1939, THE YEAR OF THE BIG BAD WOLVES!

By Edwin Cooney

Nineteen thirty-nine, which began on a Sunday, couldn't be called terrible for all of humanity, but it was a pretty tragic year indeed for too many people! At the outset, the result of the 25th Rose Bowl was more of a baseball rather than a football score. The University of Southern California beat Duke University seven to three. Of course, some good things occurred such as the debut of the "Superman" comic strip in nationwide newspapers, or the birth of little Carl Michael Yastrzemski on Wednesday, August 22nd, who would go into the Baseball Hall of Fame exactly 50 years later following a long career with the Boston Red Sox. George VI of the United Kingdom and his Queen Elizabeth, whose eldest daughter would in 1952 become Elizabeth II, visited the United States to, among other things, eat hotdogs with Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt at their Hyde Park home on Sunday, June 11th.

Every year has an occurrence that's horrifying yet fascinating. On Thursday, April 13th, 1939, little Lina Medina of Peru becomes the youngest mother known in world medical history when she delivers a child at age five.

Adolf Hitler, the head of the group of Big Bad Wolves of whom I write, broke the infamous Munich agreement of the previous September 30th by occupying and annexing Czechoslovakia on Saturday, March 15th. In a speech to his home constituents in Birmingham, England on Thursday, March 30th, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain makes it clear that should Hitler attack Poland, Great Britain would come to Poland's aid. On April 6th, the Soviets suggest a treaty between themselves, France and Britain to limit German expansion. However, the opposite would occur on Wednesday, August 23rd with the German and Soviet non-aggression pact signed in Moscow by Soviet Dictator Joseph Stalin and German Foreign Minister Joachim Von Ribbentrop. That treaty would free Hitler to invade Poland from the west and Stalin to invade Poland from the east.

Meanwhile, here at home the New York Yankees were off to doing their, by then, usual thing, but suddenly Lou Gehrig, known as "The Iron Horse of baseball" for his 2,130 consecutive games, took himself out of the lineup on Tuesday, May 2nd while the team was in Detroit, due to an obvious physical decline. In June, Lou Gehrig would be diagnosed at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota as suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. That July 4th, between two games of a double header, Lou Gehrig would declare, although he had less than two years to live, himself "...the luckiest man on the face of the earth!” (Few could understand how that could possibly be!) However, a brighter day in baseball was that of Monday, June 12th, when the Baseball Hall of Fame opened in Cooperstown, New York during a ceremony narrated by Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis containing acceptance speeches by Connie Mack, Walter Johnson, Babe Ruth and Grover Cleveland and a number of other baseball greats.

The year 1939 was, many insist, the biggest year in Hollywood history. Films such as "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," "Gone with the Wind" and "Young Mr. Lincoln" constitute just a portion of the movies that captured America's love for drama.

Economically, America was recovering from the recession of 1938 and on Sunday, April 30th, FDR opened the 1939-1940 World's Fair, the theme of which was "The World of Tomorrow." The fair dramatically demonstrated the coming "tomorrow" when the RCA Corporation showed FDR on its latest wonder called television.

As for what it cost to live in America in 1939, the average wage was $1,730, the average rent was $28.00 per month, and gas was10 cents a gallon. A loaf of bread was 8 cents. Hamburger was 14 cents a pound. A new car cost an average of $700. You could get four cans of Campbell's tomato soup for 25 cents. Sharp Wisconsin cheese was 23 cents per pound.

Those born in 1939 in addition to Carl Yastrzemski include: Hockey Hall of Famer Bobby Hull, Tuesday, January 3rd; singers Marvin Gaye, Sunday, April 2nd; Neil Sedaka, Monday, March 13th; Tina Turner, Sunday, November 26th; Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei, Saturday, July 15th; and Lee Harvey Oswald, Wednesday, October 18th.

Nineteen thirty-nine will always be remembered for the outbreak of World War II. Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Joachim Von Ribbentrop, and Vyacheslav Molotov conspired to launch World War II which commenced on Friday, September 1st, 1939.

Thus, Hitler, Von Ribbentrop, Stalin, and Molotov are "The Big Bad Wolves of 1939?” Stalin, as far as we know, originally was interested in containing Hitler as late as April, 1939, but in May, when he dismissed his part-Jewish Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov, whose Jewish heritage and marriage to an English wife was sure to be a problem for Hitler's government, it clearly signified that something was up. The British government which announced it would come to the aid of Poland if it were invaded by Hitler, was strategically ill-equipped to effectively carry out that announced intention. Meanwhile, Stalin became convinced that while in time Soviet and Nazi forces would clash, he needed two things to be prepared — time, and the rebuilding of his armed forces in the wake of his purge of his own military establishment between 1937 and 1939.

I've often written and even spoken of the contrast between little Polish and American children during the weekend of Thursday, August 31st and Monday, September 4th, Labor Day in the United States. For children in America it was the weekend they must give up the happiness and carefree traditions of summer and get ready for school. It was the time for the boring task of trying on new clothes and the purchase of school supplies, etc. For Polish children however, it was a time of agonizing fear. What might stop Adolf Hitler from invading their farms and villages, slaying their brothers, uncles, their fathers and even their grandfathers who would bravely face Hitler's mechanized armies on horseback? Where could they go for safety? Would God Almighty possibly come to their aid? Certainly they prayed such might be the case! But, alas, it wasn't to be! Can you imagine the helplessness of that fear that turned into absolute reality?

Yes, good things happened in 1939 to good people, but ultimately the worst thing that could happen to other equally good people did occur in the one thousand nine-hundred and thirty-ninth year of our age.

Thus, the Nobel Peace Prize committee in Oslo, Norway was right not to hand out peace prizes in 1939.

No one, insofar as I'm aware, not even "we of the land of the free and the home of the brave" deserved a prize for peace!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

COUNTDOWN VIA PROLOGUE

By Edwin Cooney

Opening his second presidential nomination address at San Francisco in late August of 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower told the following story to the assembled delegates.

Two new Republican office holders were riding in a Washington, D.C. taxi early in 1953, when one of them glanced up at a building bearing a sign that read: "What's past is prologue." “What does that mean?" one of them asked the learned taxi driver. "Oh," said the cabbie, "that's just bureaucrat talk. All that means is you ain't seen nothin' yet!"

There are 8,760 hours as of today remaining in President Donald Trump's term, realistically assuming his likely acquittal of impeachment charges in the U.S. Senate. (I could offer the minutes and seconds as well, but that would be absurdly absurd!) The question is: Who will use the time left most effectively, Trump or Trump's opponents?

On the night of November 6th, 1984 that Ronald Reagan was re-elected, referring to his upcoming term as compared to his nearly completed first term, he said "What's past is prologue" right out loud — "You ain't seen nothin' yet."  However, rather than balanced budgets and lower taxes, what was next was Iran-Contra, the 1986 tax increase, and a debt three times Jimmy Carter's 1980 one trillion dollar record deficit!

The key to America's socio/political and economic future is invariably our national attitude toward one another. Attitude governs outlook, which together constitutes socio/political and economic results.

In a critical commentary against Bernie Sanders last week, columnist David Brooks observed that Sanders and others live in an era of "theyism - that's T.H.E.Y.i.s.m.” In other words, there are groups (outside the rest of us) who are doing this or that to the national body politic. There's President Trump's theyism, which consists of all who disagree with, or oppose him. There’s Conservatism's theyisms consisting of gun grabbers, LGBTQ types, pro-choice advocates, socialists, and, of course, secularists and climate change suckers. Liberal’s theyisms are: exploiting capitalists, racists, anti-choice protestors, and sexists, as well as climate change deniers. All these “theys" are deliberately doing America socio/economic harm. Bernie Sander's personal theyism, according to Mr. Brooks, is his ongoing charge that capitalists are exploiting workers. Brooks says the flaw in capitalism is a lack of productivity rather than an abundance of greed-inspired exploitation. Brooks scolds Bernie Sanders for purposely exaggerating the capitalist's genuine productivity dilemma. If we feed that which produces, employers and workers will all be profitably productive according to David Brooks. Thus, socialist exploitive theory constitutes Senator Sanders’ theyism!

"Theyism" is apparently everywhere and crosses ideological lines. Just the other day I received two emails from a reader who doesn't think much of my "far left-wing BS,” but at least this reader looks forward to it. In one missive this reader sent, he/she expressed utter contempt for Barack Obama calling him scum, even though this reader voted for Obama in 2008. Pointing out that his/her family were once "Kennedy Democrats, but are no more.” this critic's theyism's are liberals like me who've "drunk the Kool-Aid of socialism instead of the tea of liberty.” Finally, this reader expresses regret for his/her past political choices. That's especially sad. I voted for Nixon and would have voted for Goldwater at one point except that I was too young to vote for Barry. I don't regret past choices as they constitute what I understood and how I evaluated what I knew then. I highly recommend that this reader give him or herself credit for voting his/her conviction in 2008 or any other time. I look forward to hearing from this reader again and again so that we might have a mutually enhancing dialog. All of your responses to these musings make writing them worthwhile.

What none of us knows, as the final months, days and hours of President Trump's term begin passing by, is the effect his behavior will have on how people vote. As I see it, Donald Trump's conservatism is the least of his offenses. His conservatism is enough to prevent my voting for him. The question is whether Donald Trump really and truly is a conservative! I know some conservatives who've told me that they doubted Richard Nixon's "conservatism" but for them his political instincts were sufficiently superior to John Kennedy's, Lyndon Johnson's, Hubert Humphrey's or George McGovern's liberalism to suit them. Ironically, there are apparently a number of prominent 2020 conservatives who doubt President Trump’s conservative credentials!

Change in times of tyranny or exploitation is what has kept this republic afloat since 1776. Federalism replaced confederacy in 1788 with the adoption of the federal Constitution leavened by the Bill of Rights in 1791. Slavery was abolished by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution in the 1860s and ‘70s. The 16th Amendment brought about the progressive income tax replacing the government's reliance on tariffs. The 19th Amendment gave women the right to vote. All of these changes followed eras of limited opportunity for Americans.

If liberty-advancing change is the true prologue that dominates in 2020, we'll be well served. If the era of "theyism" prevails, which once represented 18th Century confederacy, then the best days of our republic may well be the new prologue which indicates regression into confederacy and perhaps into a new era of medievalism.

I don't know whose “theyism” is likely to prevail. What I am sure is that tomorrow's nation and world will be different from yours and mine.

Even more, that's the way it ought to be. History only informs, it never dictates. Tomorrow belongs not to us, but to our children, who hopefully will take the best of us and make a world suited to themselves, which they may regard as being better than our own. If they don't, perhaps their children will outdo even them!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

IF THIS IS WAR, WHAT’S THE SCORE?

By Edwin Cooney

Beware of expectations and mindsets - especially your own!

President Trump's decision to eliminate Iranian Major General Qasim Soleimani, scary as it seems given President Trump's temperament and "seat of the pants” diplomacy, is not really new within the annals of our diplomatic history.

Those of us who were educated in post World War II America have been taught by parents, teachers, friends, neighbors and just about everyone else, that the United States has always been a reluctant player in foreign policy and that it has never been guilty of acting as did Japan on Pearl Harbor Day, Sunday, December 7th, 1941, the day which “will live in infamy!"

Unfortunately, this school lesson which most of us were taught is only true up to a point. Perhaps "we, the people" have been reluctant to bear the responsibility for international order, but that can't be said of the government or of very many presidents. Since the 1880s in the best interests of American commercialism, our governments, beginning with the administration of President Chester A. Arthur, have planned our military development to support our expanding needs for commercial markets abroad as well as for military advantage in case of international conflicts. Even before the Civil War, antebellum leaders sought to expand the South by annexing Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and, most dramatically, Nicaragua, under the American adventurer William Walker in the 1850s. (These sovereign nations would be slave states to match the political authority of northern non-slave states.) Certainly our adventurism has seldom, if ever, matched the dehumanizing of the Nazis, the Soviets, the imperialist Japanese, men like Qasim Soleimani, or any number of despots I can mention. Still, unless we are prepared to engage in total warfare, we need to be aware of our own capacity for international mischief.

Like most world powers, we have overthrown governments and watched other high governmental officials pay with their lives for their personal patriotism.

In 1953, we overthrew the elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh replacing him with Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, for the next 25 plus years. He never allowed his democratic principles to show — if he even had any such principles. (Note that the CIA agent in charge of the Iranian coup d'état was Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., the grandson of Theodore Roosevelt for whom all wars were "just bully!") We overthrew the government of elected President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala in 1954, we sought to overthrow Castro's government in Cuba in April 1961 and Chile in 1973, and plotted against rulers such as Patrice Lumumba of Zaire in 1961, Rafael Trujillo of The Dominican Republic in 1961, and Salvador Allende, the Marxist president of Chile in September 1973. Of course, there were numerous attempts by the CIA throughout the Kennedy administration in the early sixties to kill Fidel Castro. Finally, there was the overthrow of the South Vietnamese government of Ngo Dinh Diem which was merely a foretaste of our tragedy which was the war in Vietnam.

In pursuit of sugar, fruit and even tobacco interests in Latin and South America and in industrial expansion in the Pacific as far west as China, we've meddled into the affairs of The Philippines, China, and, most successfully, into the sovereign independent nation once known as Hawaii. Opium, through what was called "dollar diplomacy,” guided our interests in China during the McKinley Administration.

In summation, since the end of World War II, we've attempted to overthrow governments in Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Granada, Nicaragua, Panama, and twice in Iraq. Compared to all of this, President Trump's assassination of Suleimani  seems mild given the reality that Suleimani "died as he killed” as someone wrote last week.

It seems to me that if there's a threshold over which we could step that would mean war, it might be the personalization of a potential International conflict.

While in college, I read Winston Churchill's assessment of the growth of war from medieval days through the most recent war when he wrote the book — which was then World War I. In that 1930s book "World Crisis," Churchill observed how gradually but inevitably the process of war had changed. Churchill noted that science and technology were imperiling the peace to a much greater degree than most people realized. Throughout the Middle Ages, wars were generally fought between the royal families. They were fought in good weather and for the most part away from where most people lived. Generally, wars were fought by men who had sworn "fealty" to the nobles and who thus would personally gain or lose once the war was concluded. Changes in technology and science meant that from here on wars would be between nations rather than between mere armies. Today, ninety years after Churchill's book, the outcome of war has changed far more than even Mr. Churchill could imagine.

Nine years ago, most Americans were pleased when President Barack Obama gave the orders to successfully hunt down and, if necessary, kill Osama bin Laden. In order to do this, President Obama had to approve our invasion of the sovereign nation of Pakistan of international law than was the assassination of Qasim Suleimani. President Obama's mistake, as I see it, was to escalate the legitimate goals of war to include violation  of an innocent nation's territory without its consent.  President Trump's killing of Qasim Suleimani on the battlefield which Bagdad is today is somehow legitimate. After all, generals are expected to die on battlefields! Battlefields are where they gain their glory!

Another deadly threshold which we will hopefully never overstep is the one that President Trump threatened to step over right after the Suleimani assassination — namely, the destruction of cultural or religious sites. Such destruction might not cost us immediately, but you can be sure our grandchildren would reap their hatred due to our carelessness!   

As for the score of the war, the US hasn’t declared war since December 8th, 1941, yet, unfortunately, wars still thrive. At this point, since Friday, January 3rd, 2020, we clearly have the advantage. However, advantages are almost always temporary! To paraphrase men named Churchill and MacArthur, mere advantage is no substitute for victory. Victory could conceivably be too costly to even anticipate.

As for expectations and mindsets, let's hope we know how to identify and manipulate the enemies of peace, whoever they are and wherever they live, whether they live in Bagdad, Tehran, or Washington D.C.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THE BIG YEAR IS FINALLY HERE! HANG ON TIGHT!

By Edwin Cooney

Election years are quite revealing, not only regarding the names of the victor and the loser, but also with regard as to who we are and ultimately why we are who we are! The result really and truly reflects our values, moods, political priorities, spiritual leanings, and domestic and foreign priorities.

As a student of history, I find that 2020 compels me to look back to America 100 years ago. The year 1920 was a momentous turning point of events in our history. Women got the vote, the "noble experiment" known as prohibition was launched, President Wilson's League of Nations was scrubbed in exchange for the newly elected President Warren Harding's concept of American normalcy. The details of historical events in 1920 are absolutely delicious to read and to ponder, but the point here is that national, political, and social events will occur in 2020 that will be worthy of comparison with 2001, 1980, 1968, 1933, 1932, and, of course, 1920. Above all, 1920 earned its place in history because it was a year of vital decision-making for better and for worse.

The elephant in the year 2020, will, of course, be the fate of President Trump. What is most compelling to contemplate is the anticipation of upcoming events, their effect on each other, as well as how all of those factors will affect our future.

The first question 2020 will answer is who will turn out to be the most influential decision makers? Might it be Fox News, angry conservative Christians, Democrats in Congress, or perhaps a centrist who is fed up with the progressive constituency? After four years in the White House, does Mr. Trump represent a dying generation soon to be replaced by a new multi-cultural America or have independent Americans moved from their expected progressivism back to the center of the political spectrum?

Another question up for consideration is who will emerge from 2020 as the most powerful decision-makers? In 1920, it was Congress, the Republican Party bosses, and, ultimately, President-elect Warren Gamaliel Harding, the genial Ohio Senator who was elected our 29th President on Tuesday, November 2nd, his 55th birthday. . 

President Trump's strongest asset as well as his most serious liability lies in his reputation as both a leader and as a man. In 2016, many conservatives along with many independent voters accepted him more because of who he wasn't (specifically Hillary Clinton) rather than for who he really was: Donald John Trump, unpredictable, rude, profane, and totally self-indulgent to the edge of decency and beyond, including the law.

The year 2020 is less than a week old and President Trump has already made a decision that could mean war or peace, life or death, a stable balance of power in the Middle East, or disastrous chaos. It's my guess, as well as my fear, that President Trump's willingness to make incautious decisions is exactly what could return him to the White House. After all, Iran's Major General Qasem Soleimani (as one commentator put it) "died as he killed" thus being deeply deserving of President Trump's vengeful wrath. Reckless as he is, President Trump, is a better decision-maker for many than most of his recent predecessors. To many Americans, President Trump decides rather than presides,  proceeds rather than balks, and acts almost as much as he talks. Still, there are very few indeed at home or abroad who consider Donald Trump of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. a worthy forward-looking international statesman!

As we enter the 1920's centenary, America is changing just as it has done since it was conceived in 1776 and born in 1789 in the wake of the 1787 Constitutional Convention which was presided over by George Washington, guided by little James Madison and deemed worthy by old Benjamin Franklin. Even as we conscientiously look ahead, something will occur during any year that alters its course in a way that wasn't readily predictable at the outset.

On January 20th, 2001, as President George W. Bush became America's second presidential son to be inaugurated president, no one anticipated the tragedy of Tuesday, September 11th 2001. No one in 1980 anticipated the failure of a mission to rescue our hostages in Iran, perhaps the single most significant event that cost President Jimmy Carter the White House that November. At the dawning of 1968, who could have predicted the withdrawal of President Lyndon Johnson or the assassination of Robert Kennedy? Could the famous 100 days of the 1933 New Deal have taken place under Vice President-elect John Nance Garner  had President-elect Franklin Roosevelt been assassinated in Miami on the night of Wednesday, February 15th, 1933? Most historians assert that Mr. Garner would have been unlikely to proceed as did FDR.

Would the 1932 presidential contest have been closer if the bonus marchers had not been gassed by the Hoover Administration during their march on Washington in July of 1932? As for 1920, there was some speculation early in the year that the former World War I food administrator under President Woodrow Wilson might well have been the Democratic presidential nominee were he to have declared himself a Democrat. His name was Herbert Clark Hoover and his prospective vice presidential running mate, who thought the idea might be quite wonderful, was young Franklin Delano Roosevelt!

The year 1920 was predictable in some ways, but not in every significant way. Each political season brings with it a surprise that not even the sitting president can predict!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY