics, the poor, labor, Jews, ungrateful foreigners, welfare mothers (“queens”), blacks, native Americans, atheists, public school teachers, bureaucrats (who may be your own kids or even you if you work for the government), bankers, someone else’s lawyer, immigrants (whether legal or illegal if they won’t learn English), the politically correct, and, of course, the other party’s politicians.

The core of the problem, as I see it, is simple.  We’ve become a very smug self-satisfied people.  Most of us, much of the time, have little sense of healthy humility.  Once we identify ourselves as any particular thing, whether it be as a conservative, a liberal, as a realist, as an atheist or a religious person, as a family man or woman, a laborer, a businessman or woman and, most certainly, as a taxpaying American, we’re atop the pyramid of logic, good sense, decency, and morality.  We readily identify the hurts and needs of others as being of their own making even as we view ourselves as victims of others’ ingratitude. 

The question I think millions of us would most benefit from is this one: How cheerfully and consistently do you and I meet our own stated principles?  If you peevishly label others as lazy, greedy, selfish, rude, irreverent, intolerant, impatient, materialistic, parochial, unprincipled or arrogant, what’s the likelihood that you come across to others the same way?

Over the past few years, I’ve strived to reach a high degree of political and social objectivity as opposed to the socio/political certainty I once possessed.  Accordingly, I’ve become increasingly impatient with those who spew forth, with too much certainty, political and moral opinions and principles that I once considered to be near the pinnacle of wisdom and morality.  It just seems to me that having an opinion is easy.  As President Kennedy told the 1962 Yale University graduating class “Too often…we enjoy the comfort of opinion rather than the discomfort of thought!”  Therein, I suppose you have my pet peeve.  Hence, I too must be aware that certainties are of far greater value than I’ve been recently willing to grant them.

Perhaps one of the greatest gifts we ever receive is when someone close and dear to us causes us to wonder and to ponder.  To wonder and ponder is to seek questions rather than answers.  Perhaps the most valuable question is, “How really and truly applicable are most of our peeves – especially when they’re dear enough to us to be labeled “pets?”

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

IT’S HISTORY AND IT’S PERSONAL!

By Edwin Cooney

As I write these words today, it is November 30^th, the 139th anniversary of the birth of Winston Churchill.  In the wee hours of this morning, I finished reading the third and final volume of a Churchill biography, the first two volumes of which were authored by William Manchester, one of the most distinguished and prolific author/historians of the mid and late twentieth century.  The final volume, which covers the period of Mr. Churchill’s life between Friday, May 10^th, 1940 (the day Mr. Churchill became Britain’s wartime Prime Minister) and Sunday, January 24^th, 1965 (the day of Churchill’s death), was authored by Paul Reid, a friend and fellow author/historian of Mr. Manchester’s.

One of the most constant barriers to come up in conversation when expressing a love for history is the response that history is boring because it is all about memorizing dates and that it has been corrupted because it is written by the winners of social, military and political conflicts. Another more compelling objection to the study of history invariably is the question of its practicality.  “What can one do with it if one isn’t a writer or a teacher?" people wonder.  Okay, fair enough, if you insist, on the second observation, but the answer as to its value is simple and I think overwhelmingly compelling.  The study of history is ultimately as significant or as important as you allow it to be personal to you.  Everything, place or person has a history.  An analysis of your history is as ultimately significant as the air that you breathe, the food you put into your body, the clothes you wear on your back, and the country into which you are born and either thrive or die.  You have a medical history, an environmental history, a financial history, a psychological history and a spiritual history all relevant to aspects of your make up.  None of us lives in either a vacuum or separate from a human context.  The likelihood that you’d be the same person if you had been born elsewhere or even in another time in America is quite unlikely.  Who we are depends on two essential factors – our environment and our psyche or, if you prefer, our nature.  So many factors in our lives affect our outlook and ultimately our fate. 

The story of our existence, your history and mine, ultimately reveals to those close to us what lessons or gifts we have to offer them.  Beyond that, the more people you take time to learn about, the more you are likely to understand yourself.

To read about Prime Minister Winston Churchill is certainly instructive as a chapter in the history of World War II or of British history.  However, if you treat yourself to the story of Winston Churchill, the little boy who was so slow in school that he was the third from the bottom of the class, you begin to understand why, how and what it took for him to become what he became.

The story of Winston Churchill is about a little boy born prematurely to parents too busy frolicking among the beautiful people of Victorian society and politics to bother much with the needs and concerns of their two boys, Winston and his younger brother Jack.  Subsequently, Winston’s father Randolph Churchill would die at the tender age of 45, his body ravaged (some insist) by syphilis. 

Winston’s story is about a young man soldiering in India and the Sudan.  It’s about a young journalist covering wars in Cuba and South Africa who was captured by the Boors, escaping with a price on his head.  Churchill’s story is that of a young politician who first rebels against his party’s leadership and then crosses the aisle to join the liberal opposition.  Other aspects of his story consist of a long and happy marriage to “his darling Clementine,” his heavy cigar smoking, and his daily alcohol consumption that didn’t alter his personality or capacity to function.  It is about political administrative failures and successes in public office, his lifelong devotion to British imperialism even in its “death throes” -- and, finally, an articulate tenacity in the face of perhaps the most ferocious dictator in all history.

To read of Winston Churchill is to read of the political ambitions of men and women from Britain, France, India, the Soviet Union, Germany and, certainly, the United States.  You see Winston befriended as a young man by the Irish-born American Democratic Congressman Bourke Cockran. Cockran introduces him to American high society in the 1890s which results in a lifelong friendship with Al Smith. You see young Churchill supping at the home of New York governor Teddy Roosevelt in 1900.  Forty years later, you see Churchill, as Britain’s wartime Prime Minister, courting Teddy’s fifth cousin once removed, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  You also see how their friendship was altered in a truly heartrending way as the importance of the Soviet Union superceded that of Great Britain in FDR’s eyes.

The study of history is, among many other things, something of a mirage.  On the surface, history appears to be about the rise and fall of nations and empires born on the wings of insightful leadership and doomed by the failure of such leaders.  However, nations and empires, regardless of their many differences, have one thing in common –- willful, ambitious and tempermental people who create societies over time that shape and nurture the whole people.

That’s what history is all about  -- how can it be anything other than personal!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THEN CAME ALL THOSE TOMORROWS!

By Edwin Cooney

It’s almost impossible to grasp that fifty years have passed since the afternoon of Friday, November 22^nd, 1963!  By now, you’ve doubtless read and heard countless accounts of where people were, what they thought and how they felt, when they learned that President John F. Kennedy had been shot to death in Dallas, Texas.

For those of us too young to remember the Depression or either world war, Friday, November 22^nd, 1963 was our equivalent of the day the stock market crashed, the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the day Franklin Delano Roosevelt died all rolled into one life altering instant.  On that day, practically every American became a victim of the assassin’s bullets along with the president and his family. Almost everyone old enough to have a grasp of national affairs remembers where they were, what they were doing, and who and what was important to them on that day.  Even today, fifty years later, I have a need to tell you what happened and what it all was like for me.  Exactly what makes me want to do that is hard to articulate.  I suppose it is a measure of the shock and pain I felt –- and to some degree still feel -- at the loss of a man I’d come to depend upon as part of my sense of national identification.

My personal concerns that pre-Thanksgiving weekend included the state of my love relationship with my then sweetheart Doris, the celebration of my eighteenth birthday just six days away, how much I would enjoy the on-campus smoking privileges my eighteenth birthday would bring me and, finally, what the Yankees might do at the upcoming baseball winter meetings under their new General Manager Ralph Houk and new Field Manager Yogi Berra.  Where the president was and what was on his mind, I hadn’t a clue!

Jack Kennedy, as much as being our president, was an attractive, energetic and knowledgeable young mentor who was suddenly and literally snatched from our midst.  Almost every aspect of him that most of us were aware of at that time -- his handsomeness, his Harvard/Boston accent, his intellect, his wealth, his Catholic faith, his large family, his beautiful wife and young children, his quick wit -- gave him the aura of a young, athletic, contemporary adult authority figure.  Even if we didn’t really know him, we thought we did.

Had he been killed while sailing or perhaps in an automobile accident, as shocking and heartrending as that would have been, it might have been more comprehendible!  However, to most of us, his murder was nearly impossible to fathom.  “Why,” we demanded to know, “would any American want to kill Jack Kennedy?”

(According to longtime speechwriter and friend Ted Sorensen, the possibility of Jack Kennedy having an automobile accident was almost likely if he were behind the wheel. In his 1965 book “Kennedy,” Sorenson reported that if you were riding in a car with Kennedy driving, it was better to sit next to him rather than behind him because JFK would invariably turn and face you to talk instead of heeding the road and the speed limit.)

With all of the theories and explanations of his murder (the Warren Report included), many of us who lived while he governed were not able to reach a sense of finality or completeness about it all. 

Shortly after 2:30 p.m. on that fateful Friday, I was sitting in a typing class at the residential school for the blind I was attending in Batavia, New York.  Suddenly our typing teacher was called out of class by our science teacher.  She came back and told us that the president had been shot and was apparently dead.  “Ah! Tell us another one,” I remember responding.  “No, kids,” she responded, “I wouldn’t kid about a thing like that.” In the next few minutes, we heard rumors that Vice President Johnson had suffered a heart attack as he entered the Dallas hospital to which JFK had been taken.

News of the shooting came at the close of the seventh period class and we still had a 46 minute eighth period class to get through before the close of school.  Our typing teacher was our teacher for business law as well, which meant that we didn’t have to change classrooms.  It’s unlikely that any of us really focused much on the 46-minute lecture on business law which our teacher obviously felt obligated to present.  It’s more likely that her heart really wasn’t in it, but that the topic served as a coping mechanism for her own feelings.  Suddenly, the school day ended and the weekend of watching, listening, and grieving began.

School let out at 3:36 pm.  Irrational as it was, as the plane carrying Mrs. Kennedy, the president’s body and LBJ approached Washington, D.C. some three hours later, I imagined President Kennedy holding a news conference reassuring us that he hadn’t been hurt during the shooting incident.

In my mind’s ear, I could hear his crisp Harvard accent saying:

“Ladies and Gentleman, as all of you know, a shooting incident occurred here in Dallas a couple of hours ago as I was riding through the city to speak at a luncheon at the Trade Mart which was being hosted by local Democrats.  Rumors that I was injured during the shooting are obviously untrue as you can tell.” (A nervous chuckle of relief would be heard from the assembled news people at that point.) The president would continue, “As I’m sure you’re all aware, an official investigation of the incident is already under way and, as I am something of a witness, circumstances don’t permit me to comment on it any further.  All I’ll say at this point is that incidents like this are invariably a part of serving in the presidency as the experiences of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and even President Truman all tell us. I’ll leave it there for now, but as I did some twenty years ago when a Japanese destroyer caused my PT boat to dump me and my crew into the South Pacific, I’ll certainly continue to meet my ongoing responsibilities.  Meanwhile, Jackie and I will spend the night at the ranch of Vice President and Mrs. Johnson and tomorrow I’ll head back to Washington to celebrate my little boy’s third birthday on Monday and my little girl’s sixth birthday on Wednesday. In closing, I want to express my appreciation to Governor Connelly, Senator Yarborough, and Mayor Cavell, as well as to Vice President and Mrs. Johnson, for their very generous hospitality to Jackie and to me during our stay here in Texas.” More laughter mixed with applause would come from the news media as the press conference closed and we would all feel better.

Alas, such wasn’t the case; it was only my illusion. However, throughout that whole weekend, reality seemed as much an illusion as illusion itself!  Instead, over the airwaves came the southern drawl of President Lyndon Baines Johnson over the drone of jet engines at Andrews Air Force Base as he said:

“This is a sad time for all people.  We have suffered a loss that cannot be weighed.  For me, it is a deep personal tragedy.  I know the world shares the sorrow that Mrs. Kennedy and her family bear.  I will do my best.  That is all I can do.  I ask for your help and God’s!”

So, there was no getting away from it!  The unthinkable was too real!

That sunny Friday was followed by a rainy Saturday in Washington D.C. and, back in Dallas on that Sunday, by violence to the suspected gunman by a distressed nightclub owner. It was a weekend filled with regrets and tears, by the dignity of a grief-stricken widow, and by a salute to a daddy by his little boy.

Most of all, as was observed in one commentary on the morning of Saturday, November 23^rd, 1963: “America the Beautiful awakened that morning stripped of her innocence!”

Friday, November 22^nd, 1963 permanently left its mark on most of our hearts.

