Thank you Heather. Your tale makes me remember that some “chance meetings” are not chance in my belief. Sometimes lending an ear or a shoulder could conceivably be a life line with most even knowing. I like to listen to “Unsung Heroes” as short remembrances on the Hidden Brain podcasts. Listening to a few of these tales always restores my belief in the good in people, especially as an unknown person that appears in one’s life and the teller of the tale is simply vocalizing thank you to the unknown, unsung hero. Hopefully our “dads” are heroes in small but hugely impactful ways. Mine was to me. Celebrate your “dad” tomorrow, no matter the bloodline ❤️
My "other" dad was may dad's best friend from the time our families were stationed in Hawaii during the early 1950s. They met when both worked at Wheeler Field in the Morale Welfare and Recreation department (MWR), my dad managing the Bowling Alley and Joe managing the NCO Club. Joe had been captured at Corregidor and been a POW in Japanese labor camps up to Sept 5, 1945. My parents knew what many regular Germans could be at their best and their worst, and worked to help them be the better angels of their society after WWII. Joe surprised me early enough in my life by his similar ability to appreciate the best and worst of the Japanese, especially after having spent 3-1/2 years as their prisoner. Blessed be the Peacemakers describes his attitudes towards all and helped lay the foundations for my beliefs, especially with the extra advice he gave me before I left for Vietnam in late 1967. It helped me figure out who to trust and when as I traveled something like 60,000 miles through Vietnam and Thailand during the next year.
Most people throughout the world are really not that different in the mix of good people you can trust and others you wouldn't want to trust.
Bob worked the farms of interned Japanese farmers, earning enough to pay their taxes, and the profits he gave to them when he returned their land to them
Its sad to think that whenever we see or hear of someone who is honest, decent and caring in their dealings with people unlike themselves - we treat it as an outlier. Sure does say something about what the human race has become.
Jim, it is the comments in these threads that kindle the sometimes only flickering candle of hope in tough times. I like to remind myself that there are many that are “tending the fields” and will vote Democratic because they have seen the less than splashy news of the Presidential business Joe and Kamala tend to daily and have the moral compass to know we are in so much better hands than the previous administration.
Carryon, breath, vote and spread that good news that it is and in spite of the other news. Your comment was such a boost!
I assume that something in your way of being conveyed is was safe for him to be very vulnerable. I think that's one of the most precious things in our human world; to reveal the side of us we rarely show. We confess guilt and we confess love because it leaves us vulnerable. That's intimacy, the polar opposite of sociopathy.
"And he always said there was nothing anyone couldn’t work out, so long as they talked to each other honestly."
"Papa Ken had a huge heart." That's the key. People that don't have a big enough heart are -- like the Grinch while he was trying to steal Christmas -- not very happy. But what is the "heart size" metaphor referring to?
My interpretation is that Papa Ken refused to exclude anyone from his circle of concern. That is -- at the same time -- easy to understand and hard to do, but what is the alternative? The alternative is to exclude people from your circle of concern. The former makes things hard. The latter makes things impossible.
Another way to put it is that Papa Ken was wise. The alternative is to be unwise.
Question: Why is MAGA Tom not honest with his neighbors, Dick and Harry?
Answer: Because Tom believes that Dick and Harry are serving an exclusive interest that excludes Tom.
Question: Should Dick and Harry exclude Tom from their circle of concern?
"We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." —Martin Luther King Jr.
"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster." —Friedrich Nietzsche
Translation: Follow Papa Ken's example. Hard is better than impossible.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. ... Any man`s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
J L, that last sentence really resonated with me, too. I have a high school buddy who is a confirmed MAGA Republican who adores the ground that TFG walks on. I sent him HCR's last letter and his response was completely negative. I anticipated such a response and want to understand more fully the thinking of the Trumpsters. This is his reply:
I still can’t believe you! It’s bad enough you read this bull shit, erroneous crap but then you have the mendacity to send it to others. I ask you again don’t send to me this disgusting misinformation by the ignorant entities that have put us in this unbelievable condition. It won’t work on me. I’m not brainwashed as you seem to be.
Your president Biden was stupid before he became totally senile. We are a laughing stock to entire world even when we give billions. He is destructive beyond belief.
I hope we make it for the remainder of his term. Can’t wait until Trump is president and restores the USA and returns us to a democracy.
Cognitive dissonance. If reality doesn't comport with my view, change reality. 'Brainwash' is a favorite word of these folks, it seems. It's a way to dismiss facts and supplant them with one's alternative 'facts.' I have a relative who has been telling me for years I'm brainwashed…his favorite go to when he has no reasonable arguments to proffer as we disagree. So he labels me brainwashed and dismisses everything I say. Easy. First class bully. I have given up trying to understand the mindset of the MAGA crowd, and have decided to adopt their strategy of dismissal. People can talk to each other honestly, but communication is a two way street….takes a talker and a listener and vice versa. There’s no listening by MAGAs, just shouting. We need to focus on the young while they are still capable of developing listening skills.
A new acquaintance of mine said she was openminded, loved history and research. We knew after an hour's talk over lunch that we held differing beliefs. She asked me where I went college as we got to know one another. It was after I said that I was in favor of separation of church and state that she went full throttle on the Bible etc. Well, OK, that was still tolerable to me but then she continued with twisted (at least I thought such) lessons in history concerning the Constitution and the "Founding Fathers". Since she did express to me her being open minded and an amateur historian, I sent her by text Heather's links to read. And others, with facts. When I asked her later if I had offended her by sending these links, she said, yes. That I was trying to turn her into a Democrat. Now that certainly wasn't/isn't true since I knew/know that's impossible and I don't really want to do that anyway. I wanted her to share with me her sources of information and facts which I never got. And so, we cordially agreed to disagree but I am saddened because I really like her and our new friendship is over before it actually began. I'm not trying to change anyone. I'm trying to understand the other's viewpoints. Like a Ven Diagram, I know there are common beliefs that are shared among people. Certainly there are common needs. Like Heather's Papa Ken, I feel if only we could honestly talk and discuss, simple solutions can be found. Perhaps I am being naive. Friends tell me to let it go. Heather's newsletters are my buoys.
This link is indeed useful but my acquaintance said that there is no Separation of Church and State clause in the Constitution. I remained silent on that issue, not knowing the issue well enough . I still need to re read the pocket Constitution which I have. What I read in your link, Ellen, was a series of letters which may not make any difference to certain people. Thank you for the link.
Jeanne, I "hear you," but is there an antidote for hard core racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, etc.? I think not. The "cure" is to outvote them at the polls, even now as they try to rig the elections. Short of that it will be armed conflict and they (MAGA) are aching for a civil war where a white supremacist theocratic autocracy can be installed, IMO.
Richard: I am in complete agreement. That person‘s response is way beyond cognitive dissonance. I don’t think someone like him even allows a disagreement into his head. Huge emotional need to identify with a strong man…
This person is not racist, at least not completely, because other than her six children, she adopted a Korean orphan. I think she feels that the country is in a deep spiral for the worse has to do with trans gendersism, the fact that Obama was elected President (so perhaps racist against Black people) who then allowed same sex marriage, having been convinced of that by Biden when he was V.P. Also, immigration is a big issue for her too (not surprising). It is for me as well. She had lived 20 years in Maine, then 20 years in Florida and now is back in Maine. She has adult grandchildren now to give you an idea of her age. Oh, she home schooled her children due to the poor morals and values that Dems have.
My best friend for fifty years voted for Trump because she "Hated" Hilary. I don't understand voting for a personality rather than a vote in favor of your own best interests. I used to occasionally send LFA columns to her until she complained that Heather only saw one side of things and not to send her any more of her letters. Now I read them looking for that one sidedness.....and maybe it's just me but I don't see it.
" I don't understand voting for a personality rather than a vote in favor of your own best interests."
We as individuals get to decide what our own best interests are, even when we are fools, but we have obligations as members of societies, and arguably, the whole web of life, to respect "unalienable" rights of others.. That's the secret of a free society, both freedom from as well as freedom to.
If government of the people, by the people, for the people is to be anything more than a charming slogan, we are responsible for the fate of our own society, The vote is our share of political influence of our social choices, which affect many more than ourselves.
So a responsible vote considers the fate of all, especially the most vulnerable, as well as an expression of personal druthers. If we actually seek "Liberty and Justice" for ALL, then consideration of the whole of society, as a group and as equally protected individuals, takes precedence. That's the only way society is made and kept truly free.
No, I certainly don't see any bias in Heather's newsletters. Recently, there may be warnings but they are due to lessons learned (or not) from the past.
This is why on November 9, 2016 I cut off all communication with anyone I knew to be a MAGAt, including my half=bro in MS and a coworker "friend" of 15 years. Some ppl said it was an overreaction but anyone who thinks like this is a "brainwashed" cultist and beyond hope (as well as an annoyance).
"Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig."
Carolyn, I also have given up trying to debate, share facts, or even understand the MAGA crowd. Instead, I have decided to drop the subject and steer clear of hard core MAGAs — including any relatives or neighbors who angrily dismiss what we have observed since Jan 6. My 80 years of life experience and PhD training in the behavioral sciences are no help in understanding or influencing hard core MAGAs, some of whom quietly admit later that they no longer plan to vote for Trump. My response is to smile politely and tell them that I am glad to hear that. It seems wise to let the subject drop and focus on registering young voters.
When I’m in a situation where the MAGA conversation begins, I’ve trained myself to change the conversation to hummingbirds. My partner knows exactly what I’m doing … so he continues the hummingbird discussion… “Have you had many hummingbirds so far?” “ How often do you change your hummingbird feeder?” There is no end to questions and starters about hummingbirds!
I believe the most important task today is to restore common ground in our society. It is unlikely that this separation happened on its own. Credit to the right wing elites, and probably the disinformation from Russia and maybe China. Decades of work.
Richard, I get the same thing. I challenged a fellow retired cop that he was lending his support to a convicted felon and both an admitted and "found liable" sexual offender. He (and its almost always "he") told me that he could "not believe" that I thought for one minute that either trial was not an "offensive weapon" of the federal judiciary, even though one was a state criminal case and the other was a civil case brought in the state system.
It’s scary to think the Democrats might stay in office. They have too many people of color in high places…vice president, minority speaker of the house: budget director; EPA Director; UN rep; interior secretary and OMG even the Defense Dept.
And then there’s all of these Black mayors of various cities and even Black district attorneys and prosecutors. They appointed a Black woman to the Supreme Court and a gay guy to lead the transportation department. Look at pictures of the Ds. They have all kinds of people as members. It’s diversity run amok.
There are even Black people in power who are prosecuting Trump (e.g. Bragg, James, Willis). What happened to the America where they grew up when people knew their places?
This is what most MAGAs see and why they’re all in for Trump. Look at pictures of his cabinet and administration. Look at the Rs. They’re paragons of white supremacy and institutional racism.
Many will point to inflation, gas prices etc. and most won’t admit it to themselves or anyone else but they want their country back because they “fear for their lives and livelihoods” if other people are given opportunities to occupy positions of power.
Racism (and misogyny) are at the heart of the MAGA movement.
Why else would these people be supporting a racist, convicted felon, rapist, liar, violence prone cheater?
"Laughing stock to the entire world" is patently untrue. European leaders are very concerned about what will happen if that idiot is elected again. Of course, we also won't have a democracy.
I've spent time in Australia, Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Ireland, Northern Ireland, and other places since T became a "Presidential Candidate" in 2015. Of all the people I've encountered, no matter what race, religion, occupation, sex, etc. I can only remember ONE, ONE SINGLE PERSON, who thought T was good for the US or the world. The rest could not understand how 70,000,000 Americans could vote for such a (you can supply the adjective) "clown" (they would actually call him a "clown", and ask "what the hell is going on over there?" The one Trump supporter was a taxi driver in Vienna. He was an Iranian immigrant who was glad T pulled out of the Iranian nuclear agreement. HIs reasoning was not rational and not based on facts, much like the continued support of T by the 70,000,000.
I'm not surprised, Max. Years ago, my husband and I were vacationing in Ireland, and we met an Italian couple. "What do you think of [George W.] Bush?" was the first question the man asked us. We were not fans, and we told him so... Those times seem quaint in comparison to what we're dealing with today.
That is what we are up against — those whose vision is the mirror of our own, and who say WE are the image in the mirror, not them … How to refute it…with logic? Logic only works on those with the accuarate information needed to craft the discussion … Alternative facts. Such is our world …
Richard, the following was my experience with a person I held in high esteem in all other regards (and the regret I have for not finding a better mirror to have him reconsider his blindness) It is exactly like I sent it to another friend 3 days after the 2016 election, though it was about the trick I pulled on him 3 months after the 2012 election implying I was asking him to critique Obama’s 2009 inaugural speech.
They don't want to hear anything like what they throw at their chosen targets, or about their own whining.
I have lost a friend or two that I would rather not have by holding a mirror up to them, like one former Republican party official. 3 months after Obama's inauguration, I asked him to pause the constant criticism and accusations and review a copy of the '&9 inaugural speech to see if he would find the words at least inspirational. He carefully read the whole speech, thought about it for a bit then lit into a tirade against everything in it. I feigned being perplexed by his response, until he finally asked why I looked so puzzled. I picked up the copy of the speech, looked at the top/title and said, "Oh, there is a typo, '&9 should have been '69, this was Nixon's inaugural speech."
They really don't like being shown their reflections but they can at least see them if you can get them to look in a mirror (sometimes at the cost of a friend). Trump seems a bit more like a Vampire, reputedly unable to see their reflections in mirrors, most popularly expressed by Bram Stroker's description of mirrors being the reflection of a person's soul, which is missing in Vampires. He would not want people following through on his position back in 2012 to have the popular vote trump the electoral college (when he and Newt Gingrich thought Romney would win the popular vote but lose the electoral vote).
I have huge admiration and respect for so many things they have done outside of the political arena, that I especially do not want to get them so riled up we get stupid over what issues we can agree on (however few they are).
I'd rather remain open to everyone I can, to sometimes persuade them my way, but always ready to work out the best we can between us. Sometimes, it helps to just let them vent, then relax enough to figure out better answers for themselves (without overreacting to fights they picked, getting others to overreact to).
If you get a chance to read Bill Moyers "Listening to America" (which I have a treasured signed copy of) look for the part at the end about his frustration trying to interview Fran Buhler, a community organizer hired by the President of Wellman Industries in Johnsonville South Carolina. Buhler almost never spoke, and always had a way of listening, waiting for anyone and everyone else to talk. Moyers found the secret to his success was more due to opening a community center and getting the wives to volunteer to make curtains and do other little things to prepare it for the start of the "real" meetings. The women had casually come together with light enough work that they could talk to people they had never talked to before, forming friendships and eventually getting their husbands to come along. Buhler was a "poor" organizer, mostly "wasting" a lot of time during which the men started discussing what they thought the problems were. Buhler never seemed to offer any solutions, instead asking them to discuss what they thought would work. The man who hired him, Wellman, wouldn't offer solutions either, though he did tell his managers that they had to build their homes well distributed in the communities of their workers, they didn't offer solutions either, but did live among them and mingle enough to know what their concerns were. The community members "gave up" on waiting for solutions from the "organizer" and implemented all their own best solutions.
The book reveals a lot of problems the country was going through back then (1970) and many of the issues were not resolved well if at all, but Johnsonville did a far more acceptable job of allowing people to improve their lives more realistically and peacefully through 4 decades of Wellman's life, keeping a company viable when so many others left the communities that were more loyal to the industries than the industries were to their communities. Wellman could easily have made far more moving to Mexico, but he seemed a great answer to my daughter's favorite question, "Is he rich or does he just have money"?
Oh gosh, this ‘friend’ is very hateful, and you are still acquaintances with him, you are a good man to tolerate his ignorance. Hope he will have egg on his face come November.
This is so sad. I still can't wrap my mind around people who believe so differently and are so vehement about it. I don't know if I will ever understand their thinking. Seems both sides seem illogical to the other.
Laura, the hardest part for all of us is going to be finding a way to forgive and somehow accept and help these people if they ever start to wake up to what has been done to them in the name of politics and power. Many of them have been brainwashed by Fox News and similar news sources. Back in the 90's, Sinclair Media began buying up many, if not most, of the TV and radio stations in the more rural parts of American and only allowing Fox and similar news and religious outlets to be on the various channels. They and others bought up many of the small newspapers in these areas and closed them down. And they have even, as we are becoming more aware of lately, taken over school boards and determined what their children could read and learn about. When you only get one point of view from all your sources you can't help but come to believe it to be true, as it is all you know. As you and others have written, they are brainwashed, which is why it is so difficult to speak with them.
I have no solution for what we can do about this, but I find it helps me to have some understanding of how they came to think the way they do. I originally thought this info about the media takeover was all made up, until I drove across several states in the West and Midwest and realized that Fox, conservative talk shows, and religious channels were pretty much all I could find wherever I went. Even in the motels I stayed in. Part of me prays they never learn the truth because I'm not sure, if I were them, that I could deal with the truth , and to then figure out what to do about it. And part of me wants them to learn the truth so this MAGA craziness will go away. It is a definite conundrum.
It is a form of propaganda and censored news, like in Russia, China and other places. I agree, don't know what to wish for. I would like to be able to have civil discourse again, but it seems more challenging than ever. During the pandemic, people were dying of Covid and insisting Covid did not exist. Very difficult in health care. Boggles my mind that people 'see' the same thing and take away very different viewpoints.
Projection, projection, projection. Your "cult member" buddy is fortunately in the minority of adult male voters, even at least where I live in Arizona. I would send him today's entry and underline "And he always said there was nothing anyone couldn’t work out, so long as they talked to each other honestly." And conclude with "you've been brainwashed, better wake up before it's too late."
"Papa’s war was not an easy one, although he came home without visible wounds." That experience must have applied to many, many veterans, including two of my uncles, who never spoke of their experiences. I have often wondered if WW II vets had spoken out more about the reality of war, might it have pushed more peace-oriented policy?
Helen, I think that for my generation that brought war to the TV….Vietnam…where it came crashing into our living rooms…raw and brutal…and the fact that it really was as the song said “what are we fighting for?” That time marked a change and, I think turned the tide, at least for a while until we got snookered by WMD’s, etc. Now, too, it is even more “in our face”, yet we cast about for solutions unsuccessfully. War, what is it good for…absolutely nothing”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztZI2aLQ9Sw
I will never know the pain and agony of war. I came to life in the 1950s and by the late 1960s, I was fully a war protester. I’m surprised (although maybe I shouldn’t be) that many of the comments here are about going to war and returning from war as if this was the only rite of passage of men.
Since I not only had no military in my immediate family and my father was not much of a father, I can’t quite relate to the narratives. My mother’s two male cousins were more fatherly toward me than my blood father. When I prepared to return home from living in Italy and penniless, I turned to my uncle Sal to borrow money to get home. He immediately wired the money. I promised I would repay him and it took me shy of a year to do so. When I went into his insurance office with the money, he accepted the money and I’m glad he did. He was wealthy and I’m sure he would have been content to not being repaid. But Uncle Sal was also teaching me something about responsibility. I now take great pleasure cleaning up his granite marker where he, his wife and brother’s family are buried. I take note that his brother’s grandson now leads the largest defense plant in the world yet never has cared to clean the weeds away or even send a maintenance crew to show respect for those who gave him life. I gladly take on this chore each year.
Around 1956, as a 10 year old visiting our grandparents between assignments (Hawaii to Missouri), I was just old enough to wonder what my grandfather was doing the first day I had seen him in 4 years. I was with my uncle Ernie when I saw him seem to try to hide taking $5 and change from a man that looked like he could barely afford it, yet he left quickly looking relieved. When I asked my uncle what was going on, he took me outside and said the man had just paid my dairy farmer grandfather the last he felt he owed for all the milk my grandfather had forced him to accept (for free), throughout much of the Great Depression. When he tried to refuse the milk, my grandfather said he had to take it for his children since he would have to throw it away anyway if nobody took it. My grandfather appreciated the man’s pride was more important than money.
Funny the way the eras fold into one another, isn't it. Almost half my colleagues in the local current antiwar/ceasefire movement are 40 and even 50 years younger than I am, and the way protesters have been treated recently reminds me a lot of how my fellows and I were treated 50+ years ago.
And the whole media situation has changed. Like it's hard to believe that I first heard Barry McGuire sing "Eve of Destruction" on AM radio when I was about 14. And many of Phil Ochs's songs are still current, as are Tom Lehrer's from THAT WAS THE YEAR THAT WAS.
I wonder if it was frowned upon to speak openly about the horrors the GIs experienced, if they were so busy rebuilding they're lives using the GI bill or getting a good paying blue collar job and supporting their wife and children with all the modern conveniences made possible by the war machine.
I think, from my limited experience in my family, and in my own trauma, that it was just too traumatic, and they did not want to burden others with their pain, which non one else can ever really understand. Also, goddamn "strong man" syndrome, of course.
I don't remember my father ever talking about his war experiences while I was growing up -- until we bonded over Joseph Heller's CATCH-22 when I was in high school (mid/late '60s). That described his war experience better than anything he'd ever read, he said. (He was an army noncom in North Africa and Italy.) I think his opposition to the Vietnam war prompted him to talk a little more about his WWII experiences. (We actually saw HAIR together on its first Boston run, when I was a college freshman.)
My father was a US Marine who fought on Okinawa. He never said much about it, and we learned decades later that some of the difficult behavior we experienced from him resulted from PTSD. I think many do not speak of the horrors because it is too traumatic.
I read about the battle of Okinawa a few years ago. People's faces being blown off next to you in a mud filled foxhole, and many other horrors.
Many of us have shut out memories of the height of the Covid pandemic, which was bad enough, but nothing compared to the experience of war.😪
Taken as a whole, you're right, but for some communities (including health-care workers) the experience of COVID might be compared to the experience of war. Not to the experience of being on the front lines, of course, but in war many of us aren't anywhere near the front lines, and we aren't being bombed either. And I'm not the first to compare the policing of many U.S. communities of color over the decades to a military occupation.
I just had the opportunity to spend about 14 hours in the ER at OHSU (a dear friend was directed by the Portland VA to go there, have their neurologist look at the MRI that she had received at 0630 that morning because she was a candidate for emergency back surgery. It was a marathon simply because it took from noon until 6:00 p.m. to determine that the VA would not be able to send the MRI and they had to schedule an other MRI at OHSU.) The ER was packed, and they had what they called "Triage ER" where they would put emergent cases, and a "Surge ER, where patients awaiting admission could be staged until a bed was available in the main hospital.
The "Triage ER" was one section off the ER that was probably a storage and work area that had been converted into spaces where 9 beds could fit; each bed had an approximately 5' x 8' area, with a nurse's work station that was 7' x 7'. The "Surge ER" was larger, had its own full nurse's station, and had more advanced medical equipment available. I believe the space was a bit larger (6' x 10') and had more advanced monitoring capabilities. That area had (I think) at least 12 beds. Those two areas were COVID innovations, and the "Surge" was where they had put the critical patients who needed the ventilators. There were exposed 12" in diameter HVAC ducting pipes throughout that area.
I think you assessment is pretty close, especially for health care workers.
I think there was real pressure on everyone to "get back to normal" after WW2. Women were pressured to go home and be "happy homemakers", veterans were pressured to go back "home" and get back their lives as if nothing had happened.
Most of the US was still struggling to recover from the Great Depression when WW2 started, so the veterans were coming back to a country they didn't remember. Industries had grown up, jobs had changed, people were moving to the cities...
Everyone was happy! The war was over!
Magazine articles, movies, books, and later television were rather desperately promoting good news and opportunity; there was no room for stories of the horrors of war.
No, I don't think it would have helped for the WW2 vets to talk more about their war experiences; their war was framed as glorious because we were attacked, and we won.
WW2 stories were all about brotherhood and America the brave until much, much, later.
It wasn't until Korean War and Vietnam War vets started talking about the horrors of war that people could look back and see the reality of WW2.
You were there, you must have exuded a kindness. People yelling at me never brings tears. A kind word can unleash a torrent…that I didn’t know was just below the surface. Maybe a torrent is just below the surface for everybody, except maybe a malignant narcissist
My mother used to quote Dag Hamerskold(sp?) saying that, in negotiations between countries, he kept in mind that, "anger can be a verbal smoke screen, behind which someone is rapidly engaged in changing their mind." Probably not an exact quotation, but wise to keep in mind.
Today's situation seems more extreme and entrenched, but the question remains, "How do we de-escalate the hostility and enable people to work together on mutual goals?" My own capacity for compromise is diminished when I'm furious at the twits who won't change their beliefs despite the evidence. It is a challenge for all of us.
Fear underlies the conflict. A malignant narcissist is terrified for himself when facing consequences for a lifetime of cruel self-serving manipulation of others and amoral business dealings.
I remember when DAG was killed. I thought we had lost a necessary man. And they are hard to replace. Love his take on anger, it is a volatile and vulnerable time. I can attest to that…. Thanks
I have a friend who was a Navy Seal in the Vietnam War. He only ever spoke to me about the horror, I believe it's because I would listen. I think he felt safe and didn't want any comment. That man paid you a huge compliment. And you him.
Oh my God, Lynn that was so beautifully written. I am in tears! Thank you for remembering his pain and his love in being able to share to a really special girl.
Thank you for sharing your profound, touching experience with us. I would remember it too, but not be able to tell it so well as you have with this poem of stark human need.
I am a transplant: last of my mother’s children, I was cared for my two older sisters and my brother but when I was 11 I left all that behind to come here(US), and go to school. Didn’t know of my own early life hardly at all..then I got a bunch of old photos given to me, and there I was in one, about 4 yrs old with my two grown up sisters and brother, and I look happy and relaxed. I said to myself ‘ I bet they dressed me, combed my hair, and carried me around all over the place. They Loved Me!
Sometimes the Living Can’t Speak Either
Sixteen years old, working in a bakery,
I reached over the counter, handed
A customer a cake. As four hands hold
A cake, he said softly, "I’ve never told
Anyone about the horror
I saw as a soldier during the war."
Seventy years since that summer day
I have never forgotten his tortured
Eyes, tears, this man’s drawn face…
I often wonder why he chose me
This skinny teenage girl he didn’t know
To relieve his unbearable grief…
I was selling bread and sweets when
Brutal honesty, pain, and glory
Sought me out on a Saturday morning
With a precious gift, remembered a lifetime.
Thank you Heather. Your tale makes me remember that some “chance meetings” are not chance in my belief. Sometimes lending an ear or a shoulder could conceivably be a life line with most even knowing. I like to listen to “Unsung Heroes” as short remembrances on the Hidden Brain podcasts. Listening to a few of these tales always restores my belief in the good in people, especially as an unknown person that appears in one’s life and the teller of the tale is simply vocalizing thank you to the unknown, unsung hero. Hopefully our “dads” are heroes in small but hugely impactful ways. Mine was to me. Celebrate your “dad” tomorrow, no matter the bloodline ❤️
My "other" dad was may dad's best friend from the time our families were stationed in Hawaii during the early 1950s. They met when both worked at Wheeler Field in the Morale Welfare and Recreation department (MWR), my dad managing the Bowling Alley and Joe managing the NCO Club. Joe had been captured at Corregidor and been a POW in Japanese labor camps up to Sept 5, 1945. My parents knew what many regular Germans could be at their best and their worst, and worked to help them be the better angels of their society after WWII. Joe surprised me early enough in my life by his similar ability to appreciate the best and worst of the Japanese, especially after having spent 3-1/2 years as their prisoner. Blessed be the Peacemakers describes his attitudes towards all and helped lay the foundations for my beliefs, especially with the extra advice he gave me before I left for Vietnam in late 1967. It helped me figure out who to trust and when as I traveled something like 60,000 miles through Vietnam and Thailand during the next year.
Most people throughout the world are really not that different in the mix of good people you can trust and others you wouldn't want to trust.
Joe would have appreciated the story of Bob Emmett Fletcher, a story I always remember from inexact versions long before I found the one at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Emmett_Fletcher
Bob worked the farms of interned Japanese farmers, earning enough to pay their taxes, and the profits he gave to them when he returned their land to them
Its sad to think that whenever we see or hear of someone who is honest, decent and caring in their dealings with people unlike themselves - we treat it as an outlier. Sure does say something about what the human race has become.
Jim, it is the comments in these threads that kindle the sometimes only flickering candle of hope in tough times. I like to remind myself that there are many that are “tending the fields” and will vote Democratic because they have seen the less than splashy news of the Presidential business Joe and Kamala tend to daily and have the moral compass to know we are in so much better hands than the previous administration.
Carryon, breath, vote and spread that good news that it is and in spite of the other news. Your comment was such a boost!
Well put
Beautiful! You are a poet!
My father was my favorite person as an 8 yr old!
I assume that something in your way of being conveyed is was safe for him to be very vulnerable. I think that's one of the most precious things in our human world; to reveal the side of us we rarely show. We confess guilt and we confess love because it leaves us vulnerable. That's intimacy, the polar opposite of sociopathy.
"And he always said there was nothing anyone couldn’t work out, so long as they talked to each other honestly."
"Papa Ken had a huge heart." That's the key. People that don't have a big enough heart are -- like the Grinch while he was trying to steal Christmas -- not very happy. But what is the "heart size" metaphor referring to?
My interpretation is that Papa Ken refused to exclude anyone from his circle of concern. That is -- at the same time -- easy to understand and hard to do, but what is the alternative? The alternative is to exclude people from your circle of concern. The former makes things hard. The latter makes things impossible.
Another way to put it is that Papa Ken was wise. The alternative is to be unwise.
Question: Why is MAGA Tom not honest with his neighbors, Dick and Harry?
Answer: Because Tom believes that Dick and Harry are serving an exclusive interest that excludes Tom.
Question: Should Dick and Harry exclude Tom from their circle of concern?
"We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." —Martin Luther King Jr.
"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster." —Friedrich Nietzsche
Translation: Follow Papa Ken's example. Hard is better than impossible.
And (re James’ ‘circle of concern’ thesis):
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. ... Any man`s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
- John Donne, 1624, 400 years ago!
J L, that last sentence really resonated with me, too. I have a high school buddy who is a confirmed MAGA Republican who adores the ground that TFG walks on. I sent him HCR's last letter and his response was completely negative. I anticipated such a response and want to understand more fully the thinking of the Trumpsters. This is his reply:
I still can’t believe you! It’s bad enough you read this bull shit, erroneous crap but then you have the mendacity to send it to others. I ask you again don’t send to me this disgusting misinformation by the ignorant entities that have put us in this unbelievable condition. It won’t work on me. I’m not brainwashed as you seem to be.
Your president Biden was stupid before he became totally senile. We are a laughing stock to entire world even when we give billions. He is destructive beyond belief.
I hope we make it for the remainder of his term. Can’t wait until Trump is president and restores the USA and returns us to a democracy.
There is none so blind as him who WILL NOT see.
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and of your ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
Cognitive dissonance. If reality doesn't comport with my view, change reality. 'Brainwash' is a favorite word of these folks, it seems. It's a way to dismiss facts and supplant them with one's alternative 'facts.' I have a relative who has been telling me for years I'm brainwashed…his favorite go to when he has no reasonable arguments to proffer as we disagree. So he labels me brainwashed and dismisses everything I say. Easy. First class bully. I have given up trying to understand the mindset of the MAGA crowd, and have decided to adopt their strategy of dismissal. People can talk to each other honestly, but communication is a two way street….takes a talker and a listener and vice versa. There’s no listening by MAGAs, just shouting. We need to focus on the young while they are still capable of developing listening skills.
A new acquaintance of mine said she was openminded, loved history and research. We knew after an hour's talk over lunch that we held differing beliefs. She asked me where I went college as we got to know one another. It was after I said that I was in favor of separation of church and state that she went full throttle on the Bible etc. Well, OK, that was still tolerable to me but then she continued with twisted (at least I thought such) lessons in history concerning the Constitution and the "Founding Fathers". Since she did express to me her being open minded and an amateur historian, I sent her by text Heather's links to read. And others, with facts. When I asked her later if I had offended her by sending these links, she said, yes. That I was trying to turn her into a Democrat. Now that certainly wasn't/isn't true since I knew/know that's impossible and I don't really want to do that anyway. I wanted her to share with me her sources of information and facts which I never got. And so, we cordially agreed to disagree but I am saddened because I really like her and our new friendship is over before it actually began. I'm not trying to change anyone. I'm trying to understand the other's viewpoints. Like a Ven Diagram, I know there are common beliefs that are shared among people. Certainly there are common needs. Like Heather's Papa Ken, I feel if only we could honestly talk and discuss, simple solutions can be found. Perhaps I am being naive. Friends tell me to let it go. Heather's newsletters are my buoys.
How frustrating that must be, Jeanne. And sad.
Here's what our Founding Fathers really said - and these are their own words: https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/assets/pdf/civil-rights/religiousfreedom/PORF-StatsFF.pdf
Thank you. Excellent read.
Thank you for a gathering of these sentiments.
This link is indeed useful but my acquaintance said that there is no Separation of Church and State clause in the Constitution. I remained silent on that issue, not knowing the issue well enough . I still need to re read the pocket Constitution which I have. What I read in your link, Ellen, was a series of letters which may not make any difference to certain people. Thank you for the link.
Jeanne, I "hear you," but is there an antidote for hard core racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, etc.? I think not. The "cure" is to outvote them at the polls, even now as they try to rig the elections. Short of that it will be armed conflict and they (MAGA) are aching for a civil war where a white supremacist theocratic autocracy can be installed, IMO.
Richard: I am in complete agreement. That person‘s response is way beyond cognitive dissonance. I don’t think someone like him even allows a disagreement into his head. Huge emotional need to identify with a strong man…
This person is not racist, at least not completely, because other than her six children, she adopted a Korean orphan. I think she feels that the country is in a deep spiral for the worse has to do with trans gendersism, the fact that Obama was elected President (so perhaps racist against Black people) who then allowed same sex marriage, having been convinced of that by Biden when he was V.P. Also, immigration is a big issue for her too (not surprising). It is for me as well. She had lived 20 years in Maine, then 20 years in Florida and now is back in Maine. She has adult grandchildren now to give you an idea of her age. Oh, she home schooled her children due to the poor morals and values that Dems have.
My best friend for fifty years voted for Trump because she "Hated" Hilary. I don't understand voting for a personality rather than a vote in favor of your own best interests. I used to occasionally send LFA columns to her until she complained that Heather only saw one side of things and not to send her any more of her letters. Now I read them looking for that one sidedness.....and maybe it's just me but I don't see it.
" I don't understand voting for a personality rather than a vote in favor of your own best interests."
We as individuals get to decide what our own best interests are, even when we are fools, but we have obligations as members of societies, and arguably, the whole web of life, to respect "unalienable" rights of others.. That's the secret of a free society, both freedom from as well as freedom to.
If government of the people, by the people, for the people is to be anything more than a charming slogan, we are responsible for the fate of our own society, The vote is our share of political influence of our social choices, which affect many more than ourselves.
So a responsible vote considers the fate of all, especially the most vulnerable, as well as an expression of personal druthers. If we actually seek "Liberty and Justice" for ALL, then consideration of the whole of society, as a group and as equally protected individuals, takes precedence. That's the only way society is made and kept truly free.
She is one sided! Not our Heather!
No, I certainly don't see any bias in Heather's newsletters. Recently, there may be warnings but they are due to lessons learned (or not) from the past.
Cult orthodoxy displaces "listening" and "seeing", and punishes those who dare to question.
Sounds like you know about au.org , people working to maintain the separation of church & state.
Mine as well …
hear hear!
This is why on November 9, 2016 I cut off all communication with anyone I knew to be a MAGAt, including my half=bro in MS and a coworker "friend" of 15 years. Some ppl said it was an overreaction but anyone who thinks like this is a "brainwashed" cultist and beyond hope (as well as an annoyance).
"Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig."
Robert Heinlein
Robert. Thx for the best belly laugh in days!!
Carolyn, I also have given up trying to debate, share facts, or even understand the MAGA crowd. Instead, I have decided to drop the subject and steer clear of hard core MAGAs — including any relatives or neighbors who angrily dismiss what we have observed since Jan 6. My 80 years of life experience and PhD training in the behavioral sciences are no help in understanding or influencing hard core MAGAs, some of whom quietly admit later that they no longer plan to vote for Trump. My response is to smile politely and tell them that I am glad to hear that. It seems wise to let the subject drop and focus on registering young voters.
When I’m in a situation where the MAGA conversation begins, I’ve trained myself to change the conversation to hummingbirds. My partner knows exactly what I’m doing … so he continues the hummingbird discussion… “Have you had many hummingbirds so far?” “ How often do you change your hummingbird feeder?” There is no end to questions and starters about hummingbirds!
I believe the most important task today is to restore common ground in our society. It is unlikely that this separation happened on its own. Credit to the right wing elites, and probably the disinformation from Russia and maybe China. Decades of work.
That’s what’s good about being reminded of the Nixon debacle….that was decades ago!!
Richard, I get the same thing. I challenged a fellow retired cop that he was lending his support to a convicted felon and both an admitted and "found liable" sexual offender. He (and its almost always "he") told me that he could "not believe" that I thought for one minute that either trial was not an "offensive weapon" of the federal judiciary, even though one was a state criminal case and the other was a civil case brought in the state system.
So very sad! These people are indoctrinated!
It’s scary to think the Democrats might stay in office. They have too many people of color in high places…vice president, minority speaker of the house: budget director; EPA Director; UN rep; interior secretary and OMG even the Defense Dept.
And then there’s all of these Black mayors of various cities and even Black district attorneys and prosecutors. They appointed a Black woman to the Supreme Court and a gay guy to lead the transportation department. Look at pictures of the Ds. They have all kinds of people as members. It’s diversity run amok.
There are even Black people in power who are prosecuting Trump (e.g. Bragg, James, Willis). What happened to the America where they grew up when people knew their places?
This is what most MAGAs see and why they’re all in for Trump. Look at pictures of his cabinet and administration. Look at the Rs. They’re paragons of white supremacy and institutional racism.
Many will point to inflation, gas prices etc. and most won’t admit it to themselves or anyone else but they want their country back because they “fear for their lives and livelihoods” if other people are given opportunities to occupy positions of power.
Racism (and misogyny) are at the heart of the MAGA movement.
Why else would these people be supporting a racist, convicted felon, rapist, liar, violence prone cheater?
Because they expect people of color to be as racist as they are, they expect to be treated as badly as they treat others.
Nailed it.
It's the lies. The lies good people believe are threatening to kill our beloved country.
It seems that voices from right wing megaphones are more real to the believers than actual reality.
It's a problem when insatiable rich buy up the bulk of information delivery systems. Rely on tyrants to dominate public information.
"Laughing stock to the entire world" is patently untrue. European leaders are very concerned about what will happen if that idiot is elected again. Of course, we also won't have a democracy.
I've spent time in Australia, Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Ireland, Northern Ireland, and other places since T became a "Presidential Candidate" in 2015. Of all the people I've encountered, no matter what race, religion, occupation, sex, etc. I can only remember ONE, ONE SINGLE PERSON, who thought T was good for the US or the world. The rest could not understand how 70,000,000 Americans could vote for such a (you can supply the adjective) "clown" (they would actually call him a "clown", and ask "what the hell is going on over there?" The one Trump supporter was a taxi driver in Vienna. He was an Iranian immigrant who was glad T pulled out of the Iranian nuclear agreement. HIs reasoning was not rational and not based on facts, much like the continued support of T by the 70,000,000.
I'm not surprised, Max. Years ago, my husband and I were vacationing in Ireland, and we met an Italian couple. "What do you think of [George W.] Bush?" was the first question the man asked us. We were not fans, and we told him so... Those times seem quaint in comparison to what we're dealing with today.
To quote a reply to an earlier letter, that "yammering idiot." It's Father's Day, and the "Founding Fathers" must be spinning in their graves.
I am sorry Mr Sutherland. I have relatives and friends the same. It is really like a parallel universe isn’t it?
That is what we are up against — those whose vision is the mirror of our own, and who say WE are the image in the mirror, not them … How to refute it…with logic? Logic only works on those with the accuarate information needed to craft the discussion … Alternative facts. Such is our world …
Richard, the following was my experience with a person I held in high esteem in all other regards (and the regret I have for not finding a better mirror to have him reconsider his blindness) It is exactly like I sent it to another friend 3 days after the 2016 election, though it was about the trick I pulled on him 3 months after the 2012 election implying I was asking him to critique Obama’s 2009 inaugural speech.
They don't want to hear anything like what they throw at their chosen targets, or about their own whining.
I have lost a friend or two that I would rather not have by holding a mirror up to them, like one former Republican party official. 3 months after Obama's inauguration, I asked him to pause the constant criticism and accusations and review a copy of the '&9 inaugural speech to see if he would find the words at least inspirational. He carefully read the whole speech, thought about it for a bit then lit into a tirade against everything in it. I feigned being perplexed by his response, until he finally asked why I looked so puzzled. I picked up the copy of the speech, looked at the top/title and said, "Oh, there is a typo, '&9 should have been '69, this was Nixon's inaugural speech."
They really don't like being shown their reflections but they can at least see them if you can get them to look in a mirror (sometimes at the cost of a friend). Trump seems a bit more like a Vampire, reputedly unable to see their reflections in mirrors, most popularly expressed by Bram Stroker's description of mirrors being the reflection of a person's soul, which is missing in Vampires. He would not want people following through on his position back in 2012 to have the popular vote trump the electoral college (when he and Newt Gingrich thought Romney would win the popular vote but lose the electoral vote).
I have huge admiration and respect for so many things they have done outside of the political arena, that I especially do not want to get them so riled up we get stupid over what issues we can agree on (however few they are).
I'd rather remain open to everyone I can, to sometimes persuade them my way, but always ready to work out the best we can between us. Sometimes, it helps to just let them vent, then relax enough to figure out better answers for themselves (without overreacting to fights they picked, getting others to overreact to).
If you get a chance to read Bill Moyers "Listening to America" (which I have a treasured signed copy of) look for the part at the end about his frustration trying to interview Fran Buhler, a community organizer hired by the President of Wellman Industries in Johnsonville South Carolina. Buhler almost never spoke, and always had a way of listening, waiting for anyone and everyone else to talk. Moyers found the secret to his success was more due to opening a community center and getting the wives to volunteer to make curtains and do other little things to prepare it for the start of the "real" meetings. The women had casually come together with light enough work that they could talk to people they had never talked to before, forming friendships and eventually getting their husbands to come along. Buhler was a "poor" organizer, mostly "wasting" a lot of time during which the men started discussing what they thought the problems were. Buhler never seemed to offer any solutions, instead asking them to discuss what they thought would work. The man who hired him, Wellman, wouldn't offer solutions either, though he did tell his managers that they had to build their homes well distributed in the communities of their workers, they didn't offer solutions either, but did live among them and mingle enough to know what their concerns were. The community members "gave up" on waiting for solutions from the "organizer" and implemented all their own best solutions.
The book reveals a lot of problems the country was going through back then (1970) and many of the issues were not resolved well if at all, but Johnsonville did a far more acceptable job of allowing people to improve their lives more realistically and peacefully through 4 decades of Wellman's life, keeping a company viable when so many others left the communities that were more loyal to the industries than the industries were to their communities. Wellman could easily have made far more moving to Mexico, but he seemed a great answer to my daughter's favorite question, "Is he rich or does he just have money"?
Wow! You should publish your response.
Oh gosh, this ‘friend’ is very hateful, and you are still acquaintances with him, you are a good man to tolerate his ignorance. Hope he will have egg on his face come November.
This is so sad. I still can't wrap my mind around people who believe so differently and are so vehement about it. I don't know if I will ever understand their thinking. Seems both sides seem illogical to the other.
Laura, the hardest part for all of us is going to be finding a way to forgive and somehow accept and help these people if they ever start to wake up to what has been done to them in the name of politics and power. Many of them have been brainwashed by Fox News and similar news sources. Back in the 90's, Sinclair Media began buying up many, if not most, of the TV and radio stations in the more rural parts of American and only allowing Fox and similar news and religious outlets to be on the various channels. They and others bought up many of the small newspapers in these areas and closed them down. And they have even, as we are becoming more aware of lately, taken over school boards and determined what their children could read and learn about. When you only get one point of view from all your sources you can't help but come to believe it to be true, as it is all you know. As you and others have written, they are brainwashed, which is why it is so difficult to speak with them.
I have no solution for what we can do about this, but I find it helps me to have some understanding of how they came to think the way they do. I originally thought this info about the media takeover was all made up, until I drove across several states in the West and Midwest and realized that Fox, conservative talk shows, and religious channels were pretty much all I could find wherever I went. Even in the motels I stayed in. Part of me prays they never learn the truth because I'm not sure, if I were them, that I could deal with the truth , and to then figure out what to do about it. And part of me wants them to learn the truth so this MAGA craziness will go away. It is a definite conundrum.
It is a form of propaganda and censored news, like in Russia, China and other places. I agree, don't know what to wish for. I would like to be able to have civil discourse again, but it seems more challenging than ever. During the pandemic, people were dying of Covid and insisting Covid did not exist. Very difficult in health care. Boggles my mind that people 'see' the same thing and take away very different viewpoints.
NO.
I too have similar high school classmates. It is disheartening. Onward we must go though.
Stupidity isn’t fixable!
How horrible! Some friendships might not be worth preserving!
Projection, projection, projection. Your "cult member" buddy is fortunately in the minority of adult male voters, even at least where I live in Arizona. I would send him today's entry and underline "And he always said there was nothing anyone couldn’t work out, so long as they talked to each other honestly." And conclude with "you've been brainwashed, better wake up before it's too late."
You can't fix them. Pray that he will wake up before it is too late! Some we can not save.
"Papa’s war was not an easy one, although he came home without visible wounds." That experience must have applied to many, many veterans, including two of my uncles, who never spoke of their experiences. I have often wondered if WW II vets had spoken out more about the reality of war, might it have pushed more peace-oriented policy?
Looking at our current situation, maybe not.
Helen, I think that for my generation that brought war to the TV….Vietnam…where it came crashing into our living rooms…raw and brutal…and the fact that it really was as the song said “what are we fighting for?” That time marked a change and, I think turned the tide, at least for a while until we got snookered by WMD’s, etc. Now, too, it is even more “in our face”, yet we cast about for solutions unsuccessfully. War, what is it good for…absolutely nothing”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztZI2aLQ9Sw
I will never know the pain and agony of war. I came to life in the 1950s and by the late 1960s, I was fully a war protester. I’m surprised (although maybe I shouldn’t be) that many of the comments here are about going to war and returning from war as if this was the only rite of passage of men.
Since I not only had no military in my immediate family and my father was not much of a father, I can’t quite relate to the narratives. My mother’s two male cousins were more fatherly toward me than my blood father. When I prepared to return home from living in Italy and penniless, I turned to my uncle Sal to borrow money to get home. He immediately wired the money. I promised I would repay him and it took me shy of a year to do so. When I went into his insurance office with the money, he accepted the money and I’m glad he did. He was wealthy and I’m sure he would have been content to not being repaid. But Uncle Sal was also teaching me something about responsibility. I now take great pleasure cleaning up his granite marker where he, his wife and brother’s family are buried. I take note that his brother’s grandson now leads the largest defense plant in the world yet never has cared to clean the weeds away or even send a maintenance crew to show respect for those who gave him life. I gladly take on this chore each year.
Around 1956, as a 10 year old visiting our grandparents between assignments (Hawaii to Missouri), I was just old enough to wonder what my grandfather was doing the first day I had seen him in 4 years. I was with my uncle Ernie when I saw him seem to try to hide taking $5 and change from a man that looked like he could barely afford it, yet he left quickly looking relieved. When I asked my uncle what was going on, he took me outside and said the man had just paid my dairy farmer grandfather the last he felt he owed for all the milk my grandfather had forced him to accept (for free), throughout much of the Great Depression. When he tried to refuse the milk, my grandfather said he had to take it for his children since he would have to throw it away anyway if nobody took it. My grandfather appreciated the man’s pride was more important than money.
Joe McDonald lives.
Good quotes from another era Barbara.
Funny the way the eras fold into one another, isn't it. Almost half my colleagues in the local current antiwar/ceasefire movement are 40 and even 50 years younger than I am, and the way protesters have been treated recently reminds me a lot of how my fellows and I were treated 50+ years ago.
What's missing is artists like Joe McDonald, Edwin Starr, Pete Seeger, and all the others whose music focused attention on the point of the protest.
And the whole media situation has changed. Like it's hard to believe that I first heard Barry McGuire sing "Eve of Destruction" on AM radio when I was about 14. And many of Phil Ochs's songs are still current, as are Tom Lehrer's from THAT WAS THE YEAR THAT WAS.
I just heard a R commentator say this is a “vibe” election. They asked “are you with country music or R&B? Are you with us or them?”
Music is universal and so is humanity. Why can’t we be for everyone?
Struggles for power, greed and control are destroying what democracy promised us.
Susanna……”same as it ever was”….
It's a ball of confusion.
I remember this song vividly. It doesn't really go out of date, sadly.
I wonder if it was frowned upon to speak openly about the horrors the GIs experienced, if they were so busy rebuilding they're lives using the GI bill or getting a good paying blue collar job and supporting their wife and children with all the modern conveniences made possible by the war machine.
I think, from my limited experience in my family, and in my own trauma, that it was just too traumatic, and they did not want to burden others with their pain, which non one else can ever really understand. Also, goddamn "strong man" syndrome, of course.
I don't remember my father ever talking about his war experiences while I was growing up -- until we bonded over Joseph Heller's CATCH-22 when I was in high school (mid/late '60s). That described his war experience better than anything he'd ever read, he said. (He was an army noncom in North Africa and Italy.) I think his opposition to the Vietnam war prompted him to talk a little more about his WWII experiences. (We actually saw HAIR together on its first Boston run, when I was a college freshman.)
My father was a US Marine who fought on Okinawa. He never said much about it, and we learned decades later that some of the difficult behavior we experienced from him resulted from PTSD. I think many do not speak of the horrors because it is too traumatic.
I read about the battle of Okinawa a few years ago. People's faces being blown off next to you in a mud filled foxhole, and many other horrors.
Many of us have shut out memories of the height of the Covid pandemic, which was bad enough, but nothing compared to the experience of war.😪
Taken as a whole, you're right, but for some communities (including health-care workers) the experience of COVID might be compared to the experience of war. Not to the experience of being on the front lines, of course, but in war many of us aren't anywhere near the front lines, and we aren't being bombed either. And I'm not the first to compare the policing of many U.S. communities of color over the decades to a military occupation.
I just had the opportunity to spend about 14 hours in the ER at OHSU (a dear friend was directed by the Portland VA to go there, have their neurologist look at the MRI that she had received at 0630 that morning because she was a candidate for emergency back surgery. It was a marathon simply because it took from noon until 6:00 p.m. to determine that the VA would not be able to send the MRI and they had to schedule an other MRI at OHSU.) The ER was packed, and they had what they called "Triage ER" where they would put emergent cases, and a "Surge ER, where patients awaiting admission could be staged until a bed was available in the main hospital.
The "Triage ER" was one section off the ER that was probably a storage and work area that had been converted into spaces where 9 beds could fit; each bed had an approximately 5' x 8' area, with a nurse's work station that was 7' x 7'. The "Surge ER" was larger, had its own full nurse's station, and had more advanced medical equipment available. I believe the space was a bit larger (6' x 10') and had more advanced monitoring capabilities. That area had (I think) at least 12 beds. Those two areas were COVID innovations, and the "Surge" was where they had put the critical patients who needed the ventilators. There were exposed 12" in diameter HVAC ducting pipes throughout that area.
I think you assessment is pretty close, especially for health care workers.
In a word, wow. Thanks for sharing that story. Specifics make the generalities come alive . . .
Not just the horrors of war but a different way during those times when not everything was "shared" but rather kept to oneself.
I think there was real pressure on everyone to "get back to normal" after WW2. Women were pressured to go home and be "happy homemakers", veterans were pressured to go back "home" and get back their lives as if nothing had happened.
Most of the US was still struggling to recover from the Great Depression when WW2 started, so the veterans were coming back to a country they didn't remember. Industries had grown up, jobs had changed, people were moving to the cities...
Everyone was happy! The war was over!
Magazine articles, movies, books, and later television were rather desperately promoting good news and opportunity; there was no room for stories of the horrors of war.
I knew one veteran who just chattered away about some of the horrors. His way of handling? Body parts in trees ...
No, I don't think it would have helped for the WW2 vets to talk more about their war experiences; their war was framed as glorious because we were attacked, and we won.
WW2 stories were all about brotherhood and America the brave until much, much, later.
It wasn't until Korean War and Vietnam War vets started talking about the horrors of war that people could look back and see the reality of WW2.
Yes. A memory to be sought when synchronicity brings us together for a purpose. You were blessed then.
You were there, you must have exuded a kindness. People yelling at me never brings tears. A kind word can unleash a torrent…that I didn’t know was just below the surface. Maybe a torrent is just below the surface for everybody, except maybe a malignant narcissist
My mother used to quote Dag Hamerskold(sp?) saying that, in negotiations between countries, he kept in mind that, "anger can be a verbal smoke screen, behind which someone is rapidly engaged in changing their mind." Probably not an exact quotation, but wise to keep in mind.
Today's situation seems more extreme and entrenched, but the question remains, "How do we de-escalate the hostility and enable people to work together on mutual goals?" My own capacity for compromise is diminished when I'm furious at the twits who won't change their beliefs despite the evidence. It is a challenge for all of us.
Fear underlies the conflict. A malignant narcissist is terrified for himself when facing consequences for a lifetime of cruel self-serving manipulation of others and amoral business dealings.
I remember when DAG was killed. I thought we had lost a necessary man. And they are hard to replace. Love his take on anger, it is a volatile and vulnerable time. I can attest to that…. Thanks
Molly, the book “Taking the War Out of Our Words” has really guided me in how to find mutual goals that we can work on through non-warlike listening.
From your writing I think I know that he recognized a kind heart and understanding being.
Such a profound experience. Such a blessing for that man.
I have a friend who was a Navy Seal in the Vietnam War. He only ever spoke to me about the horror, I believe it's because I would listen. I think he felt safe and didn't want any comment. That man paid you a huge compliment. And you him.
Lynn Geri -- What an extraordinary gift you were given by a very perceptive giver! Thank you for your gift to us.
Beautiful ♥️
Lynn, that was wonderful! Thank you for sharing.
♥️
Oh my God, Lynn that was so beautifully written. I am in tears! Thank you for remembering his pain and his love in being able to share to a really special girl.
Lynn, Wow, Just Wow!
Thank you for sharing your profound, touching experience with us. I would remember it too, but not be able to tell it so well as you have with this poem of stark human need.
What a gift!
I am a transplant: last of my mother’s children, I was cared for my two older sisters and my brother but when I was 11 I left all that behind to come here(US), and go to school. Didn’t know of my own early life hardly at all..then I got a bunch of old photos given to me, and there I was in one, about 4 yrs old with my two grown up sisters and brother, and I look happy and relaxed. I said to myself ‘ I bet they dressed me, combed my hair, and carried me around all over the place. They Loved Me!