STEADY -- EASY DOES IT --ESPECIALLY IN THE WAKE OF PARIS’S TERROR!

By Edwin Cooney

Without in any way diminishing the tragedy experienced by Parisians on November 13th, it seems to me that even worse damage may be overtaking the American people from within their body politic.

Everyone from President Obama on down to Dr. Carson and Donald Trump realizes that ISIS’s most powerful weapons aren’t its guns or its bombs, but the fear generated by the shock value of its unconventional methods of both individual and mass murder.  Nevertheless, President Obama and all those would-be presidents appear to be primarily occupied justifying their records and positions.

Just a day or so before ISIS struck in Paris killing about 130 people, President Obama had issued a statement asserting that ISIS was being considerably contained.  Then came the shooting and the bomb-throwing that appeared to make newspaper accounts of the president’s published assessment worthy of little more than the paper in which to wrap last night’s garbage.  As if that wasn’t bad enough, GOP presidential candidates seem to be more interested in sensationalizing the crisis for their collective benefit rather than in sufficiently reassuring the American people.

The truth is that ISIS in all its savagery is no threat whatsoever to America’s national sovereignty.  If ISIS’s ultimate goal is the creation of a worldwide Islamic Caliphate sufficiently powerful and substantial enough to reign over humankind, it isn’t even close to being close to its objective.  As President Harry Truman once observed, “Any fool can go out and start a war” and at this point that’s all that ISIS has accomplished.  As outrageous as November 13th’s attack on Paris was, not an inch of ground was gained. In fact, life has become more precarious for radical Islam now that both Russia and France have joined the fight against ISIS.

The greatest danger we in America face is the fear factor emanating from ISIS.  Then, of course, there’s the belief and even the expectation on the part of millions of American voters that our amassed collective righteous anger will constitute ISIS’s demise.

The demise of ISIS already exists.  First, ISIS exists solely for the glorification of a mere sect of world Islam.  Second, from what I’ve read, beyond its radicalism, it isn’t about the care of the relatively few people over whom it governs.  Third, its primary resource, oil, is invariably vulnerable to air attack. Therefore, reliance on oil is problematic at best.  Finally, since its purpose and nature is no more than self-preservation, it is essentially no more than a gang of international criminals.

The nature of effective government is the nurture of people.  Say what you want about Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Red China or modern Iran, they were and are governments accountable in large part to a constituency that, at least to some extent, justified a purposeful existence.

Although ISIS is indeed scary, the fear it causes is misleading because that fright is an end in itself.  The attack on Paris was not contrary to President Obama’s pre-attack analysis.  ISIS wasn’t able to attack Paris because it had become more formidable.  An attack is merely a “hit and run,” not an occupation.  The truth is that ISIS is in way over its head when it comes to international affairs.

Since prosperity, comfort, and personal safety are at the basis of every American politician’s promise, prosperous, fertile and free America is especially vulnerable to the uncouth and uncivilized threats and misdeeds of international criminality.  Regrettably, there is historic precedence for the panic that we’ve heard in recent days from political hopefuls and state governors.

During World War I, a group of citizens roasted alive a dachshund on a spit to demonstrate its outrage against Kaiser Wilhelm’s Prussian militarism.  We interned the Japanese during World War II, an act that was driven by a combination of panic and racism.  Just a mere decade ago, the French were vilified almost daily by some of the very political groups that are today suggesting that a new generation of young people should be sent overseas to avenge the Paris terrorist attack.  Remember “Freedom Fries?”

Almost sixty years have passed since the late, great Edward R. Murrow eulogized the British for the way they conducted themselves under the nightly German bombardment during the Second World War.  “…I am persuaded that the most important thing that happened in Britain was that this nation chose to win or lose this war under the established rules of parliamentary procedure,” asserted Murrow. “It feared Nazism but did not choose to imitate it. The government was given dictatorial power but it was used with restraint and the House of Commons was ever vigilant. Do you remember,” Murrow continued, “that while London was being bombed in the daylight, Parliament devoted two days discussing the conditions under which enemy aliens were detained on the Isle of Man? Though Britain fell there were to be no concentration camps here!”

In recent days, state governors, some of them the sons of immigrants who escaped European tyranny, have vilified refugees fleeing tyranny, called for the registration of American Muslims, and questioned the courage and patriotism of America’s Commander-in-Chief.  What none of them can do is be as effective as President Obama’s least effective response until one of them replaces him on January 20th, 2017.

Back in 1966, Secretary of State Dean Rusk asserted that one of the factors Americans must be ever mindful of is its own strength.  He put it this way: “America is too powerful a nation to be infuriated.”  Dean Rusk was right then and he’s right now.  We can either act like Harry Truman’s fool who starts a war or we can be Dean Rusk’s practitioner of wisdom and restraint and be determined enough to await the time when the world’s biggest fools do what we all do naturally: make a serious mistake.

One of Ed Murrow’s favorite words in times of uncertainty or crisis was “steady.”  He reminded us that this was a term we used to calm a powerful horse, as well as to ease an anxious mind.  Let us insist that our fears feed and energize our wisdom rather than our uncertainty or our tendency toward panic!

Finally, let us remember that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself!”

I’m not sure who I heard make that assertion, but I think it was the gentleman who lifted America to its feet during the Great Depression of the 1930s as he sat in his wheelchair!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THANKFUL! REALLY? WHY?

By Edwin Cooney

“Dad,” my eldest son once observed, “you think too much!”  He’s right, of course. I do, but as I see it, many things ought to be pondered - for perspective if for no other benefit!  So this week I’m thinking about gratitude in its many forms and circumstances.  After all, this Thursday America will celebrate its one hundred and fifty-third official Thanksgiving since 1863. 

Incredibly, in the midst of America’s greatest war, the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln (with the prodding of Sarah Josepha Hale, the editor of the “American Ladies Magazine”) decided it was time to be thankful for the blessings that nature and nature’s God had bestowed on us all.

Thus, it has become not only traditional but politically correct to be thankful to Nature and Providence every November.  Since 1941, the fourth Thursday in November has been designated Thanksgiving Day.  (Actually, I think the Canadians celebrate their Thanksgiving Day more sensibly than we do as it seldom if ever snows on the second Monday in October!)  The question that most readily comes to mind is: what ought we to be thankful for? The second most obvious question is: to whom ought we be thankful?

We ought to be most thankful for our ability to weather the many storms that invariably threaten our safety and our peace.  We ought to be thankful for stout hearts and fertile minds, and for our free society.  Most of all, we ought to be thankful for one another.

We’ve been taught since the second or third grade that the Pilgrim Fathers celebrated the first Thanksgiving with the Wampanoag Indians. Hence, we ought to thank them for starting one hell of a white American tradition.  The only problem is they’re not around to receive our gratitude.  Most of us, of course, have been taught that God or Providence ought to receive our gratitude as our greatest benefactor.  However, it would be a little disconcerting for many to learn that even our Pilgrim Fathers were a little slow and inconsistent with their gratitude.  One might note that the year after the Pilgrim Fathers celebrated the first Thanksgiving they celebrated the second one only after rain ended a season-long drought. However, that second celebration was the last Thanksgiving celebration until 1676 -- fifty-four years later.  The year 1676 was the year Massachusetts Puritans, who’d replaced the Pilgrim Fathers, won their war over those same Wampanoag Indians.  Between 1622 and the 1660s, Puritan Massachusetts had subdued every Indian tribe in and around the colony.

The Wampanoags under Metacom, the son of Massasoit (the original protector of the Pilgrim Fathers), had turned on white Massachusetts and resisted them far more successfully than had any other tribe. Metacom was also known as King Philip for his European dress and style. Upon their inevitable victory, Puritan Massachusetts gladly gave God credit and gratitude for their grizzly triumph.  That assumes, of course, that God glorifies, as we do, victory in war! (Note that even if the Almighty approved the Puritan’s victory over Metacom, God certainly didn’t approve the manner of their celebration.  The centerpiece of the celebration was Metacom’s head atop a spike in downtown Boston.) Thus, here’s another question.  Ought we to thank God for an achievement which God never sought or perhaps even approved?  President Lincoln was humble enough to pray out loud that rather than hoping that God was on our side, we ought to pray that we are on God’s side.

We offer our annual gratitude because we’ve been taught that an act of kindness, support, or love deserves humble acknowledgment.    Like our Pilgrim and Puritan Fathers, we feel increasingly insecure in 2015 amidst the threats of a religion and culture foreign to white Christian America.  As the Puritan Fathers of 1676 did, we pray for a Thanksgiving Day not far ahead when we might once again thank God for still another victory in war.  Again, that assumes that God or Providence thirsts for our gratitude as we thirst for the gratitude of our families, friends, neighbors, and others when we freely provide assistance and support during times of crisis.