Then, for you and for me, came all those tomorrows!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THE SOULS OF OUR DOMAINS

By Edwin Cooney

As regular readers of these weekly wonderings and wanderings know, for some time now I’ve been searching for ways out of the social, political and spiritual culture war in which America has been engaged since the late 1970s -- and the way out hasn’t been easy to find.  Even more disheartening is the possibility that most Americans have come to really and truly enjoy quarreling with and berating their fellow citizens even as they sing “God bless America.”

The soul of our national discontent can, I believe, be found in the establishment of a myriad of intellectual and emotional domains from which we tend to view the rest of this imperfect society.

These domains I define as lofty bastions of intellectual, emotional and spiritual realms of superiority from which we tend to look down on most of our fellow citizens as we either take pride in our separateness or rue the lack of appreciation people at large extend to us.

Politicians, whom we both abhor and depend upon to do our bidding, invariably appeal to us as rulers of various domains for it is likely that you and I reside in more than one domain.

First, there’s the domain of the taxpayer.  Never mind fifth grade civics, everyone knows that every person should get his or her own way as a “taxpayer.”  Taxpayers are more knowledgeable than educated professionals, wiser than conscientious public servants, more worthy of consideration than our mothers, and more patriotic than any national leader – especially the president.  Once you’re a “taxpayer,” you are endowed with wisdom far beyond that of King Solomon of Old Testament fame!

Next, there’s the domain of the patriot whose view and assessment of other nations is always objective even as he or she asks God to bless America and to comparatively damn the rest of His created domain!

One of the most popular domains is that of the victim.  This domain was originally blessed by Marxists and radical liberals, but alas, conservatives who have traditionally whined about “victimhood” when it was linked to the poor now insist that affirmative action has created a level of soul-destroying victimhood borne by white Anglo-Saxon Americans – a victimhood far worse, of course, than any ever visited on a minority of any kind.

Domains of the oppressed inevitably dot the landscape of 21^st Century America.  There’s the domain of the beleaguered gun owner who has little to sustain him or her except a trusty gun. There’s the domain of frustrated parents whose children are being educated by teachers who know less about teaching than they do. These parents would homeschool the kiddies except they’re too busy making quite a comfortable living. 

A really fascinating domain is hosted by a prominent talk show host.  It’s actually a sovereign entity known as “The Savage Nation,” a nation fierce enough to do the bidding of one “mighty Mike” (excuse me!): Michael Savage.

Almost as fierce as “Savage Nation” is Raider Nation of football fame.  Hmmm! A game between Raider Nation and Savage Nation might not only be entertaining, it would be downright compelling.  That game, without a doubt, would immediately make an Oakland Raiders football fan out of me.

Throughout that game I would stuff myself with more goodies and beer than Dr. Oz would advise. In addition to the “nations” or domains mentioned above, there’s both Cardinal and Red Sox “Nation.”  We’ve just recently enjoyed the ultimate contest between those two harmless but nevertheless expensive “nations” which was quite entertaining.

There’s also consumer domain in which the users of products and services have more weight than the inventors or providers of all goods and services.

Wisdom demands that I not forget the domain of the realist in which the dreamer is the “village idiot.”

The domain of the cynic is a must visit for the gullible believer who is convinced that there’s more good than bad in this nation or in the world itself!

Yes indeed, this is the era of the personal domain.  Under our republican (notice the small r) form of government, the people are sovereign and if domains are nothing else, they are invariably sovereign.  They inevitably form our individual dream worlds in which you and I are absolute ruler.

Every hope or fear, whether material, political or spiritual, invites you and me to create a domain that masters that fear or hope.  My personal bastion of righteous superiority is my weekly visit with you.  Here I’m the “lord and master,” the renderer of all praise, the pronouncer of all wisdom -- that is, until you stop reading these weekly wonderings.

Wait a minute! Is the world changing?  What’s happening to my dream…to my little domain of exclusive reality? Ah nuts! My domain is crumbling even as I write these words! Someone I’ve never met is being born.  Some opportunity I’ve never had is in the process of being created.  The nature of both peace and war are changing just as it would for our Founding Fathers if they were still living among us.  Somewhere out there is another Galileo, another Da Vinci, perhaps another Lincoln.

Oh, my God! Is that another Bill Mazeroski being born?  From the lofty heart of my New York Yankee domain I devoutly hope not!

I wonder, is your lofty domain real or is it merely a mirage just like mine?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

VETERANS DAY – WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?

By Edwin Cooney

I get it, I really do, but I’m uncomfortable with it.  That we should be grateful to those who rendered us their service during wartime and, in some cases, forfeited their good health and even their lives, is beyond debate.  For me, however, whether we really and truly demonstrate our understanding of their experience with all of the patriotic public parading and praying which we do on days like the third Monday in April, the fourth Monday in May, the fourth of July and the eleventh of November is questionable.

Every year on the third Monday in April (April 15^th in 2013), especially throughout New England, we celebrate Patriots' Day.  In some ways, that is the most legitimate celebration of battlefield sacrifice in which we indulge. I am suggesting that because Patriots' Day along with the Battle of Bunker Hill (Breed's Hill if you insist) are the only two battles not sanctioned by government, but simultaneously engaged in by men and women determined to protect their own personal freedom.  These two battles occurred more than a year before the thirteen colonies established our national government.

The War of 1812 was essential for war hawks such as Henry Clay of Kentucky, Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina if young America was to be free of British harassment on the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River and the high seas.  To New Englanders whose commerce depended on foreign trade, the view of that war was very, very different indeed.  This was New Hampshire Congressman Daniel Webster’s response to a proposal to create a national draft put forward by President James Madison and his Secretary of War James Monroe:

 “The administration asserts the right to fill the ranks of the regular army by compulsion...Is this, sir, consistent, with the character of a free government? Is this civil liberty? Is this the real character of our constitution? No sir, indeed, it is not...Where in the Constitution is it written, in what article or section is it contained that you may take children from their parents and parents from their children and compel them to fight the battles  of any war in which the folly or wickedness of any government may engage it? Under what concealment has this power lain hidden which now comes forth for the first time with a tremendous and baleful aspect to trample down and destroy the dearest rights of personal liberty?”

Memorial Day, established to celebrate the sacrifices made during the Civil War (particularly by the Union) came about as a result of the failure of our founders to deal adequately with the moral issue of chattel slavery.

The Spanish-American War, World Wars I, II, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War I and Gulf War II, Iraq and Afghanistan were brought about due to the economic greed and lack of diplomatic foresight and failures of our elected leaders.  (This was especially true of the War of 1812 and the Mexican War. The latter was fought to realize our “Manifest Destiny.”)

Some insist that the only legitimate reason for the existence of government is to protect us from the aggression and oppression of other governments.  However, a mere thumbnail view of history shows how seldom we’ve genuinely needed our national government to protect us.

No one has ever suggested that Spain’s effort to maintain Cuba as a colony was a threat to our ultimate safety. The blowing up of the USS Maine, even if it actually was Spain’s doing as advertised, may have been in defiance of our support for the Cuban rebels, but no one thinks that Washington D.C. was ever in danger of being occupied by the King of Spain.

World War I, in the wake of imperial Germany’s proposal to support Mexico’s regaining of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California and perhaps Colorado, may well have compelled our decision to fight the “war to end all wars,” but even that is debatable.

As for World War II, America’s most popular war, conservative commentator Patrick Buchanan asserts in his book Churchill, Hitler, and  "The Unnecessary War” that World War II was only inevitable due to the follies engaged in by us and our allies during and immediately after World

War I.

From the time we’re very young, we are almost indoctrinated to be sympathetic to the idea of engaging in war.

Our national “hymns” with the notable exception of “America the Beautiful" (which truly reflects the best of our land and culture) invariably glorify war. To read the lyrics of much of our literature almost causes one to believe that our freedom was born on the battlefield rather than in the councils of men who had studied the writings of history’s great philosophers and teachers including those of Christ.

Sadly, today President Obama will no doubt join with every other President since FDR in paying tribute to the heroism of our veterans.  Bravery, courage, and patriotism will be ascribed to those who achieved victory in war, rather than being ascribed to those on all sides who were forced to endure war’s special hell.  All that is good and moral once again will be ascribed to the victor.  Hence, the very tragedy of that which has brought so much pain and loss to every veteran and veteran’s family and their posterity will be virtually ignored.

So long as Veterans Day is about war, I’ll let others celebrate it.

As for my gratitude, I’ll politically support all possible activities that may alter the conditions that create war and that seek to heal the wounds of war!

 

How about you?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY