By Edwin Cooney
As those of you who read these pages regularly are fully aware, I confuse easily! So, you won’t be surprised to learn that I needed to consult with my two buddies Lunkhead and Dunderhead in the wake of President Obama’s State of the Union address last Tuesday night.
Lunkhead, chomping on a dead cigar as usual, was pointing his right index finger along the bar toward Dunderhead as I entered my local watering hole. Dunderhead had a defiant scowl. I got right between them.
“It’s just as I predicted,” said Lunkhead sipping from his scotch. “Obama’s exactly at the halfway point of his administration and he’s spending us into the ground. He’s a socialist, Dunderhead! You might as well admit it.”
“Nuts!” shot back Dunderhead, “If he’s a socialist, where’s my single payer healthcare plan? Where’s the government nationalization of banks and public utilities? Where’s free public education covering prekindergarten through graduate school? The last time I heard, it was the banking industry that pleaded for government bailouts. You “conservatives” have it both ways. You’re against government bailouts and yet you‘re emotionally dependant on Wall Street. You anxiously set aside part of your lunch period to check your cell phones to see what’s shaking in the stock market. You don’t object if a company you hold stock in gets a government contract. You use government as regularly as any liberal does so long as the activity pays stock dividends that puts money in your pocket. You don’t punish corporations that do business with the government so long as they pay a stock dividend. Relax, Lunkhead, you’ll benefit from Obama’s liberal light ideas.”
“Look!” growled Lunkhead, “Understand that goods -- not services -- create wealth. Reap a profit from a home or an automobile and you’ve created wealth. We’d be a prosperous, manufacturing industrialist, international trade creditor nation today if the high cost of labor hadn’t forced business to go overseas to make a profit. Now all Obama can do is predict government financed prosperity. Nobody believes him -- and they shouldn’t: he’s a one-termer!”
“Why’s that?” I asked. “I thought it was a pretty powerful pep talk to both Congress and the American people.”
“There’s a very simple reason for that,” asserted Lunkhead. “First, the public finally gets it that the 2008 recession was a government-created recession rather than a Republican recession. Even more, Conservatives believe in their philosophy of “less government is the best government” while liberals lack passion for their beliefs. In fact, I don’t think liberals believe in anything as much as they theorize about possible approaches to government. They’ll wimp out on Barack Obama just as they did Jimmy Carter and
splinter party candidates John Anderson in 1980 or Ralph Nader in 2000. Another thing they do is stay home pledging to be good boys and girls and to stay out of politics forever,” Lunkhead concluded with a big grin.
“Nice try, Lunkhead,” Dunderhead shot back. “The truth will soon ‘set you free’,” Dunderhead insisted, setting down his Mexican beer. “In the first place, weren’t Republicans governing when most businesses headed for more prosperous shores? Second, wasn’t it Republican Party government that was running both Congress and the Executive Branch during 2002 through 2006 when fiscal policy was being set? Didn’t Republican government leaders named Phil Gramm and Dick Armey deregulate the banks thus allowing them to create low interest home sales and speculate in loan purchasing? Third, doesn’t money which is used to pay the salaries of small businessmen and workers who engage in such things as internal reconstruction have the same value as money that pays for homes, cars, green energy and all the rest? Why is it that you see no value in investing in American jobs? No, Lunkhead, we’re not joining the circular firing squad in 2012. Call me a socialist and you’re not far off. Call President Obama (who’s putting capitalism back on its feet) a socialist and you’re kidding yourself as much as 1936 Republicans kidded themselves. How many states did they win in ’36—Maine and Vermont?”
“How many states did your man Mondale win in 1984?” asked Lunkhead. He continued, “In fact, Mondale barely won his home state of Minnesota. If President Reagan had had just 3,500 more Minnesota votes, he’d have cleared the national decks!”
From there, the discussion went rapidly downhill. Nevertheless, I felt much less confused than I’d been when I walked in. As sure as they were of themselves, I just knew that the future would be brighter than either one of them could possibly foresee!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, January 31, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
REMEMBERING WHEN
By Edwin Cooney
Yes, indeed, I actually remember that far off time Fred Foy (The Lone Ranger’s radio announcer) used to refer to as “yesteryear.” Fifty summers have passed since a youthful New Englander named Kennedy took the presidential oath of office at age 43 years and 236 days. It’s one of those bittersweet memories that, except for how it dates me, I’m nevertheless happy to recall.
January 20th, 1961 occurred on a Friday and there was snow everywhere. To borrow a phrase from singer Brook Benton’s 1970 hit “Rainy Night in Georgia,” it seemed to be snowing all over the world. Certainly, it had snowed heavily in Washington, D.C. and in Western New York State where I, at age 15 was attending the New York State School for the Blind.
Using my teenage “lingo,” President Kennedy was a “curious” person—which meant that I was curious about him. He was, as a number of my schoolmates reminded me with pride, “…the first Catholic ever elected president of the United States of America.” Even though I wasn’t a Roman Catholic, that was alright with me. However, I had to adjust to two factors about him.
I was a Republican who had very much wanted Vice President Richard Nixon and UN Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge to be elected president and vice president, so I was naturally disappointed on that ground. However, even more personal, since my image of a man’s worth was audio rather than visual, I was overwhelmed by the new president’s combination Boston/Harvard accent. How, I wondered, could America pick a guy who sounded like that to be their president? The very idea stunned me. (Perhaps if I’d heard a recording of Calvin Coolidge at that time in my life, I wouldn’t have been as surprised. Mr. Coolidge’s accent was thicker and less polished than either JFK’s or Franklin D. Roosevelt’s — which I hadn’t heard back then, either).
Thus, I listened with fascination, but with little comprehension, as our new president promised to “…pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
That part of the inaugural address even I understood. Even more, I was pleased that our new president, like Vice President Nixon, was dedicated to our national safety. Perhaps President Kennedy might be as determined and as capable as outgoing President Eisenhower to keep us safe from the clutches of “Godless Communism” as advanced by that “devil incarnate” Nikita Khrushchev! I could only hope.
Adults who couldn’t watch the inaugural during the day surely tuned into NBC’s
Huntley-Brinkley Report or CBS’s Evening News (anchored by Douglas Edwards) to catch details of the inaugural.
Some will recall how the sun, reflecting off the snow, got into poet Robert Frost’s eyes making it difficult for him to see his script and how Vice President Johnson attempted to obstruct the glare with his top hat.
Years later, Thomas (Tip) O’Neill in his memoir “Man of the House” told an amusing story about JFK’s Inauguration. Pointing out that people often wonder what’s going through a president’s mind as he takes the most important oath in his life, O’Neill recounted the story, explaining that as JFK stepped forward to take the oath from Chief Justice Earl Warren, out of the corner of his eye he noticed that sitting in the Kennedy box was one of his father’s “gofers,” George Kara. The president knew his name, but as far as he knew, the man wasn’t that important. Hence, as JFK was becoming America’s Thirty-fifth President, what was on his mind was: “how the hell did that guy get that seat?”
Young as he was, Jack Kennedy received, for the most part, the respect he needed to fulfill the duties of his office. His legislative achievements were substantially less than some presidents, but he carried himself with poise and substance whether he was addressing an annual Gridiron dinner or reminding the nation that civil rights was primarily a moral issue.
Fifty years ago last Thursday, youth, vigor, and commitment in the person of John Fitzgerald Kennedy strode into the national spotlight to lead us for 1,036 days. Jack Kennedy was young enough to have both of his parents at his inaugural. Although Ulysses S. Grant’s parents were alive at both his 1869 and 1873 Inaugurations, they attended neither. Sadly, JFK was the first president to be survived by both his parents.
John Kennedy’s personhood and presidency, imperfect as they were, streaked across America’s historical firmament like Halley’s Comet only to be quashed like a candle at midnight.
As for those immortal words: “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country”…my adolescent awareness didn’t even take notice of them!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Yes, indeed, I actually remember that far off time Fred Foy (The Lone Ranger’s radio announcer) used to refer to as “yesteryear.” Fifty summers have passed since a youthful New Englander named Kennedy took the presidential oath of office at age 43 years and 236 days. It’s one of those bittersweet memories that, except for how it dates me, I’m nevertheless happy to recall.
January 20th, 1961 occurred on a Friday and there was snow everywhere. To borrow a phrase from singer Brook Benton’s 1970 hit “Rainy Night in Georgia,” it seemed to be snowing all over the world. Certainly, it had snowed heavily in Washington, D.C. and in Western New York State where I, at age 15 was attending the New York State School for the Blind.
Using my teenage “lingo,” President Kennedy was a “curious” person—which meant that I was curious about him. He was, as a number of my schoolmates reminded me with pride, “…the first Catholic ever elected president of the United States of America.” Even though I wasn’t a Roman Catholic, that was alright with me. However, I had to adjust to two factors about him.
I was a Republican who had very much wanted Vice President Richard Nixon and UN Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge to be elected president and vice president, so I was naturally disappointed on that ground. However, even more personal, since my image of a man’s worth was audio rather than visual, I was overwhelmed by the new president’s combination Boston/Harvard accent. How, I wondered, could America pick a guy who sounded like that to be their president? The very idea stunned me. (Perhaps if I’d heard a recording of Calvin Coolidge at that time in my life, I wouldn’t have been as surprised. Mr. Coolidge’s accent was thicker and less polished than either JFK’s or Franklin D. Roosevelt’s — which I hadn’t heard back then, either).
Thus, I listened with fascination, but with little comprehension, as our new president promised to “…pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
That part of the inaugural address even I understood. Even more, I was pleased that our new president, like Vice President Nixon, was dedicated to our national safety. Perhaps President Kennedy might be as determined and as capable as outgoing President Eisenhower to keep us safe from the clutches of “Godless Communism” as advanced by that “devil incarnate” Nikita Khrushchev! I could only hope.
Adults who couldn’t watch the inaugural during the day surely tuned into NBC’s
Huntley-Brinkley Report or CBS’s Evening News (anchored by Douglas Edwards) to catch details of the inaugural.
Some will recall how the sun, reflecting off the snow, got into poet Robert Frost’s eyes making it difficult for him to see his script and how Vice President Johnson attempted to obstruct the glare with his top hat.
Years later, Thomas (Tip) O’Neill in his memoir “Man of the House” told an amusing story about JFK’s Inauguration. Pointing out that people often wonder what’s going through a president’s mind as he takes the most important oath in his life, O’Neill recounted the story, explaining that as JFK stepped forward to take the oath from Chief Justice Earl Warren, out of the corner of his eye he noticed that sitting in the Kennedy box was one of his father’s “gofers,” George Kara. The president knew his name, but as far as he knew, the man wasn’t that important. Hence, as JFK was becoming America’s Thirty-fifth President, what was on his mind was: “how the hell did that guy get that seat?”
Young as he was, Jack Kennedy received, for the most part, the respect he needed to fulfill the duties of his office. His legislative achievements were substantially less than some presidents, but he carried himself with poise and substance whether he was addressing an annual Gridiron dinner or reminding the nation that civil rights was primarily a moral issue.
Fifty years ago last Thursday, youth, vigor, and commitment in the person of John Fitzgerald Kennedy strode into the national spotlight to lead us for 1,036 days. Jack Kennedy was young enough to have both of his parents at his inaugural. Although Ulysses S. Grant’s parents were alive at both his 1869 and 1873 Inaugurations, they attended neither. Sadly, JFK was the first president to be survived by both his parents.
John Kennedy’s personhood and presidency, imperfect as they were, streaked across America’s historical firmament like Halley’s Comet only to be quashed like a candle at midnight.
As for those immortal words: “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country”…my adolescent awareness didn’t even take notice of them!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, January 17, 2011
AMERICA’S SIXTH CRUCIBLE?
By Edwin Cooney
A crucible has been defined as a refractory container or oven in which a substance is heated to achieve its maximum degree of usefulness. A kiln for clay, a smelter for iron ore, and an oven for baking or roasting food are all examples. Liberty--America’s most precious gift--has passed from time to time through crucibles that test its strength, flexibility, its durability and even its lasting applicability.
The years 1775 through 1789 marked our first great crucible. Its elements, war, political independence, divisive political confederation and economic dislocation, constituted its uncertainty. Adoption in 1787 and 1788 of our Constitution demonstrated that independent states could join in union for their mutual protection and prosperity. Thus, national unity under the nonpartisan leadership of President George Washington brought our first crucible to a close.
The 1800 election of the Democratic Republican Thomas Jefferson over the Federalist John Adams brought about Crucible Number two. This crucible, substantially milder though politically contentious, demonstrated that Americans could be sufficiently energized to master difficulties and even expansion “…from sea to shining sea” even under partisan leadership.
The fiery and devastating Civil War, 1861-1865, was America’s third crucible: its elements were hatred, family division, violence and death. Nevertheless, it answered in the affirmative Abraham Lincoln’s great challenge at Gettysburg. Out of its turmoil there would evolve -- ever so slowly --“a new birth of freedom.” This “new birth of freedom” would eventually include, in the full flower of its gift, the participation in our national affairs of all the people regardless of race, religion, station or gender.
Crucible Number Four, “the Great Depression,” occurred between 1929 and 1941. Its elements were economic restriction and dislocation, unemployment, home foreclosures, bank and business failures and even near starvation. At its zenith in 1933, Franklin Roosevelt reconstructed governmental and social institutions for the benefit of a greater number of Americans than ever before.
Crucible Number Five, from 1941 through 1990, constituted America’s most formidable international threat. Its elements were hot war, “cold war” (limited war), international treachery and, most dangerous of all, the threat of nuclear annihilation by the world’s two ideologically driven superpowers. Through a combination of economic, political and military pressures, presidents named Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Ford, Reagan, and Bush demonstrated that “collective security” could bring to an increasing number of socially democratic nations that essential physical security against marauding dictatorships. By the end of this period, America was the world’s uncontested “superpower.”
Two events occurred on Monday, January 22, 1973. First, former President Lyndon B. Johnson suffered a fatal heart attack at his ranch on the Perdenales. Second, in Washington, the Supreme Court decided by a five to four vote (Roe v. Wade) that women had the right to an abortion since it was a private decision between a woman and her doctor. The decision was somewhat obscured by LBJ’s death as well as by the impending peace agreement that President Nixon and Henry Kissinger were arranging in Vietnam. Encompassing as it did both political and moral implications, Roe v. Wade would be morally and politically potent enough to shape the agenda and thus the future of American politics.
Since for thirty plus years, Americans have been dividing themselves into conservative and liberal, social, political--and even more significantly--religious camps, it is tempting to conclude that January 22nd, 1973 could be regarded as the birthday of America’s sixth great crucible! Its elements are the predominance of moral conclusions over practical assessments when it comes to public issues, the blatant intensification of partisanship in the media, and, most of all, American’s increasing intolerance for authority, especially when that authority is in the hands of one’s political opponents.
Hence we’re plagued today, it seems to this observer, by a crisis of the spirit, too often exploited solely for political advantage by the most articulate party and media personalities. Name calling, historical, and economic finger-pointing all dominate our political, social and religious intercourse. Too often, a sense of personal victimization prevails in constituency groups whether they be white, black, gay and lesbian, Christian, Jewish, agnostic, or even disabled. Of course, no one can ever satisfy the taxpayer!
Tragic as it was, the shootings in Tucson are almost an American tradition. After all, four presidents have been assassinated; five others in the twentieth century have come close: Theodore Roosevelt in 1912; FDR in 1933; Truman in 1950; Ford twice in a two week period in 1975; and President Reagan in 1981. Additionally, fistfights, canings, drawn pistols and even shootings have occurred at least twice in the halls of Congress. The real tragedy of today’s incident may well be America’s name-calling, finger-pointing partisan response. As I see it, the most vital component of continuing liberty is the recognition of and the respect for political diversity.
If indeed we’re living in Crucible Number Six, it’s obvious that our passage through its white heat will not be up to elected or self-appointed and commercially sponsored celebrity “leaders.” Nor will it ultimately be in the hands of our clergy. Clearly, we alone must find the way!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
A crucible has been defined as a refractory container or oven in which a substance is heated to achieve its maximum degree of usefulness. A kiln for clay, a smelter for iron ore, and an oven for baking or roasting food are all examples. Liberty--America’s most precious gift--has passed from time to time through crucibles that test its strength, flexibility, its durability and even its lasting applicability.
The years 1775 through 1789 marked our first great crucible. Its elements, war, political independence, divisive political confederation and economic dislocation, constituted its uncertainty. Adoption in 1787 and 1788 of our Constitution demonstrated that independent states could join in union for their mutual protection and prosperity. Thus, national unity under the nonpartisan leadership of President George Washington brought our first crucible to a close.
The 1800 election of the Democratic Republican Thomas Jefferson over the Federalist John Adams brought about Crucible Number two. This crucible, substantially milder though politically contentious, demonstrated that Americans could be sufficiently energized to master difficulties and even expansion “…from sea to shining sea” even under partisan leadership.
The fiery and devastating Civil War, 1861-1865, was America’s third crucible: its elements were hatred, family division, violence and death. Nevertheless, it answered in the affirmative Abraham Lincoln’s great challenge at Gettysburg. Out of its turmoil there would evolve -- ever so slowly --“a new birth of freedom.” This “new birth of freedom” would eventually include, in the full flower of its gift, the participation in our national affairs of all the people regardless of race, religion, station or gender.
Crucible Number Four, “the Great Depression,” occurred between 1929 and 1941. Its elements were economic restriction and dislocation, unemployment, home foreclosures, bank and business failures and even near starvation. At its zenith in 1933, Franklin Roosevelt reconstructed governmental and social institutions for the benefit of a greater number of Americans than ever before.
Crucible Number Five, from 1941 through 1990, constituted America’s most formidable international threat. Its elements were hot war, “cold war” (limited war), international treachery and, most dangerous of all, the threat of nuclear annihilation by the world’s two ideologically driven superpowers. Through a combination of economic, political and military pressures, presidents named Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Ford, Reagan, and Bush demonstrated that “collective security” could bring to an increasing number of socially democratic nations that essential physical security against marauding dictatorships. By the end of this period, America was the world’s uncontested “superpower.”
Two events occurred on Monday, January 22, 1973. First, former President Lyndon B. Johnson suffered a fatal heart attack at his ranch on the Perdenales. Second, in Washington, the Supreme Court decided by a five to four vote (Roe v. Wade) that women had the right to an abortion since it was a private decision between a woman and her doctor. The decision was somewhat obscured by LBJ’s death as well as by the impending peace agreement that President Nixon and Henry Kissinger were arranging in Vietnam. Encompassing as it did both political and moral implications, Roe v. Wade would be morally and politically potent enough to shape the agenda and thus the future of American politics.
Since for thirty plus years, Americans have been dividing themselves into conservative and liberal, social, political--and even more significantly--religious camps, it is tempting to conclude that January 22nd, 1973 could be regarded as the birthday of America’s sixth great crucible! Its elements are the predominance of moral conclusions over practical assessments when it comes to public issues, the blatant intensification of partisanship in the media, and, most of all, American’s increasing intolerance for authority, especially when that authority is in the hands of one’s political opponents.
Hence we’re plagued today, it seems to this observer, by a crisis of the spirit, too often exploited solely for political advantage by the most articulate party and media personalities. Name calling, historical, and economic finger-pointing all dominate our political, social and religious intercourse. Too often, a sense of personal victimization prevails in constituency groups whether they be white, black, gay and lesbian, Christian, Jewish, agnostic, or even disabled. Of course, no one can ever satisfy the taxpayer!
Tragic as it was, the shootings in Tucson are almost an American tradition. After all, four presidents have been assassinated; five others in the twentieth century have come close: Theodore Roosevelt in 1912; FDR in 1933; Truman in 1950; Ford twice in a two week period in 1975; and President Reagan in 1981. Additionally, fistfights, canings, drawn pistols and even shootings have occurred at least twice in the halls of Congress. The real tragedy of today’s incident may well be America’s name-calling, finger-pointing partisan response. As I see it, the most vital component of continuing liberty is the recognition of and the respect for political diversity.
If indeed we’re living in Crucible Number Six, it’s obvious that our passage through its white heat will not be up to elected or self-appointed and commercially sponsored celebrity “leaders.” Nor will it ultimately be in the hands of our clergy. Clearly, we alone must find the way!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, January 10, 2011
NATIONAL MORALITY—MYTH OR REALITY?
By Edwin Cooney
“As every past generation has had to disenthrall itself from an inheritance of truisms and stereotypes, so in our own time we must move on from the reassuring repetition of stale phrases to a new, difficult, but essential confrontation with reality. For the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest -- but the myth – persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often …we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. Mythology distracts us everywhere…”— from President John F. Kennedy’s Commencement address at Yale University Monday, June 11th, 1962.
Sure, I’m like everyone else: I certainly enjoy the comfort of opinion more than I do the discomfort of dispassionate thought. (Sorry, Jack, I just had to add “dispassionate”!)
As I see it, one of today’s most powerful myths is that America was born “moral,” but recently has been disintegrating into amorality or even worse -- immorality brought on by secular humanist materialism aided by big government.
Question: What constitutes national morality or the lack of it? Is it government policy or is it primarily cultural? If it’s cultural, ought the central government be empowered to root out unhealthy elements from the body politic? The most effective government in rooting out crime, as far as I’m aware, was the former Soviet government. Now that evil and godless communism is gone, many say that the Russian mafia has taken over. Finally, who decides whether a nation has or hasn’t lost its soul—if indeed it even possesses one? Can you name a single nation throughout all human history -- monarchical, democratic, socialistic, communistic, autocratic, or even theocratic -- that has passed the morality test? I confess I can’t!
According to Holy Scripture, Ancient Israel, although founded under providence by Moses, was destroyed by Babylonia and by the Romans due to its wickedness. Another way of looking at the twice-destroyed Jewish theocracy is that twice the riches of God’s earthly kingdom were awarded to the materialistic societies of heathen Babylonia and pagan Rome. Apparently, not even a theocracy is sufficiently moral to stand the rigors of international greed.
Of course, what has to matter most to you and to me is American morality. What forces in our society ensure American morality or immorality? Was America more purely moral at its founding than it is today?
Traditionalists might argue that a government by and for “the people” constitutes moral government because it automatically reflects their values of family, church, and liberty.
Fair enough, but even at our founding when most states were linked to official churches, native Americans lived in the sights of soldiers’ muskets and occasionally snuggled under cholera-contaminated blankets distributed or, even worse, traded to them by greedy land speculators. Blacks at that time dwelt under chattel slavery—obviously an immoral institution. Yet America’s future was as golden as nineteenth century California and as noble as the charity of the American Red Cross.
As I see it, the tendency to label American society as moral or immoral constitutes one of those “myths” JFK referred to on that bright June day nearly forty-nine years ago. Our task as citizens is to conscientiously and objectively recall the numerous occasions when we’ve applied our best national traits -- patience during international crises, courage and bravery during wartime, generosity to others during natural disasters, and honesty, conscientious equality, and generosity in both our domestic and international relations. Application of such awareness will, in my view, effectively guard against the adoption of immoral laws.
If yesterday’s sins -- Native American genocide and black chattel slavery -- have been exchanged for religious degradation, abortion rights, and secular humanism, that’s a hell of a deal, if you ask me. Their existence may be more valuable as political issues than as dangers to you and to me. America has had issues such as the restoration of prayer in the public schools on its political agenda since 1964. Additionally, since 1991 the Supreme Court has had a “strict constructionalist” majority. Since 1995, liberals have had control of Congress for only five years. (There was a majority split in 2001 and 2002.) Self- proclaimed conservatives have occupied the presidency twenty of the thirty years that have passed since 1981. You may well ask why secular humanism’s “immoral” agenda has yet flourished? My guess is that it’s due, in part, to the fact that it is too valuable as a political issue on media talk shows as well as on the stump. It’s just as FDR once said to his aide Tommy (“the cork”) Corcoran back in the 1930s: “Tommy! I’ve decided that this matter can wait. I want it as an issue next year.” Even our sins can be politically useful!
Now, that’s no myth -- that’s bare knuckles political reality! In politics, voter indignation, if your side controls it, is more effective and longer-serving than voter satisfaction.
Come to think of it, if mythology distracts us everywhere, that’s just plain good politics!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
“As every past generation has had to disenthrall itself from an inheritance of truisms and stereotypes, so in our own time we must move on from the reassuring repetition of stale phrases to a new, difficult, but essential confrontation with reality. For the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived, and dishonest -- but the myth – persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often …we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. Mythology distracts us everywhere…”— from President John F. Kennedy’s Commencement address at Yale University Monday, June 11th, 1962.
Sure, I’m like everyone else: I certainly enjoy the comfort of opinion more than I do the discomfort of dispassionate thought. (Sorry, Jack, I just had to add “dispassionate”!)
As I see it, one of today’s most powerful myths is that America was born “moral,” but recently has been disintegrating into amorality or even worse -- immorality brought on by secular humanist materialism aided by big government.
Question: What constitutes national morality or the lack of it? Is it government policy or is it primarily cultural? If it’s cultural, ought the central government be empowered to root out unhealthy elements from the body politic? The most effective government in rooting out crime, as far as I’m aware, was the former Soviet government. Now that evil and godless communism is gone, many say that the Russian mafia has taken over. Finally, who decides whether a nation has or hasn’t lost its soul—if indeed it even possesses one? Can you name a single nation throughout all human history -- monarchical, democratic, socialistic, communistic, autocratic, or even theocratic -- that has passed the morality test? I confess I can’t!
According to Holy Scripture, Ancient Israel, although founded under providence by Moses, was destroyed by Babylonia and by the Romans due to its wickedness. Another way of looking at the twice-destroyed Jewish theocracy is that twice the riches of God’s earthly kingdom were awarded to the materialistic societies of heathen Babylonia and pagan Rome. Apparently, not even a theocracy is sufficiently moral to stand the rigors of international greed.
Of course, what has to matter most to you and to me is American morality. What forces in our society ensure American morality or immorality? Was America more purely moral at its founding than it is today?
Traditionalists might argue that a government by and for “the people” constitutes moral government because it automatically reflects their values of family, church, and liberty.
Fair enough, but even at our founding when most states were linked to official churches, native Americans lived in the sights of soldiers’ muskets and occasionally snuggled under cholera-contaminated blankets distributed or, even worse, traded to them by greedy land speculators. Blacks at that time dwelt under chattel slavery—obviously an immoral institution. Yet America’s future was as golden as nineteenth century California and as noble as the charity of the American Red Cross.
As I see it, the tendency to label American society as moral or immoral constitutes one of those “myths” JFK referred to on that bright June day nearly forty-nine years ago. Our task as citizens is to conscientiously and objectively recall the numerous occasions when we’ve applied our best national traits -- patience during international crises, courage and bravery during wartime, generosity to others during natural disasters, and honesty, conscientious equality, and generosity in both our domestic and international relations. Application of such awareness will, in my view, effectively guard against the adoption of immoral laws.
If yesterday’s sins -- Native American genocide and black chattel slavery -- have been exchanged for religious degradation, abortion rights, and secular humanism, that’s a hell of a deal, if you ask me. Their existence may be more valuable as political issues than as dangers to you and to me. America has had issues such as the restoration of prayer in the public schools on its political agenda since 1964. Additionally, since 1991 the Supreme Court has had a “strict constructionalist” majority. Since 1995, liberals have had control of Congress for only five years. (There was a majority split in 2001 and 2002.) Self- proclaimed conservatives have occupied the presidency twenty of the thirty years that have passed since 1981. You may well ask why secular humanism’s “immoral” agenda has yet flourished? My guess is that it’s due, in part, to the fact that it is too valuable as a political issue on media talk shows as well as on the stump. It’s just as FDR once said to his aide Tommy (“the cork”) Corcoran back in the 1930s: “Tommy! I’ve decided that this matter can wait. I want it as an issue next year.” Even our sins can be politically useful!
Now, that’s no myth -- that’s bare knuckles political reality! In politics, voter indignation, if your side controls it, is more effective and longer-serving than voter satisfaction.
Come to think of it, if mythology distracts us everywhere, that’s just plain good politics!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, January 3, 2011
TAKE IT BACK—IT DOESN’T FIT!
By Edwin Cooney
I don’t know as much as I used to know about Christmas shopping since I do so little of it these days. However, only a short time ago, the days immediately following Christmas were gift exchange days, especially at America’s biggest department stores.
Since millions of Americans insist that the best of America is a gift from our forefathers, I’ve been taking note of some of the “gifts”-- ideals, laws, and actions given for our betterment -- which we’ve historically exchanged or would like to “take back” for a more comfortable fitting.
The first concept that comes to mind is Thomas Jefferson’s insistence in the Declaration of Independence that “…all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Critics of the “equality concept” find two flaws in it. First, they’ll tell you that since we have different talents, men (and women these days) are obviously not all created equal. Their second criticism is found in the “liberty and the pursuit of happiness” phrase -- which they consider acceptable, but it omits private property as the dearest right. “Life, liberty and property” is how the Declaration of Independence should read. Tie a red bow around this famous concept of “equality” and, for God’s sake, take it back! cry the critics.
As for laws that didn’t fit and needed to be exchanged, the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution (or, if you prefer, Prohibition) was subsequently sent back for refitting by the Twentieth Amendment. Even though Prohibition was somewhat effective in preventing vehicle accidents, spousal and child abuse, and also satisfied the public’s
clamor for social responsibility and morality, its failure was monumental! “Law abiding” Americans refused to stand for a law they felt so severely limited their personal behavior. Raids on speakeasies invariably unmasked the behavior not only of society’s “riff raff” but of an embarrassingly significant number of elected officials. Worse, this behavior tended to support the observation that we are more a government of men than we are a government of laws. Obviously, the law needed to be governed rather than having it govern us. Hence, back it went in December 1933 in exchange for the Twentieth Amendment which allowed for alcohol manufacture and consumption which would be governed locally and regionally where it could be more easily managed.
As for historic actions millions would take back if they could, the number is incredibly daunting. The further time passes from the emergency and urgency of World War II, the greater the number of people who wish we hadn’t dropped the atomic bomb.
Conservatives would throw out almost the entire New Deal except, of course, for the money the government gives Social Security beneficiaries. They’d love to play with that money -- purely on your behalf of course!
Civil Rights laws which deploy the power and authority of government behind their enforcement should, in the opinion of increasing numbers, be modified if not repealed.
As a people almost guaranteed the right of self-indulgence, we’ve invariably taken emergency steps, such as the internment of the Japanese in World War II. It was an action forced on FDR in early 1942 by civilian and military officials in the politically powerful west coast states -- California, in particular. This idea may have given anxious and determined voters a sense of security in wartime, but history eventually gave America the slap on the wrist it deserved.
As for presidents, Americans have sent, thus far, ten incumbents packing: John Adams (1800), John Quincy Adams (1828), Martin Van Buren (1840), (Steven) Grover Cleveland (1888), Benjamin Harrison (1892), William Howard Taft (1912), Herbert Hoover (1928), Gerald Ford (1976), Jimmy Carter (1980) and George H. W. Bush in 1992.
Our political parties have refused to renominate nine incumbents: John Tyler (1844), Millard Fillmore (1852), Franklin Pierce (1856), Andrew Johnson (1868), U. S. Grant (for a third term - 1880), Chester A. Arthur (1884), Theodore Roosevelt (1912), (Thomas) Woodrow Wilson (for a third term - 1920), and, some insist, Lyndon Johnson in 1968 -- although this last is debatable!
Vitally important as this exchange option is, effective use of it is highly dependent on workable alternatives. Statute repeal changes are invariably the best exchanges to make because they mostly respond to our personal dissatisfactions. Exchanges involving human principles and human beings are inevitably more risky since they have the power to alter the lives, for better or worse, of people whose well-being matters so much to so many people.
As jealous as we are of our right to make changes, such changes are often more destructive than we realize, especially when they are governed by impatience rather than by balanced consideration. Balanced consideration is a vital element of wisdom. Wisdom is a gift we can certainly never afford to exchange!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
I don’t know as much as I used to know about Christmas shopping since I do so little of it these days. However, only a short time ago, the days immediately following Christmas were gift exchange days, especially at America’s biggest department stores.
Since millions of Americans insist that the best of America is a gift from our forefathers, I’ve been taking note of some of the “gifts”-- ideals, laws, and actions given for our betterment -- which we’ve historically exchanged or would like to “take back” for a more comfortable fitting.
The first concept that comes to mind is Thomas Jefferson’s insistence in the Declaration of Independence that “…all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Critics of the “equality concept” find two flaws in it. First, they’ll tell you that since we have different talents, men (and women these days) are obviously not all created equal. Their second criticism is found in the “liberty and the pursuit of happiness” phrase -- which they consider acceptable, but it omits private property as the dearest right. “Life, liberty and property” is how the Declaration of Independence should read. Tie a red bow around this famous concept of “equality” and, for God’s sake, take it back! cry the critics.
As for laws that didn’t fit and needed to be exchanged, the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution (or, if you prefer, Prohibition) was subsequently sent back for refitting by the Twentieth Amendment. Even though Prohibition was somewhat effective in preventing vehicle accidents, spousal and child abuse, and also satisfied the public’s
clamor for social responsibility and morality, its failure was monumental! “Law abiding” Americans refused to stand for a law they felt so severely limited their personal behavior. Raids on speakeasies invariably unmasked the behavior not only of society’s “riff raff” but of an embarrassingly significant number of elected officials. Worse, this behavior tended to support the observation that we are more a government of men than we are a government of laws. Obviously, the law needed to be governed rather than having it govern us. Hence, back it went in December 1933 in exchange for the Twentieth Amendment which allowed for alcohol manufacture and consumption which would be governed locally and regionally where it could be more easily managed.
As for historic actions millions would take back if they could, the number is incredibly daunting. The further time passes from the emergency and urgency of World War II, the greater the number of people who wish we hadn’t dropped the atomic bomb.
Conservatives would throw out almost the entire New Deal except, of course, for the money the government gives Social Security beneficiaries. They’d love to play with that money -- purely on your behalf of course!
Civil Rights laws which deploy the power and authority of government behind their enforcement should, in the opinion of increasing numbers, be modified if not repealed.
As a people almost guaranteed the right of self-indulgence, we’ve invariably taken emergency steps, such as the internment of the Japanese in World War II. It was an action forced on FDR in early 1942 by civilian and military officials in the politically powerful west coast states -- California, in particular. This idea may have given anxious and determined voters a sense of security in wartime, but history eventually gave America the slap on the wrist it deserved.
As for presidents, Americans have sent, thus far, ten incumbents packing: John Adams (1800), John Quincy Adams (1828), Martin Van Buren (1840), (Steven) Grover Cleveland (1888), Benjamin Harrison (1892), William Howard Taft (1912), Herbert Hoover (1928), Gerald Ford (1976), Jimmy Carter (1980) and George H. W. Bush in 1992.
Our political parties have refused to renominate nine incumbents: John Tyler (1844), Millard Fillmore (1852), Franklin Pierce (1856), Andrew Johnson (1868), U. S. Grant (for a third term - 1880), Chester A. Arthur (1884), Theodore Roosevelt (1912), (Thomas) Woodrow Wilson (for a third term - 1920), and, some insist, Lyndon Johnson in 1968 -- although this last is debatable!
Vitally important as this exchange option is, effective use of it is highly dependent on workable alternatives. Statute repeal changes are invariably the best exchanges to make because they mostly respond to our personal dissatisfactions. Exchanges involving human principles and human beings are inevitably more risky since they have the power to alter the lives, for better or worse, of people whose well-being matters so much to so many people.
As jealous as we are of our right to make changes, such changes are often more destructive than we realize, especially when they are governed by impatience rather than by balanced consideration. Balanced consideration is a vital element of wisdom. Wisdom is a gift we can certainly never afford to exchange!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Monday, December 27, 2010
OUR FATE? OUR FUTURE? OUR GLORY?
BY Edwin Cooney
I don’t even have to ask -- I know, because I’m one of you, that you’ve wondered! Yah, I know you’re a critic and a realist, that you’re educated and sophisticated, terrific and scientific, cool and hip – me, too! -- but you’ve wondered! What’s it gonna be like, when suddenly life, as you know it, permanently changes?
The end of our time on earth is, of course, as natural as was our beginning, but most of us have spent our entire lives in fear of it. Those among us raised in Christian homes have been told of two possible occurrences which will mark the close of our familiar earthly existence. These are (1) our physical death or (2) the second coming of Christ during our lifetime here on the Planet Earth.
Millions of people have witnessed the occurrence – and, of course, the results of -- physical death. As starkly real as it is, death seldom if ever simply leaves its physical calling card. It also leaves in its wake such emotional feelings and reactions as horror, loss, anger, sadness, and loneliness. Occasionally it even leaves a feeling of satisfaction or accomplishment. (As evidence of this last point, consider those who recently took part in the hanging of Saddam Hussein!) We also can inherit from death’s visitation a feeling of wonder as well as legend.
Since no one has experienced the second occurrence mentioned above, its likelihood for most of us seems exceedingly remote. Yet, I confess, that I’ve always found even its possibility very gripping.
That is why I was quite fascinated the other night when I received what appears to be one of those email chain letters describing what could conceivably take place on that fate-filled day.
Of course, that day is just like any other summer’s day. You’re driving home and suddenly you hear a rather high-pitched sound like trumpets or a choir. The sound is so unusual and persistent that you pull your car over to the edge of the road or freeway. (The one factor the author doesn’t take into consideration is the possibility that you might be a teenager or young adult whose boombox is on so loud you couldn’t possibly hear the approach of a fire truck or ambulance siren -- let alone the sound of trumpets or a choir)!
Okay! I’ll let the author tell you the rest:
So you pull over, get out of your car, and look up. As you do, you see you aren't the only curious one. The roadside has become a parking lot. Car doors are open, and people are staring at the sky. Shoppers are racing out of the grocery store.
The Little League baseball game across the street has come to a halt.
Players and parents are searching the clouds. And what they see, and what you see, has never before been seen.
As if the sky were a curtain, the drapes of the atmosphere part. A brilliant
light spills onto the earth. There are no shadows. None. From whence came the light begins to tumble a river of color spiking crystals of every hue ever seen and a million more never seen. Riding on the flow is an endless fleet of angels. They pass through the curtains one myriad at a time, until they occupy every square inch of the sky.
North.
South.
East.
West.
Thousands of silvery wings rise and fall in unison, and over the sound of
the trumpets, you can hear the cherubim and seraphim chanting, Holy, holy, holy. The final flank of angels is followed by twenty-four silver-bearded elders and a multitude of souls who join the angels in worship.
Presently the movement stops and the trumpets are silent, leaving only the
triumphant triplet: Holy, holy, holy. Between each word is a pause. With
each word, a profound reverence. You hear your voice join in the chorus.
You don't know why you say the words, but you know you must.
Suddenly, the heavens are quiet. All is quiet.
The angels turn, you turn, the entire world turns and there He is. Jesus.
Through waves of light you see the silhouetted figure of Christ the King.
He is atop a great stallion, and the stallion is atop a billowing cloud.
He opens his mouth, and you are surrounded by his declaration:
I am the Alpha and the Omega.
The angels bow their heads.
The elders remove their crowns.
And before you is a Figure so consuming that you know,
instantly you know: Nothing else matters.
Forget stock markets and school reports.
Sales meetings and football games.
Nothing is newsworthy...
All that mattered, matters no more....
for Christ has come...
From this point the author requests that you let him or her know when you received this message. Assuring you that your reception of this message was no accident, you’re requested not to break the chain and to send it to at least four people. Additionally, you’re promised that if you do send it on, you’ll get a wanted phone call or be contacted by someone whom you’ve been longing to hear from. Finally, you’re assured that you’ve just seen evidence of the beginning of God’s love but that you’ll never see the end of it.
So, what’s this chain letter really all about? Does it have value beyond its plausibility or even lack of plausibility? Even more, is it relevant to non-Christians?
I believe the answer to the last two questions is: yes, indeed!!
My guess is that silvery angel’s wings and Christ returning on a stallion are strictly symbolic to make God fathomable to humankind. The author might have been even more persuasive if Christ were standing in an open Mercedes atop that cloud. Besides, it’s silly to think Jesus would return riding a stallion: the Congressional Women’s Caucus would be outraged!
Clearly, the author is a Believer. He or she believes that Christ will one day return. What is likely to happen once He returns, the author does not say. Nor I think does it matter much what happens. What this does tell us is that the day will come when there will be an end to human control on the earth. Presumably, the arrival of Jesus will mark the end of all wars, and bring to a close all human conflict via the force of an all-abiding love.
We Christians, of course, like to think that we understand God better than anyone else does. However, it’s just possible that not even we understand -- really understand -- much of anything God ever has done or will do. We Christians don’t even take orders particularly well. For example:
It’s written in scripture that God asked His followers to build God’s Church. Instead, we have built many churches, thereby demonstrating our capacity to be political even in worship. Insofar as I’m aware there isn’t anything written in scripture giving us permission to have done this! The good news, so written in scripture and surely implied in the message above, is that God’s love is sufficiently powerful enough to forgive even this self-centered and self-important human tendency on the part of us Christians.
For those of other religious faiths, this Christian isn’t sufficiently smug to be absolutely sure that Christ hasn’t infiltrated your faith. If Christ can return on a horse or perhaps even in a Mercedes, it’s just possible that at some point long ago he could have appeared as Muhammad or Buddah or…! (Please, please don’t tell Billy Graham I said that!)
As for the atheist or agnostic, there’s a message here for you as well. You’ll find that message in the power of its symbolism. Surely you know that in order to appreciate a good mystery or science fiction thriller, the first thing you have to do is suspend belief. If you can do that for Captain James T. Kirk as well as for your enjoyment of other science fiction novels and movies, can’t you do it to save your own soul?
Even if logic must be king, why let the spiritual have an absolute monopoly on faith? If scientific logic is your first love, then by all means enjoy it. Why let the possibility that science may have been conceived and created by an even more powerful force or mind spoil your fun. If you can’t suspend belief for your own benefit, why not do the opposite—suspend disbelief. It may well matter to you and those who love you for a long, long time!
The bottom line is that I like this piece of writing despite its rather tacky plea to spread the word. The reason I like it is because it’s symbolism takes us to the edge of the unfathomable—the awsome power of God’s Love.
We fear the unfathomable because we can neither comprehend or control it. This piece of writing reminds us that just as our individual presence on earth ends, our collective earthly responsibilities will one day end. We need not fear death. Fear is made and perpetuated by humankind. We needn’t fear death any more than we feared the dawning of life on the day we were born.
From the moment we take our first breath, as much as air, water, food, clothing and shelter, we must have love.
What this message tells me is that we were born of God’s and humankind’s capacity for love and that, if we allow it to be so, an eternity of love awaits us.
As to whether or not angels really have or need silver wings — it beats the “you know what” out of me!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Originally published January 5, 2007
I don’t even have to ask -- I know, because I’m one of you, that you’ve wondered! Yah, I know you’re a critic and a realist, that you’re educated and sophisticated, terrific and scientific, cool and hip – me, too! -- but you’ve wondered! What’s it gonna be like, when suddenly life, as you know it, permanently changes?
The end of our time on earth is, of course, as natural as was our beginning, but most of us have spent our entire lives in fear of it. Those among us raised in Christian homes have been told of two possible occurrences which will mark the close of our familiar earthly existence. These are (1) our physical death or (2) the second coming of Christ during our lifetime here on the Planet Earth.
Millions of people have witnessed the occurrence – and, of course, the results of -- physical death. As starkly real as it is, death seldom if ever simply leaves its physical calling card. It also leaves in its wake such emotional feelings and reactions as horror, loss, anger, sadness, and loneliness. Occasionally it even leaves a feeling of satisfaction or accomplishment. (As evidence of this last point, consider those who recently took part in the hanging of Saddam Hussein!) We also can inherit from death’s visitation a feeling of wonder as well as legend.
Since no one has experienced the second occurrence mentioned above, its likelihood for most of us seems exceedingly remote. Yet, I confess, that I’ve always found even its possibility very gripping.
That is why I was quite fascinated the other night when I received what appears to be one of those email chain letters describing what could conceivably take place on that fate-filled day.
Of course, that day is just like any other summer’s day. You’re driving home and suddenly you hear a rather high-pitched sound like trumpets or a choir. The sound is so unusual and persistent that you pull your car over to the edge of the road or freeway. (The one factor the author doesn’t take into consideration is the possibility that you might be a teenager or young adult whose boombox is on so loud you couldn’t possibly hear the approach of a fire truck or ambulance siren -- let alone the sound of trumpets or a choir)!
Okay! I’ll let the author tell you the rest:
So you pull over, get out of your car, and look up. As you do, you see you aren't the only curious one. The roadside has become a parking lot. Car doors are open, and people are staring at the sky. Shoppers are racing out of the grocery store.
The Little League baseball game across the street has come to a halt.
Players and parents are searching the clouds. And what they see, and what you see, has never before been seen.
As if the sky were a curtain, the drapes of the atmosphere part. A brilliant
light spills onto the earth. There are no shadows. None. From whence came the light begins to tumble a river of color spiking crystals of every hue ever seen and a million more never seen. Riding on the flow is an endless fleet of angels. They pass through the curtains one myriad at a time, until they occupy every square inch of the sky.
North.
South.
East.
West.
Thousands of silvery wings rise and fall in unison, and over the sound of
the trumpets, you can hear the cherubim and seraphim chanting, Holy, holy, holy. The final flank of angels is followed by twenty-four silver-bearded elders and a multitude of souls who join the angels in worship.
Presently the movement stops and the trumpets are silent, leaving only the
triumphant triplet: Holy, holy, holy. Between each word is a pause. With
each word, a profound reverence. You hear your voice join in the chorus.
You don't know why you say the words, but you know you must.
Suddenly, the heavens are quiet. All is quiet.
The angels turn, you turn, the entire world turns and there He is. Jesus.
Through waves of light you see the silhouetted figure of Christ the King.
He is atop a great stallion, and the stallion is atop a billowing cloud.
He opens his mouth, and you are surrounded by his declaration:
I am the Alpha and the Omega.
The angels bow their heads.
The elders remove their crowns.
And before you is a Figure so consuming that you know,
instantly you know: Nothing else matters.
Forget stock markets and school reports.
Sales meetings and football games.
Nothing is newsworthy...
All that mattered, matters no more....
for Christ has come...
From this point the author requests that you let him or her know when you received this message. Assuring you that your reception of this message was no accident, you’re requested not to break the chain and to send it to at least four people. Additionally, you’re promised that if you do send it on, you’ll get a wanted phone call or be contacted by someone whom you’ve been longing to hear from. Finally, you’re assured that you’ve just seen evidence of the beginning of God’s love but that you’ll never see the end of it.
So, what’s this chain letter really all about? Does it have value beyond its plausibility or even lack of plausibility? Even more, is it relevant to non-Christians?
I believe the answer to the last two questions is: yes, indeed!!
My guess is that silvery angel’s wings and Christ returning on a stallion are strictly symbolic to make God fathomable to humankind. The author might have been even more persuasive if Christ were standing in an open Mercedes atop that cloud. Besides, it’s silly to think Jesus would return riding a stallion: the Congressional Women’s Caucus would be outraged!
Clearly, the author is a Believer. He or she believes that Christ will one day return. What is likely to happen once He returns, the author does not say. Nor I think does it matter much what happens. What this does tell us is that the day will come when there will be an end to human control on the earth. Presumably, the arrival of Jesus will mark the end of all wars, and bring to a close all human conflict via the force of an all-abiding love.
We Christians, of course, like to think that we understand God better than anyone else does. However, it’s just possible that not even we understand -- really understand -- much of anything God ever has done or will do. We Christians don’t even take orders particularly well. For example:
It’s written in scripture that God asked His followers to build God’s Church. Instead, we have built many churches, thereby demonstrating our capacity to be political even in worship. Insofar as I’m aware there isn’t anything written in scripture giving us permission to have done this! The good news, so written in scripture and surely implied in the message above, is that God’s love is sufficiently powerful enough to forgive even this self-centered and self-important human tendency on the part of us Christians.
For those of other religious faiths, this Christian isn’t sufficiently smug to be absolutely sure that Christ hasn’t infiltrated your faith. If Christ can return on a horse or perhaps even in a Mercedes, it’s just possible that at some point long ago he could have appeared as Muhammad or Buddah or…! (Please, please don’t tell Billy Graham I said that!)
As for the atheist or agnostic, there’s a message here for you as well. You’ll find that message in the power of its symbolism. Surely you know that in order to appreciate a good mystery or science fiction thriller, the first thing you have to do is suspend belief. If you can do that for Captain James T. Kirk as well as for your enjoyment of other science fiction novels and movies, can’t you do it to save your own soul?
Even if logic must be king, why let the spiritual have an absolute monopoly on faith? If scientific logic is your first love, then by all means enjoy it. Why let the possibility that science may have been conceived and created by an even more powerful force or mind spoil your fun. If you can’t suspend belief for your own benefit, why not do the opposite—suspend disbelief. It may well matter to you and those who love you for a long, long time!
The bottom line is that I like this piece of writing despite its rather tacky plea to spread the word. The reason I like it is because it’s symbolism takes us to the edge of the unfathomable—the awsome power of God’s Love.
We fear the unfathomable because we can neither comprehend or control it. This piece of writing reminds us that just as our individual presence on earth ends, our collective earthly responsibilities will one day end. We need not fear death. Fear is made and perpetuated by humankind. We needn’t fear death any more than we feared the dawning of life on the day we were born.
From the moment we take our first breath, as much as air, water, food, clothing and shelter, we must have love.
What this message tells me is that we were born of God’s and humankind’s capacity for love and that, if we allow it to be so, an eternity of love awaits us.
As to whether or not angels really have or need silver wings — it beats the “you know what” out of me!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Originally published January 5, 2007
Thursday, December 23, 2010
'TIS THE SEASON!
By Edwin Cooney
Deck the halls with boughs of holly, Fa la la la la, la la la la,
Tis the season to be jolly, Fa la la la la, la la la la
It’s that time again—and I love it. Perhaps a little of the magic dwindles over the years, but only the tiniest bit of it.
I don’t anticipate where Santa might be at any hour on Christmas eve anymore—but I know he’s surely somewhere.
Mary, Joseph and the Christ child, Christmas carols, Santa Claus, stockings, Christmas cookies with hot chocolate or fruit juice are as much a part of my boyhood as the turkey on Thanksgiving, Jack O’Lanterns, doughnuts and apple cider on Halloween, and the importance of the baseball World Series. So since I believe that the history of a nation is the sum of all of our life experiences, I thought it might be entertaining as well as instructive to visit, however sketchily, the history of Christmas in America.
Most of us like to think that Christmas is as American as Christopher Columbus, (who isn’t at all American), the Pilgrims, Ben Franklin and George Washington. However, such is not the case!
As you’ll recall, Massachusetts was settled first by the Pilgrims or Separatists -- who wanted to separate totally from the Anglican Church -- and then by the Puritans -- whose aim was to purify rather than leave the Anglican Church.
The Puritans, who became dominant in Massachusetts over the Separatists, eventually took over in England under Oliver Cromwell during the 1650s. They banned the celebration of Christmas partly because it was practiced by the former royalists and partly because they considered it a symbol of Popery, a leading characteristic of the much unreconstructed and therefore maligned Roman Catholic Church of that day.
By the 1660s, the Puritans had lost power in London and throughout the rest of England, but they were very much in power in Boston as well as throughout the rest of Massachusetts. Thus, Christmas was officially banned in Boston between 1659 and 1681. It should be noted however that while Christmas was banned in Massachusetts, it was celebrated in both the Virginia and the New York colonies.
After the British monarchy was restored, Christmas was once again celebrated in England although its restoration in Massachusetts took another twenty one years. Once William and Mary took over as more or less equal partners as British monarchs in 1688 and Catholicism was on the decline there, Christmas began to be practiced in a more secular way in Britain.
One of the casualties of our Revolutionary War at the hands of our founding fathers, incidentally, was Christmas. Christmas in the era of Patrick Henry, Ben Franklin, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, et al, was considered an English holiday and was, publicly at least, unwelcome in the hallowed halls of liberty until the mid-nineteenth century.
Three writers, Washington Irving and Clement Clarke Moore -- both Americans -- and Charles Dickens -- an Englishman -- were primarily responsible for introducing Christmas as a family holiday to the American people.
Washington Irving, who traveled and wrote extensively from both Europe and Britain, published short Christmas stories in “The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon” as well as a story entitled “Old Christmas” during the late 1820s and early 1830s.
Most significant was the 1822 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” attributed to Clement Clarke Moore and Charles Dickens’ 1842 story “A Christmas Carol”.
Americans, with their eternal love of the underdog and sympathy for the reformed, fell hard for Mr. Dickens’ Bob Crachit and the crippled Tiny Tim, and readily forgave old Ebenezer Scrooge once he’d seen the error of his ways and showered the Crachit family with gifts and plenty of Christmas cheer.
As for Clement Moore’s Santa Claus, everyone could identify with a little old white bearded man whose little round belly “shook when he laughed” and whose pipe smoke “encircled his head like a wreath” as he joyfully delivered toys to little children.
Santa was everyone’s idea of Grandpa!
By the 1850s, German and Irish immigration had changed the face of America’s largest cities and had, most notably, tapped the strongest American incentive: the profit motive.
Thus, Christmas was truly on its way in America—led, of course, by Santa Claus!
Information describing how American presidents historically have celebrated Christmas is a bit sketchy. Apparently, Thomas Jefferson, despite his contempt for Britain and all its institutions and traditions—including Christmas—did privately celebrate Christmas at the White House in 1805. Andrew Jackson was said to have held private family Christmas celebrations as well.
The first president to set up a Christmas tree in the White House was Franklin Pierce. Franklin Pierce, the once handsome and energetic Democratic presidential candidate known as “Young Hickory of the Granite Hills”—after the great Democrat Andrew Jackson—was by then a listless, defensive, melancholy and defeated incumbent President. The year was 1856. Franklin and Jane Pierce were spending their last unhappy months in the White House. Tragically childless by now--and heavily burdened by political and administrative misjudgments—President Pierce purchased the first White House Christmas tree for the children of his Sunday school class.
Christmas was declared a federal holiday in 1870. It would be hard to imagine that President Ulysses S. Grant didn’t have something to say about that, but so far I haven’t found any reference to President Grant in the accounts of the establishment of Christmas as a federal holiday.
In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison installed a tree lit with candles on the second floor of the White House. He also purchased turkeys and gloves for members of the White House staff.
In 1895, First Lady Frances Cleveland attached the first electric lights to the White House Christmas tree.
In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge began the tradition of a National Christmas tree on the White House lawn. The following year, sadness prevailed at the White House despite President Coolidge’s re-election, due to the death from blood poisoning of President and Mrs. Coolidge’s sixteen year old son Calvin Jr. the previous July. Nevertheless, the ceremony was held with the participation of Calvin and Grace Coolidge.
Jacqueline Kennedy began the Christmas theme for the National Christmas tree in 1961 by decorating it with figures from Tchaikovsky’s ballet “The Nutcracker”.
In 2001, Laura Bush’s theme was “Home For the Holidays” which used replicas of the homes of previous presidents.
What, do you suppose, this all means? What do the forces of religion, politics and commercialism say about what we do? Which one of these forces have had the greatest beneficial effect on our celebration of Christmas? Which one of these forces have had the most detrimental effect?
The answers to the above questions I’ll leave up to you. However, I’ll close this week’s effort with my favorite presidential Christmas story.
It was December of 1921 and President Warren G. Harding faced a dilemma, a struggle between his conscience and his need to be politically effective. A small town Republican, he was sensitive to and even shared the suspicions of his fellow townsmen of what might be called foreign ideologies.
As president, possessing the pardoning power as he did, Warren Harding had received pleas for the release of Socialist party presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs from federal prison. Debs had been convicted during the “Great War” of sedition for public opposition to the war once it had been declared by Congress and signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson.
Now the war was over. Since the League of Nations had been rejected by the Senate in 1919 and again in 1920, the U.S. government, under the direction of Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes had negotiated a separate peace treaty with Germany which President Harding had signed during a golf game the previous July.
Thus, Mr. Debs was no longer a threat to America’s national security. However, many of the president’s closest friends and political advisors were dead set against any sympathy for Debs whom they strongly believed had deliberately undermined the patriotic efforts of those who had made the “supreme sacrifice” in France during the war. To them, Debs as a labor leader, was little more than a life long trouble maker inspired lately by foreign ideologies and interests. One of those who drove home that point most vigorously was the president’s personal hometown buddy Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty. (Note: Mr. Daugherty himself would need presidential tolerance within a few years once he was indicted in the Teapot Dome scandal).
For President Harding, however, the question was whether or not justice would be further served by keeping a 66 year old pacifist in jail or whether the spirit of Christmas required him to be charitable. Earlier in 1921, outgoing President Woodrow Wilson had bitterly rejected pleas for Debs’ pardon.
Christmas was on a Sunday in 1921 thereby giving the celebration of the birth of Christ a special intensity. About the 20th of December, President Harding had made up his mind. Attorney General Daugherty was called in and told to prepare the necessary papers. They were prepared and sent to the federal prison in Atlanta.
By lunch time on Friday December 23rd, Eugene Victor Debs was in President Harding’s office. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Debs was home.
When asked why he had pardoned Debs, the President is said to have replied in words similar to these: “At Christmas time, a peaceful man ought to be home with his wife.”
While it is true that the pardon didn’t reinstate Mr. Debs’ citizenship to allow him to vote or seek public office as before, he could act as a political consultant, write, and lecture. Most significant, thanks to the conscience and humanity of Warren Gamaliel Harding, Eugene Victor Debs was once again a free man.
If any president has given a gift more noble and worthy of the spirit of Christmas, I haven’t heard of it.
Christmas, wow! What a season!!!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
Deck the halls with boughs of holly, Fa la la la la, la la la la,
Tis the season to be jolly, Fa la la la la, la la la la
It’s that time again—and I love it. Perhaps a little of the magic dwindles over the years, but only the tiniest bit of it.
I don’t anticipate where Santa might be at any hour on Christmas eve anymore—but I know he’s surely somewhere.
Mary, Joseph and the Christ child, Christmas carols, Santa Claus, stockings, Christmas cookies with hot chocolate or fruit juice are as much a part of my boyhood as the turkey on Thanksgiving, Jack O’Lanterns, doughnuts and apple cider on Halloween, and the importance of the baseball World Series. So since I believe that the history of a nation is the sum of all of our life experiences, I thought it might be entertaining as well as instructive to visit, however sketchily, the history of Christmas in America.
Most of us like to think that Christmas is as American as Christopher Columbus, (who isn’t at all American), the Pilgrims, Ben Franklin and George Washington. However, such is not the case!
As you’ll recall, Massachusetts was settled first by the Pilgrims or Separatists -- who wanted to separate totally from the Anglican Church -- and then by the Puritans -- whose aim was to purify rather than leave the Anglican Church.
The Puritans, who became dominant in Massachusetts over the Separatists, eventually took over in England under Oliver Cromwell during the 1650s. They banned the celebration of Christmas partly because it was practiced by the former royalists and partly because they considered it a symbol of Popery, a leading characteristic of the much unreconstructed and therefore maligned Roman Catholic Church of that day.
By the 1660s, the Puritans had lost power in London and throughout the rest of England, but they were very much in power in Boston as well as throughout the rest of Massachusetts. Thus, Christmas was officially banned in Boston between 1659 and 1681. It should be noted however that while Christmas was banned in Massachusetts, it was celebrated in both the Virginia and the New York colonies.
After the British monarchy was restored, Christmas was once again celebrated in England although its restoration in Massachusetts took another twenty one years. Once William and Mary took over as more or less equal partners as British monarchs in 1688 and Catholicism was on the decline there, Christmas began to be practiced in a more secular way in Britain.
One of the casualties of our Revolutionary War at the hands of our founding fathers, incidentally, was Christmas. Christmas in the era of Patrick Henry, Ben Franklin, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, et al, was considered an English holiday and was, publicly at least, unwelcome in the hallowed halls of liberty until the mid-nineteenth century.
Three writers, Washington Irving and Clement Clarke Moore -- both Americans -- and Charles Dickens -- an Englishman -- were primarily responsible for introducing Christmas as a family holiday to the American people.
Washington Irving, who traveled and wrote extensively from both Europe and Britain, published short Christmas stories in “The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon” as well as a story entitled “Old Christmas” during the late 1820s and early 1830s.
Most significant was the 1822 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” attributed to Clement Clarke Moore and Charles Dickens’ 1842 story “A Christmas Carol”.
Americans, with their eternal love of the underdog and sympathy for the reformed, fell hard for Mr. Dickens’ Bob Crachit and the crippled Tiny Tim, and readily forgave old Ebenezer Scrooge once he’d seen the error of his ways and showered the Crachit family with gifts and plenty of Christmas cheer.
As for Clement Moore’s Santa Claus, everyone could identify with a little old white bearded man whose little round belly “shook when he laughed” and whose pipe smoke “encircled his head like a wreath” as he joyfully delivered toys to little children.
Santa was everyone’s idea of Grandpa!
By the 1850s, German and Irish immigration had changed the face of America’s largest cities and had, most notably, tapped the strongest American incentive: the profit motive.
Thus, Christmas was truly on its way in America—led, of course, by Santa Claus!
Information describing how American presidents historically have celebrated Christmas is a bit sketchy. Apparently, Thomas Jefferson, despite his contempt for Britain and all its institutions and traditions—including Christmas—did privately celebrate Christmas at the White House in 1805. Andrew Jackson was said to have held private family Christmas celebrations as well.
The first president to set up a Christmas tree in the White House was Franklin Pierce. Franklin Pierce, the once handsome and energetic Democratic presidential candidate known as “Young Hickory of the Granite Hills”—after the great Democrat Andrew Jackson—was by then a listless, defensive, melancholy and defeated incumbent President. The year was 1856. Franklin and Jane Pierce were spending their last unhappy months in the White House. Tragically childless by now--and heavily burdened by political and administrative misjudgments—President Pierce purchased the first White House Christmas tree for the children of his Sunday school class.
Christmas was declared a federal holiday in 1870. It would be hard to imagine that President Ulysses S. Grant didn’t have something to say about that, but so far I haven’t found any reference to President Grant in the accounts of the establishment of Christmas as a federal holiday.
In 1889, President Benjamin Harrison installed a tree lit with candles on the second floor of the White House. He also purchased turkeys and gloves for members of the White House staff.
In 1895, First Lady Frances Cleveland attached the first electric lights to the White House Christmas tree.
In 1923, President Calvin Coolidge began the tradition of a National Christmas tree on the White House lawn. The following year, sadness prevailed at the White House despite President Coolidge’s re-election, due to the death from blood poisoning of President and Mrs. Coolidge’s sixteen year old son Calvin Jr. the previous July. Nevertheless, the ceremony was held with the participation of Calvin and Grace Coolidge.
Jacqueline Kennedy began the Christmas theme for the National Christmas tree in 1961 by decorating it with figures from Tchaikovsky’s ballet “The Nutcracker”.
In 2001, Laura Bush’s theme was “Home For the Holidays” which used replicas of the homes of previous presidents.
What, do you suppose, this all means? What do the forces of religion, politics and commercialism say about what we do? Which one of these forces have had the greatest beneficial effect on our celebration of Christmas? Which one of these forces have had the most detrimental effect?
The answers to the above questions I’ll leave up to you. However, I’ll close this week’s effort with my favorite presidential Christmas story.
It was December of 1921 and President Warren G. Harding faced a dilemma, a struggle between his conscience and his need to be politically effective. A small town Republican, he was sensitive to and even shared the suspicions of his fellow townsmen of what might be called foreign ideologies.
As president, possessing the pardoning power as he did, Warren Harding had received pleas for the release of Socialist party presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs from federal prison. Debs had been convicted during the “Great War” of sedition for public opposition to the war once it had been declared by Congress and signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson.
Now the war was over. Since the League of Nations had been rejected by the Senate in 1919 and again in 1920, the U.S. government, under the direction of Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes had negotiated a separate peace treaty with Germany which President Harding had signed during a golf game the previous July.
Thus, Mr. Debs was no longer a threat to America’s national security. However, many of the president’s closest friends and political advisors were dead set against any sympathy for Debs whom they strongly believed had deliberately undermined the patriotic efforts of those who had made the “supreme sacrifice” in France during the war. To them, Debs as a labor leader, was little more than a life long trouble maker inspired lately by foreign ideologies and interests. One of those who drove home that point most vigorously was the president’s personal hometown buddy Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty. (Note: Mr. Daugherty himself would need presidential tolerance within a few years once he was indicted in the Teapot Dome scandal).
For President Harding, however, the question was whether or not justice would be further served by keeping a 66 year old pacifist in jail or whether the spirit of Christmas required him to be charitable. Earlier in 1921, outgoing President Woodrow Wilson had bitterly rejected pleas for Debs’ pardon.
Christmas was on a Sunday in 1921 thereby giving the celebration of the birth of Christ a special intensity. About the 20th of December, President Harding had made up his mind. Attorney General Daugherty was called in and told to prepare the necessary papers. They were prepared and sent to the federal prison in Atlanta.
By lunch time on Friday December 23rd, Eugene Victor Debs was in President Harding’s office. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Debs was home.
When asked why he had pardoned Debs, the President is said to have replied in words similar to these: “At Christmas time, a peaceful man ought to be home with his wife.”
While it is true that the pardon didn’t reinstate Mr. Debs’ citizenship to allow him to vote or seek public office as before, he could act as a political consultant, write, and lecture. Most significant, thanks to the conscience and humanity of Warren Gamaliel Harding, Eugene Victor Debs was once again a free man.
If any president has given a gift more noble and worthy of the spirit of Christmas, I haven’t heard of it.
Christmas, wow! What a season!!!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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