I certainly hope and even suspect that we will survive the saber rattling of ISIS, but to expect God or Providence to play any roll in our earthly conflicts to me trivializes the most valuable trait we possess.

Back in 2007, I wrote my first commentary on the history and value of American Thanksgiving.  Near the close of that commentary, I asserted that the greatest gift we’ve received from nature and nature’s God was wisdom.

Wisdom grants us the capacity to discern right from wrong, good judgment from recklessness, reality from fear and, of course, justice and love from angry revenge.

Thus, for many Thanksgiving Days to come let’s appreciate and thank one another for the collective wisdom that keeps us safe, prosperous and free.

Finally, we would do well to remember the final phrase of President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 Inaugural Address:

“…here on earth, God’s work must truly be our own!”

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

DOUBLE TROUBLE - DOUBLE TRAGEDY!

By Edwin Cooney

On the morning of Wednesday, October 11th, 2015, Birmingham, Alabama police were summoned to a home in the northeast section of the city to investigate the death of a one-and-a-half year old girl, Kelci Lewis.  Little Kelci had been brought to this home the evening before by her mother Katerra Lewis.  Ms. Lewis and her friend, the resident of the home, left six children at the home without supervision while they attended a nightclub.  In their absence, the oldest child, an eight-year-old boy, repeatedly struck little Kelci because she wouldn’t stop crying.  Not until the next morning did Katerra Lewis discover that her baby girl was dead.  Police charged Ms. Lewis with involuntary manslaughter and have charged the unidentified eight year-old-boy with second-degree murder.  What I don’t grasp regarding this terrible incident is why was this eight-year-old boy charged with murder rather than something merely akin to murder such as involuntary deadly assault or deadly child endangerment or something of that nature?

The first story I read about this incident stated that Ms. Lewis was being charged with involuntary manslaughter and was free on $15,000 bond.  One of the stated purposes of this charge was to “send a message to parents that they face serious criminal charges if they leave helpless children in unsupervised circumstances.”  Okay, fair enough, but I still believe that it is counterproductive to charge an eight-year-old boy with murder.

There are a lot of things to be observed about this almost kneejerk socio/political reaction to this tragedy. First, there is nothing to be learned or gained from a message in the news that an eight-year-old boy has been charged with murder. Second, macho toughness is merely an aggravation of this sad and disturbing situation, as it provides no perspective or potential for healing an unhappy community. Third, we have a history of double standards when it comes to murder in this country.  If an eight-year-old boy kills, it’s murder.  If the state or federal government murders, the act is cleansed via the thin veneer of legality. A former county official who is presently running for a judgeship insists that the boy had to be charged with some felony in order to be eligible for services. What services would have not been open to this lad if he had been charged with a lesser crime?

No rational person denies that this boy needs serious and ongoing treatment and detention, but to charge him with murder says more about the accusers than it does about the boy!  Murder, the willful killing of another person, assumes malicious intent and comprehension on the part of the suspect.  Of course, I have no information about this boy’s behavioral history, character or stability.  It may be that authorities have that information and thus the charge. However, the stated purpose for the charges against Ms. Lewis, the sending of an Alabama message, sounds more political than it does corrective for an eight-year-old boy who is likely disturbed.

During my childhood, I was raised in three institutions - a residential school for the blind, an orphanage run by the Methodist Church, and a secular orphanage run, I believe, by Broome County, New York.  Within the social structure of each of these institutions there existed, even beyond the rules, a milieu of behavioral standards and expectations largely set by the inhabitants of each institution.

In the school for the blind, children who sounded funny or behaved strangely seldom got the benefit of the doubt.  We had one boy I’ll call Richie, who had a speech impediment that was unnerving to many of his fellow students.  He was reasonably capable of handling himself to a degree, but no one I knew, including myself, energized his self-respect.

The Methodist orphanage was something of an exception, I must acknowledge, which was likely due to the prevalence of Methodist doctrine.

In the secular orphanage, there was a boy I’ll call Ronnie who was forever in trouble, mostly for petty and nettlesome behaviors that irritated his peers and the staff to an extreme degree.  I sincerely hope that Ronnie has become a happy adult because he couldn’t have been a very happy little boy.  I’m referring of course to individual self-esteem.  One’s self-esteem is what dictates to lesser and greater degrees the course of one’s life.

Thus, we come to the future for this boy.  While not forgetting that his behavior that night deprived little Kelci of the future to which she was fully entitled, the fact of the matter is this boy’s future is invariably going to have an effect on someone else’s future.  Since we weren’t there on the night of Tuesday, October 10th, we cannot know exactly what stimulated this boy’s actions.  Perhaps he was “egged on” by one of the other children.  Perhaps he had no idea that he had hurt Kelci.  She cried too much so he simply hit her a few times and she went to sleep. Perhaps he did, too.  What’s important now is not so much what he did but how he might be treated to avoid such behavior in the future.  Out of necessity he will have to be told what he did, if he hasn’t been told already.  He will thus face the monumental task of comprehending his actions and learning to forgive and actually love himself.  That’s what living with one’s self is all about.  Of course, there is the possibility that he might be destroyed while serving in a reformatory (as Jeffrey Dahmer was while in prison) but that can never lessen, let alone quash, the heartache over little Kelci’s fate.

Our sadness and outrage, although legitimate, pale in comparison to this lad’s challenge to become a happy and productive human being.  However, that’s exactly what he’ll have to become in order to be worthy of sanctifying Kelci’s memory and thus to make amends to the righteous rest of us!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

WHICH IS MOST DEAR - OUR LIBERTY OR OUR SAFETY?

By Edwin Cooney

A few days ago, I attended an after dinner presentation by an attorney who defends those charged with offenses in federal court.  During his presentation he made two outrageous assertions.

First he asserted, although he defends them, that many of his clients are guilty and ought to be imprisoned.  Second, he asserted that due to the public’s expectation that prosecutors aren’t doing their jobs unless they convict, too many prosecutors are more interested in convictions than they are in genuine justice.  Thus, the defense of the accused takes on a vital importance in the ongoing assurance of both our freedom and our safety.

Many of us cling to a false belief that the vast majority of people indicted for a crime are guilty.  Otherwise, we tell ourselves, why would they be in a position of vulnerability to indictment?

Generally, you and I are most concerned with three things: our safety, our prosperity and our convenience.  Hence, since we’re usually removed from sufficient knowledge of the circumstances of most alleged offenses, we too readily assume that most, if not all, under indictment are guilty as charged.

My question to our after dinner guest was: “Mr. Greenwald, if I were to tell you that I’d rather see 10 guilty people go free than let one innocent person be convicted, would you agree with that?”  His response was indeed he would.  Since prosecutors are evaluated by the public as essential guardians of the people’s safety, the conviction of the indicted too often, in the public mind, takes a higher priority than justice.

Certainly the public’s safety is one of the absolute essentials of a free and just society.  Still, it seems to me that our fear and loathing of criminals (whether violent or nonviolent) too often blinds us to the vulnerability of our individual liberties!  Therein lies my streak of libertarianism.

As I listened to Attorney Greenwald, I became aware once again of the individual’s historic vulnerability to both accusation and tyranny.  While our personal safety is vital, it seems to me that government’s top priority must be the protection of our liberty.  A guarantee of our liberty provides a well-informed public with the essential tools to control government and provide for its own safety and security.

At the close of his presentation, Mr. Greenwald asserted that indictment for a crime, regardless of guilt or innocence, is one of the most devastatingly demoralizing occasions one can ever experience. One need only recall the occasions in life when someone pointed an accusing finger at us over a circumstance that was far from being the least bit criminal.  Nevertheless, such an accusation can constitute a lingering embarrassment and distortion of our intentions, actions, or our personal values.  It’s almost impossible to imagine how demoralizing a legal accusation can be.  Such an accusation is a life-altering experience even after one has successfully weathered its force by being declared not guilty.  This is particularly true when one realizes that in the public mind there is the firm conviction that “not guilty” and “innocent” are not the same.

Because liberty guarantees our access to every just and desirable attainment in life and is so vulnerable to personal and official accusation, its protection is the ultimate guarantor even of our ultimate safety.

A people vulnerable to unjust prosecution are no safer than the most helpless victim of the most ruthless thug!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

WINNING: HOW MUCH DOES IT COUNT? HOW MUCH DOES IT MATTER?

By Edwin Cooney

At this writing, the 2015 World Series is underway.  The New York Mets, who in all of their five World Series have yet to ever win game 1 of the fall classic, are down three games to one in the best-of-seven series.  The Amazin’ Mets and the relentless Kansas City Royals are thus locked in an intense struggle for the “world championship” of professional baseball.  The question is: how much does it all count or matter?  The most intriguing answer is: it depends on how you look at it!

In 2015, if you are a Met or a Royal player, a family member or a fan, it both counts and matters big time!  By 2016, once the beer and champagne have been spilled and the parades are all marched out and all the money is in the bank, the new “World Champions” will have to earn their status all over again!

From an historical standpoint, it counts less today financially than it once did.  Back in the 1950s when the Yankees won six out of ten world championships and the average player’s salary was approximately $5,000, most of the players nearly doubled their salaries even if they only received the loser’s share of the World Series’ take.  Yankee right fielder Hank Bauer, a tough ex-marine (observers used to say that Bauer had a face like a clenched fist!) would growl at teammates who made errors or outs in a crucial game situation, saying “hey, you’re messin’ with my money.”

One of my favorite teams was the 1960 Yankees.  That team, with all its superior power, pitching, and defense capability, lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates by a score of ten to nine in the seventh game when the Pirates’ second baseman Bill Mazeroski hit one over Yogi Berra’s head into the left field stands off pitcher Ralph Terry.  Of course, the Pirates earned their victory, but Yankee fans still debate the cause of the loss.  Some insist that if manager Casey Stengel had started left-handed pitching ace Whitey Ford three times during the series instead of only twice, the series outcome might well have been a Yankee victory.  Ford, after all, had shut out the Pirates 10 to nothing on Saturday, October 8^th at Yankee Stadium and 12 to zip at Forbes Field on Wednesday, October 12^th. Others insist that the bouncing ball that caught shortstop Tony Kubek in the throat rather than sticking in his glove was the turning point of game seven.  That otherwise double-play ball loaded the bases rather than ending the inning making Yankee disaster possible.  The Pirates subsequently erased a Yankee three run lead and took their own lead in the eighth inning.  Although the Yankees tied the game in the ninth, they were just one pitch away from stunning ego-deflating doom as Terry pitched to Mazeroski.  “It was the only time I cried after a World Series loss,” Mickey mantle told broadcaster Larry King in 1989.  He related further that a teammate proceeded to insist that it was “…only a game. Let’s have a drink.”  Mantle had to work hard to restrain himself from slugging the pitcher.

It’s my guess that Mickey Mantle’s tears of frustration had little to do with the difference between winning and losing dollars.  Sport is by its nature competitive.  It provides an opportunity for instant gratification via the reward of temporary dominance.  We all experience this thrill when we win, whether we’re bowling or playing games with friends or family.  The late football coach Vince Lombardi used to lecture his players and anyone else who would listen that winning was not just a pleasant circumstance. Winning was absolutely everything.

Forty years ago between October 11th and 22^nd, the Cincinnati Reds and the Boston Red Sox played perhaps the most exciting seven-game World Series of them all.  Long will Reds fans remember the exploits of Pete Rose, (the series’ MVP), Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, and Tony Perez. However, I believe that Red Sox fans as well as other baseball fans who otherwise supported other teams will remember Bernie Carbo’s eighth inning blast that tied the sixth game and Carlton Fisk’s dramatic home run in the 12th inning that provided the necessity for a dramatic seventh game the following day.

I’ve read that Carlton Fisk and his wife couldn’t find an empty hotel room to rent during the immediate hours after Carlton’s feat of Red Sox heroism.  For Carlton Fisk, it was almost a religious experience in that for him, the Red Sox’s messiah, there was no room at the inn!

Yes, indeed, the Mets and the Royals are currently struggling for what counts and one of them will succeed.  Surely Carlton Fisk would have preferred to win in 1975, but he achieved a feat that still evokes both nightmares and happy dreams in the hearts of millions of baseball fans.  As much as Fisk’s home run couldn’t count toward a Sox victory in the 1975 series, it still matters to a lot of people.  It may well be a part of the reason why Carlton Fisk has a plaque in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

As for Bill Mazeroski in 1960, his feat of heroism not only matters, it very much both counted and mattered.

If you ask me, that’s pure unadulterated glory!  Ouch! It still hurts!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY