WARS AND RUMORS OF WARS

By Edwin Cooney

 

Eighty-two years ago, as the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, several factors favored fortress America.

First, there was our geographic isolation from Japan and Germany. Second, there was what Winston Churchill called Britain's and America's fraternal association of blood, law and language. Third, totalitarianism was at war with itself which was emphasized by Nazi Germany's invasion of Communist Russia and therefore Russia needed to be saved from Nazism by the “free world.”

The last time that Congress declared war on any country was Monday, December 8th, 1941.

Today's world, of course, is vastly different than the world of 1941. It is much more deadly than the Second World War was for millions of people across the globe.

The close of World War I marked the end of empires and royal dynasties.

The close of World War II opened the atomic age and a worldwide agenda to avoid World War III.

Back in 1991, millions of us believed that the end of communism and the advance of democracy meant that World War III had been pretty permanently avoided.

Now, however, Armageddon may — just may — be around the corner. Hence, the inevitable question: where do we go from here?

Last night, as the host of a zoom program called "The Political Parlor," I featured a Christmas Eve broadcast from the South Lawn of the White House by FDR and Winston Churchill.

President Roosevelt wondered how we could celebrate Christmas, how we could light our tree and give our gifts. He found the answer to those questions in the significance of Christmas as the birthday of "our Savior Jesus Christ.” After all, the sharing of gifts to one another was to share gifts with Christ.

Prime Minister Churchill, in his best Dickensian way, linked family tradition and Father Christmas with children's innocence and happy inheritance, asserting that the hard and grim days ahead constituted a struggle to win for the children's future their natural birthright of happy lifelong  expectation.

Perhaps there's some hope that catastrophe will be avoided for most of us if not for all of us. After all, human nature has a habit of doing what it takes to preserve life here on earth.

Someone once observed that perhaps communism stayed its hand during the cold war because it came to realize that it was too materialistic to deserve the blessings of a spiritual reward and that capitalism was sufficiently anxious to avoid nuclear disaster because there was still much more profit to be realized.

For now, I'm allowing myself to take comfort in the best images of our imperfect but glorious past.

Ah! Grandfatherly Winston: with your plum pudding, your cigar, and your imperial eloquence, bathe today's crises with the assurance you offered the less than worthy world of eighty-two years ago!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

A BEFUDDLED PEOPLE

By Edwin Cooney

When I was growing up in the 50s, 60s and 70s, many people asserted that there were three topics one should avoid discussing: race, religion, and politics. That admonition was advice I happily and totally rejected. After all, how could one resolve issues without writing and talking about them? These three topics were always an aspect of human relationships, but neither Democrats nor Republicans had a monopoly when it came to coping with the emotional components of race, religion, or the wise application of politics.

Last week, I wrote that since 2000, Americans have been bombarded as never before with crises that in one way or another reflected on our wisdom or well-being as a people. The wisdom or sincerity of lawyers and politicians has always been suspect, but the genuineness of educators, physicians, and even the clergy have, over recent decades, been dulled and even poisoned by their increasing connection with political parties and controversial social conflicts. Political divides have become personal.

Political talk show hosts of the left, right, and of the “Trumpian cult” appear to have more influence than Twentieth Century spiritual leaders.

Even more disheartening is the degree of person to person animosity among people who just awhile ago would have been tolerant of one another. Many who are straight resent the marriage and parental privileges that gays and lesbians have been granted. People resent the sympathies of legal immigrants’ support for other immigrants fleeing from terror in their native countries. Whites fear the almost inevitable majority status of Blacks. Law enforcement resists and resents efforts to monitor their behavior. “Black lives matter” to some and don't matter enough to others.

The 2024 elephant in the room is the electability of former President Donald Trump. His appeal lies in his decisiveness and his willingness to destroy all lawful and even constitutional impediments that would obstruct his agenda. He says that his enemies are “corrupt politicians” while he and his supporters are “American patriots,” pure and simple. The question is: would a reasonable and rational people elect Mr. Trump as our 47th president in 2024?

The answer to that question is that as unlikely as it ought to be, they might! However, the fact that they might doesn't mean that they will.

In his first inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln asserted that no government worthy of its purpose would allow for its destruction. He established our ultimate Union by characterizing the upcoming conflict as a “rebellion” rather than a war. Thus, the Congress never declared war against the Confederacy.

Sadly, Donald Trump's political availability via the voting booth, means the people may overthrow their government if they so choose.

Freedom, vital as it is, does not guarantee wisdom. Freedom is only about freedom. Freedom doesn't require either morality or wisdom. Freedom is merely dependent on both! 

Therein lies freedom's greatest challenge to a befuddled people!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

AMERICA — SCARED STRAIGHT OR SCARED TO DEATH?

By Edwin Cooney

Although “America the Beautiful” plays deep in my soul as I write, the unpublished song “America the Scared” rattles around in my brain!  In many states, a program exists designed to "scare straight” teenage delinquents who are thought to be ticketed for adult prison. Hence, will America be scared straight or scared to death due to the social, economic, and political body blows she has suffered over the past nearly 24 years?

A review of recent history reminds me that we've had at least ten major national crises since the year 2000. First there were those “hanging chads” and the partisan Supreme Court that defeated the winner of the popular vote of 2000.

Next came September 11th, 2001 when Toby Keith suggested in his angry song "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” that “we’ll put a boot in your ass” of one or two Arab societies who had sought to intimidate us by hijacking our own airplanes.

Next, believing that Saddam Hussein possessed “weapons of mass destruction,” we pinned him down in a cave and eventually sent him to the gallows. Then, we sent good American soldiers into Iraq in a frustrating and rather futile attempt to control the land of the Tigress and Euphrates from which we all originated. That conflict lasted until 2011.

In 2008, there were two disasters. One, which was economic, resulted from poor commercial banking and consumer rip-offs. For too many, the other disaster was political — the election as president of a man both Black and of Islamic and African extraction!

In 2010, there came  “Obamacare."

In 2011, Osama bin Laden was captured but, satisfactory as it was, our president didn't deserve credit for it!

In 2012, there was the Sandy Hook shooting and a government shutdown by the president's political opposition.

As shootings continued throughout 2014 and 2015, the old capital punishment controversy became silly as most shooters killed themselves.

In 2016, for the second time in 16 years (and four presidential elections), the electoral college winner was the popular vote loser. There were matters having to do with one candidate's emails and the other candidate's relationship with women.

Once 2017 got underway, there was the National Security Advisor's lies and an angry president's cries. There were 7 school shootings in 2017, 9 in 2018, and 7 more in 2019.

Finally, 2020 brought the question forth as to whether Black lives mattered or didn’t and what was right, wrong or uncertain regarding our responses to Covid!

Accompanying all this was the 2020 election and what, if anything, either candidate had to do with it.

Twenty-first century Americans have more information at their fingertips than any generation in history. We're flooded with stories of minority groups' lifestyles, mores, and political demands. We know, or think we do, about many types of people and their lifestyles that appear to threaten our very national heritage. All of these uncertainties both personalize and politicize every public issue. 

In addition to attitudes which are anti-Semitic,  anti-Catholic, and against those who are foreign born — going back to the beginning of our republic — people hate gays and lesbians, Muslims, and others who may be married or unmarried. Many insist, especially the religious, that they hate the sin, but love the sinner but when you ask them what sinner they love, their response gets vague and defensive. Fear, the father of hatred, so dominates us, including fear and jealousy of the successful and perhaps especially of the rich, that we're ultimately confused as to where the root of our fears resides.

Back in 2020, candidate Joe Biden told author Evan Osnos, "The problem addressing hatred is that to do so only gives hatred more oxygen. If we can't even address hatred, how can we hope to wisely select and elect our national leadership?”

We've become so enamored by suspicion, hatred and fear that  the very idea of tolerance either scares us to death or may, just may, one day soon even scare us straight!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

THANKSGIVING, OUR ONLY NATIONAL FESTIVAL

By Edwin Cooney

I consider Thanksgiving our only national festival because it's a combination of both a religious and a secular celebration of gratitude. Unlike Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan, or any other religious holiday, Thanksgiving Day is a day to be grateful for all we have, all we love, and all we are. On Thanksgiving, the power in "thanks" beckons us even beyond acceptance to gratitude for our gains and even for our pains.

Having been born on Wednesday, November 28th, 1945, my birthday has been celebrated eleven times on Thanksgiving: 1946, 1957, 1963, 1968, 1974, 1985, 1991, 1996, 2002, 2013, and 2019. Next year will mark my twelfth birthday/Thanksgiving Day simultaneous celebration. Perhaps I'll see that celebration in 2030, but it's less likely that I'll celebrate my birthday/Thanksgiving dual holiday in 2041, my 96th birthday —  although maybe, maybe, maybe! I don't think I'll be likely to get an ice cream cake on November 28th, 2047, my 102nd birthday, but who knows?!

One reality I learned quite early. On my fifth birthday, which was on a Tuesday, no one, me included, celebrated. I was away from home at my residential school for the blind and it seemed at that time I was always both homesick and in the school infirmary. A month later, I lost all of my functional sight. Hence, at 5, I learned that not all birthdays would necessarily be happy. The same was true for both Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I've had a whole string of happy birthday celebrations whether on Thanksgiving or not due to the wonderful existence of my best and closest friend, Roe. Yes, she's given me many, many wonderful presents, as I've attempted to do for her. What makes them so wonderful is the heart she's put into my birthday. Roe has two daughters born in the month of November and on each year’s occasion, she has still prepared my birthday presents even after coming home from the hospital! What a friend, what a lady!

My 18th birthday, one of those birthday/Thanksgiving combinations, had a rather  comical and silly twist. On that occasion, I was visiting close friends in Endwell, New York and, the night before, my friend insisted that I accompany him to a local bar to have a beer to celebrate tomorrow's birthday. But, I reminded him, my birthday wasn't until the next morning. I worried: what would we do if a cop walked into that bar and demanded to know if I was 18? Talk about naiveté!

Yes, indeed, there's something special about celebrating Thanksgiving along with my birthday six times in every 28-year calendar pattern! It's certainly not because I'm more special than anyone else. After all, everyone's birthday is not only special, but also a bit magical!

My friend's birthday is the day after Christmas. She celebrated her birthday for many years on the same day as Chairman Mao Zedong!

No, she's no Communist, but even if she were, she’d still be my best friend!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

YOUR HOME, WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT?

By Edwin Cooney

For over 50 years I've had a very, very, very special friend. I regard her as family more than as a mere friend!

On October 8th or 9th, her brother-in-law, his two daughters, one daughter’s husband and their four children came to visit them in New Jersey. Recently, they decided to go home and I, frankly, was quite surprised. After all, their home is an Israeli kibbutz near Jerusalem. They're a distance from the Gaza war zone, but there's still danger from Hezbollah in nearby Lebanon and eventually from Iran and even Syria. Hence, I asked my dear friend, "Why do they dare to go home?" Her response was as straightforward and practical as it could be. "They have jobs and it's important that the kids get back to school,” she said.

These are both practical and heartfelt reasons, consistent with their religious and cultural beliefs and connections. The head of the family was born here and could remain thus escaping the dangers in Israel, but he, too, traveled home and that's all there was to it!

Thus, the question: Could you or I go into a war zone even though a war zone is our home? Might we be willing to subject our families  to uncertainty or perhaps endangerment?

You and I, since our childhood, have been taught to believe that we Americans live in "the land of the free and the home of the brave." Comparatively, doesn't 21st Century Israel require its citizens by its circumstances to be braver than we? Even more, are 21st Century Americans brave or are we just demanding?

Ironically, 21st Century Americans are sufficiently afraid of Central American immigrants who only want to come here to make a living. Due to politically criminal circumstances in their native countries they long for our individual freedom and safety. We could rethink and re-regulate our laws to accommodate these frightened people, but for both good and bad reasons we refuse to sympathize with their plight.

In summation then, here's what home is all about. To you and me, our home is a place with all its cultural imperfections that must be jealously protected from all that's immoral or nontraditional.

To the Central American immigrants seeking to escape the brutalities of drug lords, home has been transformed from a haven to a hell that rich, prosperous 21st Century Americans feel justified, for our own protection, to ignore.

As for both Israeli as well as Palestinian citizens who are willing to return to the uncertainties and dangers of an ongoing, imperfect saga which they personally didn't create but were born into, home is a dangerous and uncertain destiny worthy of the bravest of the brave!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

CAN WE MASTER IT OR ARE WE THE VICTIMS OF OUR NATIONAL FATE?

By Edwin Cooney

Next November 5th, "we the people" for the eighth time in our history on that date, will elect a President of the United States of America! Thus the question: to what extent will Tuesday, November 5th, 2024 dictate our fate?

After listening to the third Republican debate last night, it's pretty clear that the GOP is actually anxious to go to war with nations from Mexico, Eastern Europe, and across the Middle East to China. Even the mild-mannered Senator from South Carolina Tim Scott says that when there's a snake you've got to cut off its head. That snake is Iran which border's Putin's Russia! Will Putin sit still while President Scott cuts the snake's head off? Really and truly?!

Other topics during that debate was whether Nikki Haley or Vivek Ramaswamy is sufficiently anti-Chinese Communist or adequately anti- TikTok.

All of the candidates with the exception of Ramaswamy are anxious to support Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Benjamin Netanyahu's legitimate struggles against Vladimir Putin and Hamas. Apparently any effort on the part of President Biden to mediate or modify the intensity of the Israeli war is vintage 1938 style appeasement a la Neville Chamberlain.

In furtherance of additional GOP ambitions, we must destroy the laboratories within Mexico run by the cartels that manufacture the drugs poisoning our youth. One of the candidates, I believe it was Ramaswamy, asserted that our youth weren't being merely addicted by drugs from Mexican cartels, but were being murdered by them, thus justifying practically every possible measure against Mexico although no one specifically proposed war with that country.

All of the candidates apparently oppose TikTok, the 5-year-old international media giant, for being out of control. I confess I'm at sea as to what to think about that!

Sixty years ago on Thursday, July 16th, 1964, Barry Goldwater told the GOP's National Convention in San Francisco: "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” (Note: Ironically, moderation in the pursuit of justice is exactly what many Republicans are calling for in the case of former President Donald John Trump! They appear also to be seeking moderation of virtue as well!)

The only issue about which there seemed to be any moderation is the subject of abortion. Nikki Haley said she's pro-life all the time but that the individual states have the right to allow abortions within their borders. She further urged that pro-choice advocates not judge her for being pro-life and she wouldn't judge them for being pro-choice! Do you suppose the pro-abortion rights victories last Tuesday had anything to do with Ms. Haley's politics?

What's especially amazing about the proposals coming from this most recent Republican hollering match is that these wars will profit us, not cost us. No American troops will be sent anywhere at any time for any reason unless the Chinese attempt to capture Taiwan. If that happens, nuclear submarines will handle matters quickly, cleanly and, of course, peaceably.

As for what the debate means politically for the candidates? I'm guessing that DeSantis must win in Iowa or he's finished. Haley is looking good and she's most likely the Republican Vice Presidential candidate. Senator Scott, former Governor Christie, and Mr. Ramaswamy are politically cooked and ready to be served!

In the wake of the bombing of Pearl Harbor back on that 1941 "date written in infamy," it was observed that the Japanese cabinet was so loaded with gun smoke that it should have been obvious that war was inevitable!

SNIFF! SNIFF! SNIFF! GOP!

If we're the master of our fate rather than its victim, let's be at least a little leery of the Republican gun smoke.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY