What a great speech by Biden. I actually teared up a bit reading this letter. It’s true, we are at a very dangerous moment in time and we need to choose wisely. Never forget that Trump mocked veterans, calling them ‘losers’ and ‘suckers’. If nothing else, this tells you everything you need to know about this vile person.
Yes, whoever is writing Biden's speeches has eloquently joined history with the present. Unfortunately, the vulnerability of the past for democracy continues into the present. Let us hope that we don't need to shed as much blood today as in the past to guarantee freedom. As the old veteran and Zelenskyy acknowledged across the generations, our heroes continue to fight for liberty. We must continue to be part of that fight. What can we do? Vote.
Vote, and somehow pay more attention to stuff that really matters. Less to commercial entertainment. Make heroes of real heroes who put our nation's welfare first, and those who aid and protect individuals. Make heroes of those who tell the truth, especially at some personal risk. Greed is NOT good, by definition; it the harm done to others that makes it greed in the first place, and that is very different from responsible ambitions. Domination is tyranny, and was exactly what the Axis was striving to achieve.
Yes, I am communicating with cousins in Texas. The only solution for us is to out-vote them. There is no common ground on facts or theory. One in particular refuses to disclose her information sources, claiming that she relies on common sense.
Oh dear, Richard, common sense...well that is quite the smoke screen. Anyone with an ounce of it would not be defending or voting for death star or his minions.
Is "common sense" sense that is common, or or just "a" sense that is shared among a cohort? People share many beliefs that make no sense from the standpoint of logic and evidence. I think Orwellian propaganda works because it overwhelms critical thinking with a cover of sales pitch. In it's worst forms, it is enforced punitively, as it is in dictatorships, but also less visibly, by people who feel entitled to use violence, or one sort or another, as a tool of coercing complicity with whatever he or she favors. I recall in my youth (1950s Ohio) fearing and despising adults in youth leadership roles who felt entitled to harass, bully, or even abuse children who they felt entitled to mold. Even as a minor, it occurred to me that there seemed to be a general distinction between adults that attempted to influence others behavior with persuasion and support, and those who go-to tool was punishment. MAGAs seem to be in the latter camp. My parents, thankfully, were in the former.
It seems to me that the urge to bully, and vociferous and sociopathic rationalizations for glorifying bullying, are humanity's most severe and persistent source of unnecessary suffering; which might one day kill us all. We desperately need to vote for more kindness, but also work harder to define and present more vividly accessible visions of appealing practical alternatives to authoritarian nightmares. Not just a pullback from runaway narcissism, but an appealing set of outcomes to advance and defend.
What might the realization of the Preamble of the Constitution look like when you pin down the details?
I hear that a lot, too. And, at times, from old friends and loved ones. Though I remain a 'slackadaisical' agnostic in my old age, I do thank these people for restoring my habit of praying for those who annoy me. 😉
Richard, you might try asking her to name the three most important traits that an ideal president would possess and the three most important disqualifications for a president. Then ask why it’s important for a president to have each trait. Ask what would be different on her life if the president had each trait. Go as deep as you can until you feel that you’ve got to the root cause. Then ask what Biden could do to help fix that.
As a commentator said—we’ve forgotten how to listen thoroughly instead of merely listening to refute talking points. He said that, until someone fells heard instead of attacked, they cannot acknowledge another point of view. The book “Takibg the War Out of Our Words” is really helping me.
The only way to "tightly circumscribe" greed is through external force (IMO). The Scandinavian countries have done it most successfully with their form of pragmatic capitalism.
Well said, Richard. I hear this scheiße from the G.O.P. that President Biden is leading us to socialism, some even say communism. Yet the moderate liberalism of President Biden would be center-right in Europe and 'wild child' Representative Ocasio Cortéz is a Social Democrat. I guess they need that straw-man communism to justify Trump's tripe of open fascism.
If we actually want " government of the people, by the people, for the people" then we are the final authority in matters of law. WE authorize and set the goal for the processes of commerce in the US, and not the other way around. The notion that an immensely powerful, impactful, and necessary set of activities, motivated in large part be "the love of money" should be left free of societal guidelines and responsibilities is every bit as irrational as MTG and her "space lasers"; and far more pernicious.
No, giving a tiny minority of the richest among us a far larger cut of our aggregated wealth, and pretty much letting them call the shots, has never resulted in a more empowered, more broadly prosperous society, and never will. Why the hell would it?
Removing the guard rails we installed on business since the excesses and corruption of the "Gilded Age" makes as much sense as pulling out the stop signs at 4-way stops.
"Conservatives" (who seem only focused on conserving what they are personally invested it) promote a lot of conflation and doublethink to justify their predatory impulses. "Greed" is excessive and harmful by definition, so there is no way to separate the harmful part from an action that includes harm. else it is not greed. Republicans picked up the phrase, Greed is good" is an attempt to normalize it's predatory nature, just as they bloviate about the "free market" when what they mean is facilitating monopolies and plutocratic impunity. A free market is no more one dominated by monopolies on market share and ownership, than a "free county" is one dominated by a small minority with an monopoly on ownership and political power.
True, the term "conservative" as applied to American politics has no meaning. A more apt description of many of those folks is white Christian nationalist, or even Fascist. They have completely forsaken the core principle of democracy: one person, one vote, majority rule. No violence. No threat of violence.
J.L., I can not agree with you. Economic incentives induce people to better themselves through harder work and / or innovation. Economic incentives appeal to greed. The market economy has elevated more people to the middle class around the world than any other system. Abusing that system, as we are seeing now with the acquiescence of the Democrats to Silicon Valley and the full-throated cheers by the G.O.P. to Wall Steet, is excessive greed.
Richard, I am all for calling out the current minority rulers by their real identities. I use to believe in the conservatism as a complement to liberalism. The latter would experiment in pushing the society forward and the former would make the successful and popular experiments fiscally sustainable or would abolish a failed or repudiated experiment. Certainly not the 'conservative' ethic we have now.
More like malignant narcissism -- One can be greedy about anything as long as it does not affect others, as in I can eat all I want, but it is when it takes things away from others that it becomes a problem or a disorder. I see it all going back to the low quality in our educational system. Not teaching civics and critical thinking skills in elementary school sets one up to focus on the lower level cognitive behavior. Scandinavian countries were mentioned above. I come back k from visits there impressed with how respectful people are there towards others, and to laws. No crazy drivers...
The problem is, they don't get that it's not a real news station. They don't get that what comes out of the commentator's mouth is just an opinion based on lies. They just make shit up and the stupid audience believes them because the mini mushroom man tells them what to believe, and it feeds their fear and anger! My Trumpster sister won't even talk to me or listen to anyone who goes against her Messiah. I'm counting on the debates to show the stark difference between a wise and dignified statesman and an outrageous, nasty, vindictive autocrat. Our choice of who to elect to be the President of The United States will be crystal clear!
Someone shared this “folk” several days ago. It has been a strengthening message for me because I’m still too heartbroken to share my views here in Boebert country.
Knowing that there was a military draft in effect, I joined the U.S. Army in 1960. It changed my life dramatically. That experience set me on the road to earn a Ph.D. and a J.D. from Harvard. This ordinary kid from West Texas could never have conceived of such a journey but for the changes that military service brought to my life.
Thank you, Ned McDoodle. At 13, in 1947, in the only “real” debate I ever took part in, I argued for the draft, having seen the variety of people put together by the draft and WWII. It included 3 of my uncles (my father was a year overage at 39), a concert pianist from Brazil, and a number of “regular” people from farms in several states. We lived near an army air base, knew people in the regular army as well as draftees. Post Depression America made unity obvious.
With luck we can restore a draft like “volunteers in service to America” covering both military preparedness and caring for national lands, orphans, those impacted by climate change, etc.
Really good point. I surely could have used the forced maturation of boot-camp, especially with others from other backgrounds who would have knocked me down a few pegs, or more.
It's complicated. I agree that the draft had some good points to it, though I'm not sure universal military training is what we most need. Perhaps kids would benefit from a year of field trips learning about the realities of what is necessary to keep a modern mass society viable and sustainable. I don't think you can build self-governance with cluelessness.
Think of all those inner-city kids drowning in the under-class in dangerous drug-overwhelmed neighbourhoods. One thing the Army, likely the other services, have gotten right is providing mobility to minorities. If the draft came back, expensive outsourcing (LogCAP) would be brought in house. Many people might then get the skills needed to settle into adult life. And it does not have to be military service. Could include my service (i.e., Peace Corps), Americorps, V.I.S.T.A., the civilian climate corps, etc.
Greedflation is the current economic force that we’re currently experiencing because by now normal market forces would have certainly had more than enough time to gravitate toward equilibrium!!!
Well, that is the challenge. Many of us -- I can not judge me very well, of course -- are NOT bad teens acting out. Can we prevail and can our example lift up our fellows in distress, despair, dysfunction? We are all states(wo)men now by the example we set.
I think that "bad" behavior is mostly due to excessive narcissism or ignorance. Some people whose behavior is a problem only need get a clue to be willing to modify it. Others pride themselves on "getting ahead", regardless of means and peril forced on others. Nothing seems to please Trump more than breaking rules and getting away with it; and unsurprisingly, nothing enrages him more than being held to responsibilities that apply to anyone. That's the complete opposite of what a respectable citizen of just republic is expected to do.
I almost teared up too with the image of the old man telling Z I pray for you.HCR is so good at making our history come to life.And true democracy means more choices on the ballot for president, anyone against that isn’t being honest about democracy.
Voting for third parties is a vote for death star just like it was in 2016. I hope that not many people are like our garden helper who believes that everyone in our government is no good. I do understand her cynicism as she has been an outsider all her life and our government has certainly done nefarious things on the world stage, but sometimes it has been other countries doing the bad stuff. Right now there is no good place to move to primarily because of climate change and the disruption it is causing both with weather and people immigrating
Thanks Carol , I read his opinion about voting for in my case Bobby. I have lots to disagree with here.if you look up HCR’s letter from February 11 2024 you will find her assessment of Lincoln’s position on slavery.” I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence which declares all men are equal apon principle, and making exceptions to it, where will it stop?”In my opinion, it’s the same with third party candidates in our elections. Reich is making an exception for this election because of his fear of Trump. I say there are no exceptions for this election or any other. And the current idea that just a few votes for Bobby will swing the election to Trump is just speculation. And now there is evidence a few votes for Bobby will swing it to Biden.Things usually change at election time from the way they are this far out. And what if that does happen? What if Bobby gets more votes from disgruntled Trump supporters? Telling people to not vote for Bobby then could stop the tipping in favor of President Biden.So I want you to know that my vote is for hope , that’s for Bobby. It’s not a vote taken from President Biden because I wouldn’t vote for either he or Trump.I believe in Bobby’s vision and I believe he has a good chance of winning.I respect your right to vote as you want to, please understand this is the first time I have gotten involved in a presidential campaign and it’s because I can relate to RFKJR!
Biden is the spoiler in this election because he has zero chance of beating Mr. Trump in a two way or three way race, according to the largest polls. Surprisingly, RFK Jr, does have a narrow lead over Mr. Trump in a RFK against Trump ballot. And Bobby actually understands how to breath life back into our corporate captured regulatory agencies since he's sued most of them on behalf of the people over the decades.
Jeff you are a breath of fresh air with your beliefs in Kennedy. I’m with you 100 percent. Many people here have not it seems, listened to what Bobby is actually saying. There is lots of false info about him.Have you seen the video- who is Bobby Kennedy? It’s awesome!
All the presidents use speech writers. They are mostly unsung heroes "behind the stage". Not that presidents aren't also their own authors. FDR's "day of infamy" speech came straight from the man, i believe.
Each President does it their own way of course. As Biden has been a public servant for 50+ years, he appreciates the benefits gained through collaboration.
He is often the smartest man in the room, but more importantly he also is a great delegator. John Meaham assisted with the D-Day speech and others have been mentioned as well.
Frank Yes. Incredibly, with all that was occurring on December 7th FDR dictated his Day of Infamy speech and only made minor changes before speaking in Congress the next day. After such an extraordinary day, in the late evening he met with Edward R. Murrow, who had just come from London, where he was close to Churchill.
FDR gave Murrow a full description of the naval disaster. With such a ‘news scoop,’ Murrow went back to his hotel room and ordered room service for two days so that he couldn’t inadvertently reveal what FDR had told him.
I wish that, from now til November, Biden's speech writer would make his speeches line up all the forces of Fascism that we face: the paralysis of Congress, the corrupted Supreme Court, the corrupted voting rights in many states, the agenda in "Project 2025," the loss of women's right to decisions about their bodies and their futures.
Over and over again, just as the Fascists do. Fight fire with fire. It's what the lower-educated voters absorb.
Last evening, I was appalled by a small gathering of Georgia women who were asked whom they would vote for. (PBS News Hour) With only one firm opinion that she would not vote for Trump, the others repeated sound bites: Biden is not of sound mind, and Biden has poor foreign policy. Biden has been wrong for my (small) business; inflation is terrible. I said, "Good God, how have they been so duped?" The issue is more profound than just voting; it is about too many Americans believing the hype, not looking deeper into the flimflammery of Trump's lies, because they have never been taught critical thinking skills. All Trump's crimes seem irrelevant to them, and the voters follow him like lemmings into a sea of disaster. What is needed, and appears to be happening, thankfully, is an
intense campaign of information that reaches the ordinary citizen. The media, even supposedly serving "both side-ism," is rampant Republican, and it's probably related to cash incentives from the far right.
It all comes down to information sources and confirmation bias.
If I had a dollar for every time one of my MAGAt friends has posted a meme that I agree with 99%, the only disagreement is WHICH presidential candidate we believe fits that meme, I could most likely buy enough coffee for the LFAA readership to all have a cup (and I'd toss in tea, sparkling water, and other palatable alternatives for those who don't drink the elixir of the gods).
My last foray was one where someone posted something to the effect of "If you hate one man so much, you must be part of the problem". The guy is a MAGAt, retired command staff from my former agency. My reply was something along the lines of "why do you hate the President so much? Oh, you mean hate the former president? My bad."
Nicely said. 'Daily Kos' called me out for using the term 'MAGAt' as it de-humanized another; I am grateful to that progressive journal for chiding me.
Hope, I am a long time fan of PBS Newshour, but have been disappointed recently by their failure to dig deeper when someone tells untruths, knowingly or not. CNN is guilty of just letting people say what they want. Where are the fact-checkers we used to have?
Restoring the Fairness Doctrine -- erased by President Reagan in 1988 -- may help by making such assertions accountable in real-time as both sides must be presented.
There you go again, Ned! Bravo! How many times a day do I ask for restoration of the Fairness Doctrine. Pre-Reagan, of course. Do you remember that his WWII service was propaganda in Hollywood?
Betsy Remember that it was Ted Sorensen who provided such eloquence to JFK’s speeches, especially the inaugural. Also, Sorensen had a major hand in writing Pulitzer-winning PROFILES IN COURAGE, on which Jackie’s professor also had a hand.
How eloquent was JFK on his own? Who knows. His college thesis that was published owed a great deal to a senior NYT correspondent.
I was not putting down Biden for having a script writer. To the contrary. I think that every word that he said was a true reflection of his sentiments, so I was praising the speech writer for crafting such a moving and authentic piece.
" If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”
There are crucial times when you so, so need emotional adults in the room. Ike was a Republican of a different era and a whole different school. Only this kind of discipline of ego can save us from the malignant narcissism that is undoing our civilization, much as the Axis was those decades ago.
Eisenhower was a leader. His party no longer exists. Nixon, his VP, helped the Republican party a great distance down the road it has gone. When people like Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, and Steve Bannon spewed their battery acid vitriol all over the country, the R party started swirling down the toilet. Now that party is a cult, and it lives in the sewer. Today's MAGAts aren't fit to clean General Eisenhower's boots. The comparison is so stark.
Who could ever have imagined that cheap and inexpensive mass communications systems could or would have been manipulated by those spreading outright lies that would be believed by a significant portion of our population? In retrospect, our schools failed in the areas of teaching history, politics and critical thinking skills. What I see among virtually all of the MAGA acquaintances that I have is the lack of critical thinking skills. They normally don't challenge the authenticity/factual basis of their sources' information nor its validity or implication. In one case, a cousin of mine in Texas is absolutely certain that there are no laws on the statute books in New York that Trump violated or for which he was convicted by a jury of 12 Americans. We simply must outvote them to save them from their own folly.
Our schools failed because the focus of education became job training and not learning. That focus changed during the 1970's and has continued its rapid decline of true education since the 1980's.
I think, also, that we never imagined that Americans would ever seek to dump our democratic process. In that we were naïve, forgetting the lesson that we should have learned from the Civil War, Jim Crow and world events, thinking that we were somehow different, immune from those forces. I shouldn't have been so naïve myself. I read Eric Hoffer's book, "The True Believer" decades ago. What I think we're dealing with now is hate. Hate of minorities, of women's rights advocates, gay rights advocates, non-Christians, immigrants and woke Liberals. MAGA is a movement of hate.
Some worried about that eventuality: ". . . . if we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason & Dixon . . . but between patriotism & intelligence on the one side & superstition, ambition & ignorance on the other." --President Grant.
¿ME? I surely did NOT. Thank you, Richard, for the timely reminder.
M.A.G.A.-types and the intellectual fascists on the left are like active drunkards in their illusions -- enjoying a few moments of power through the drink, followed by hours or days or a life-time of regret and excuse-making.
I agree about the hate. Just this morning on NPR I heard about teenage voters in Europe trending to the right, anti immigrant and anti-woke! And in the US, police who were defending the Capitol visited the legislature in Pennsylvania, I believe, and were booed.
And very likely, hatred of themselves and lives "that signify nothing."
So many feel looked down upon, or not in the mainstream, and their values disregarded. LBNL, xenophobia, and racism are manifestations of white fears of subjugation.
Deprived of slave labor, corporations have wanted robots. They are cranking up new ones made of steel. In the meantime they have drawn up the specs for those based on carbon and DNA, trained, compliant people. The want cheap, predictable and disposable. That said, education for consciousness and competence expansion literally expands and enriches ones share of living experience. At least as far I've seen.
Richard, Ally: The rise in fascism is a global problem. Plenty of countries with good schools (France, Germany) are struggling with their own right wingers. “The only thing that we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.” --Georg Hegel
Ally and Lindsay make good points about childish score-keeping and fear of losing out. I would add one more thought: that of widespread 'anomie' pervading Western societies. Anomie comes from French and refers to the sinking demoralization that comes with the sense that one's world is falling apart. Responses vary:
> suicide (trending up sharply);
> addiction (eluding policy responses to address it);
> hating the other (e.g., our M.A.G.A. brethren);
> discounting oneself (manifested by the 'crisis' of mental health);
> enduring the feeling (e.g., Thoreau's life of quiet desperation;
Ike made a gutsy call on the weather. There seemed to be a possible small window in the gale force weather. If they didn’t invade by June 6th the tides would not be appropriate for a landing fo another two-three weeks. The surprise of the landing would be lost.
BUT if the weather closed in, the landing was likely to fail. Ike took five minutes weighing the alternatives, before saying ‘We’re going.’ One of the most gutsy calls of WW II.
As opposed to chump, who said Never admit it if you do something bad, blame somebody else. Never blame yourself. Damn, maybe Ike should have blamed any number of generals. But then he was a real human, and not a caricature.
J L, I was a chaperone for my son's 8th-grade field trip to D.C. in 2002. When we visited the National Archives, Eisenhower's note he wrote in the event of failure was on display where items of interest are rotated in and out for public view. What a treat it was to see that penciled note.
JL, each one of us need to rally the folks who will save our democracy! It is a joint effort state by state all across our free land—kept free and resolute by the unsung heroes of the war! Unsung back home were the Rosie The Riveters who worked two jobs, one through the night for meager wages. We each hung on every inch of news of our relatives so far away fighting for our freedoms. I was ten (10) years old thinking of my uncles, one in a Nazi prison camp hiding his Jewish birth, another fighting across North Africa! They made it back home to our cheers and tears. I collected old newspapers in the slums of the lower East Side of NY and turned them in to make something I had no idea of what?Hidden among the newspaper scraps was a piece is sharp glass which cut my hand severely.Mom raced me to the hospital and I proudly displayed my big bandaged hand as if I was a veteran. All of your comments about your families are so meaningful. Thank you for your remembrances. We did it together, each in our way, didn’t we?I can’t hold back the tears of joy now when I remember the bells ringing across our newly free world in 1945! Please work tirelessly to keep us free from the tyranny of Trump!!
Living memory of the World War II generation fades from living memory. Individual brethren in democracy like you, Ira, assume the mantle of an oral tradition not to forget that many of our forebears acted heroically, just as many of us shall when our moments come. Thank you, Ira, thank you.
Kerry, my grandson amd I had the chance to visit the American Normandy Cemetery in 2022. I was in tears the entire time I was there, or walking on Omaha beach, visiting Pointe du Hoc, etc. -- it was such an emotional day, contemplating the sacrifice those brave men and women made. The museum at the cemetery highlighted the brief lives of some of the fallen with a photograph and brief biography. These were ordinary Americans who did the extraordinary.
My grandson was 13 at the time, and the war in Ukraine was just a few months old. I tried to correlate the events of today with what happened on 6/6/1944, asking him to imagine what it would have been like to be 5 years older and emerging from one of the landing craft, or defending Mariupol.
I remember visiting the cemetery in 1994, two months after the fiftieth anniversary. I had much the same reaction, starting with the tri-coloured signs whizzing by: "Bienvenue à Nos Liberateurs." 💓
¿ME?
I was busy setting Franco-American relations back many years as l taught me to drive with manual transmission in real time along the road-ways of Normandy. 😉
I teared up as well. We see so little actual heroism these days. I believe that Biden is one of the heros of our era, although the media blankets most of his accomplishments, dwelling on the antics of tfg, etc. Biden is up against very difficult challenges, and still pushes ahead with grace to make this country and the world a better place for all.
Oh, I disagree. We see heroism every day, but in less dramatic ways.
1. Adult children sacrificing time and family life willingly to care for agèd parents;
2. Men and women, black and white, rising up after the murder of George Floyd, Breanna Taylor, et al.
4. President Biden exercising moral suasion by admonishing us to knock it off with the anti-Asian and anti-Semitic violence and bigotry.
5. Parents often sticking with boring jobs to raise, not raze, their children's prospects.
6. Younger people holding doors open for the Elderly as a show of respect.
7. Exasperated citizens confronting the new fascists with an even temper to remind the rest of us of how to act in a democracy.
8. In a million other ways every day.
These little acts -- much like the grievances of M.A.G.A. types and articulated by their cherished nattering nabobs of narcissism -- accumulate over time. Hopefully, the little heroisms of today we all do will enable flawed people, like me, to have the courage to be notably heroic when the time calls for it.
So too did I, Midnight. What a great speech...and a huge thank you to Dr. Richardson for including the exchange between Zelensky and the WWII vet. That was heart-wrenching and wonderful.
Yesterday I wept when I saw that exchange between President Zelensky and that veteran, and teared up again at Heather’s poignant recounting. It’s heartbreaking that we are near to this again, and that Ukraine is deep in it.
I did get goosebumps as I watched clips of the ceremonies last night and now today reading this letter. Yesterday's letter upset me so much that I couldn't even comment. Many of the veterans I know not only remembered this day, but several also noted what death star has said about them as losers and suckers. I say that death star and his minions are all losers and anyone who is still following that monster is a sucker. And as Betsy has already noted we must vote to see that democracy endures and unpatriotic losers are out.
Insult and Disrespect veterans? Yes. "HE" did, and so blatantly.. the visuals clear, the verbiage distinct, real-time, smack-dab in our face...! Our eyes watched as the lips moved in concert with the sound.., of those words, confirming the noise entering our ears and our brain. #45 is a total piece of shit "POS" IMHO. Tabloid to the core.
I looked for video of Zelensky and the veteran. That looked like sincerity to me … ! Everyone knows what the world is up against right now … we are facing a break in the trajectory of our democracies, and we might not be able to recover from that break, if we let it happen …
I am always humbled every June 6th, thinking about the sacrifices my parents' generation made for us. Today, thinking of a twice-impeached, many-times-disgraced former president—and now a convicted felon—running for president as a fascist makes me believe that the millions who died defending against the tyranny of fascist leaders are not only rolling in their graves but are ready to jump out and fight.
I was reminded, reading this letter, of the reality of war in my own family. My father and my uncle both volunteered, both served, only one returned home from the battles of the Pacific.
My father died in 2014 . He never wanted to talk much about the war . His generation was characterized by quiet service without chest beating. Common men and women who were heroes when heroes were required. My fervent hope is that the world they enabled will be preserved by those of us who were beneficiaries of their service and sacrifice.
My father was disabled in WWII while serving in the Navy in the Pacific theater. He lost 3 fingers on his right hand. When he returned from WWII in spite of having an accounting degree he had a lot of trouble getting a job. He eventually went to work for the IRS where he worked for over 30 years. Our family received a monthly stipend for his disability of a whopping $30 a month during the 1950's. He never complained about his injury but he never talked about the war either.
My mom's brother served in the US Army during WWII and contracted malaria. He too was disabled but not seriously enough to receive any benefits.
"War is hell," a phrase repeated time and again. But usually not by those who saw action. They tend to be mum.
Every time I read that convicted felon draft dodger Trump calls those who serve "suckers and losers" I wonder how ANYONE can support this POS.
I had an uncle who was hero in the South Pacific. He served 20 years in the Navy, then returned home and bought a farm, which he worked for 40+ years. He never talked much about the war until he was in his 70s and 80s, when he would flirt with waitresses, by telling them a little about his war experience. The waitresses were charmed. But he was charming.
Most people in our community knew about some things about his war experiences, but I don't think any of us knew the full extent.
He was a modest, humble man of great honor. After my father died, he became my kids' "grandpa.". I don't think any of us can talk about Uncle Joe without smiling.
Thanks for sharing a portion of your family’s story. I also wonder how anyone can support TFG. There is a short circuit somewhere within supporters’ value system.
Gary, my late father-in-law served in the Pacific during WW2, and similarly never wanted to talk about it, which I respected despite my enduring curiosity. He did tell the story of returning home to the East Coast by train, on a cot , fevered by malaria as he rode across the country.
I think the stories are impactful and I don’t want to overlook the burden on those who stayed home, raised families, worked on assembly lines, and prayed for the return of loved ones. In quiet moments it’s easy for me to be overwhelmed with what was given to us. We were blessed by “The Greatest Generation”.
My wondering too. What are they missing in human ‘sensitivity’… must only be basic early childhood education.. “give that seat to your friend.. “ Share & Care in musical chairs…
A lot of that silence i think was a form of "battle trauma"... ordinary people were subjected to emotional horrors which they had somehow to accommodate in their subsequent civilian and family lives. An oral history movement picked up in the 70s and later to throw more human light on what these men mainly had to endure.
My parents both served in Italy. My dad after North Africa. He led infantry platoons, wounded twice. My mom was his nurse. We can only imagine the horrors of the wounds she had to treat.
They rarely spoke of their experiences - even when asked. For them, it was their way of dealing with the trauma. And remember that their generation was supposed to just suck it up and move on.
Anyway, that's how they met. And my sister and I are the results. It's weird to owe my existence to a world war. But that's life.
Bill, reading your comment and others like it about the “keeping it to themselves” of their war experiences, my mind’s eye saw the way a tree can grow around a rock or other solid object, fully encasing it, yet continuing to grow….and observers are often not fully aware of it. ❤️🩹
Bill, We share somewhat similar experiences. Father was a tail gunner in a B17.
Mother trained pilots in nite navigation . As boys , my brother and I would admire my father's medals and the knife he brought back from the army air corp. Father didn't talk much about his service beyond explaining why he had a 6" scar in his side. He was lucky. Year later when I'd ask him why he went he just said he was young and naive. He was able to bury the trauma for a while and became quite successful . Later when life became more challenging his PTSd took over and ruined his life. He'd awaken in the middle of the nite from dreams of dropping bombs onto German cities and seeing formation aircraft descending in flames. I can't understand why we have retained this seemingly senseless need for war but it persists to our own peril.
Gary Anderson - I feel compelled to write a personal response. We know a little more now about what those who saw battle and killed other human beings suffered -- unspeakably suffered -- named in more recent years "PTSD". My favorite uncle (born in 1920) was one of them. And he never spoke within my earshot of the atrocities he witnessed. (Nor do I think he did with my parents during his furloughs with us or after the war.) But several years after the war he suddenly disappeared from his post-war family of wife, 6 adopted children, 7 children of his own, his parents, his sister, 2 brothers, 2 nieces (including me), and a sister-in-law. At some point, a jacket was found hanging from a tree branch above the Niagara Falls with hand written ID in a pocket. We all knew he didn't (wouldn't) take that route, but he totally disappeared, not contacting anyone. Then a number of years later his body was found hanging in a San Francisco hotel room. The ID of his assumed name was fake of course, but his fingerprints eventually were identified through War records. PTSD in my opinion is the number one silent killer, going undetected for years, maybe forever. (Thank you for indulging this personal story.)
My heart goes out to you and so many others who experienced traumatic family events as a result of the war to preserve the world. Thank you for describing your reality. I appreciate you taking the time to share it with those of us who are here.
Truly. My prayers continue this thread daily , often minute by minute when I’m frightened by the daily ‘news’.. I will be ‘leaving’ sometime soon and pray for a kinder WORLD for my 4 & 7 y/o grsons.
I too was reminded about my father's service as a Marine. He was a sergeant of an anti-aircraft gun crew in the South Pacific, was wounded with a ricochet & killed the Japanese man who shot at him. Had a belly scar & a purple heart (which I didn't see until after he died in 1993). He never spoke of the war- I only heard about it from my mother & later read some of his journal notes where he named his fellow Marines who had been killed in action. Maybe I was afraid to ask. I sometimes wonder if he lived the rest of his life in service to others as atonement for killing another. He never allowed us to have guns. He was a kind gentleman & supportive father. I was fortunate.
Thank you, Gary et al., for these stories of our brave kinsmen and kinswomen. As that 'Greatest Generation' passes out of living historical memory, it is the emergent oral tradition of what these Americans did that keeps the legacy alive, relevant, inspiring.
At the very least, Michael, I hope they return to haunt his dreams. Not that it would prompt a change in him, as I believe he is incapable of that psychologically…but I like the idea of him being chastised by those brave and honorable souls.
It’s 3:30 in the morning & I’m lying in bed crying after reading Biden’s speech. Two years we buried my dad, the last of 3 WWII vets in our family.
His casket had a been draped in the same 48 star flag that covered the caskets of his brother who died in the war and his sister who served in the WAVES. Of the three, my dad was the only one born in the US.
Dad had watched while the Capital stormed and was horrified that what he had fought for was in such danger and more horridly, by Americans.
I was watching the whole thing online, it was appalling and very obvious Trump was behind it. I also could not imagine Trump giving a speech like President Biden did. Trump thinks the people who died in battle are “losers and suckers.” He and his family have never served. I have never served, but I respect those who have.
When Academics and journalists compared what we are living thru to Germany in the 1920s and 30s I initially thought maybe. Now I see that the unimaginable is occuring in our country. The ease with which the national socialists were able to control the narrative and manipulate the german people is scary. The fringe right in this country is now mimicking, almost verbatim, the words used by Hitler and Hess while they were taking power from the Weimar Republic.
You always provide a moving historical and human context. My father was in the pacific during ww2 so my family stories aren’t of Normandy or the war in Europe. My mother was a coast watcher, a volunteer corps known as the Aircraft Warning Service who watched for incoming planes after Pearl Harbor along the pacific coast. So far as I know no planes were ever detected this way but it was a morale booster and a way for civilians to participate. I think hearing and reading about these stories helps remind us what we need to protect, and I’m not referring to foreign aggression, except as it applies to disinformation. Thank you for yet another snippet of context from history as it ties into today’s events.
My dad went into Rome after he was wounded in North Africa and had frostbite in the Italian mountain campaign. My mom's older brothers were in the US Army air corps in England, flew cover for D-Day. My dad had one brother who had been wounded in the Navy and another in Burma at the time. My mother in law served under Jimmy Stewart in England, my father in law was at Utah Beach.
I was born in 1943. Many of my classmates lost their dads, some in France but most at the Battle of the Bulge.
I am a Vietnam veteran. Only 80, but pretty sure I'm the last one left from my unit.
My family has veterans from the Revolutionary war to active military today. I had three uncles and one aunt who served in WWII. I get weepy when I read about D-Day every year. They returned home safely but not after an uncle spent 2 years in a POW Camp. I have lots of memories of my relatives who we saw often. Uncommmon Valor.
Daniel, that is quite a gold star history you’ve descended from. I’m in awe. Despite my decidedly mixed feelings about the whole business of war, I found myself tearing up over and over again yesterday - the D-day news reels, those ancient living veterans, watching the Bidens and Macrons walking in hand in hand, the French and American anthems, Biden’s speech. It’s a comfort to find there is still some patriotism within me in these awful times.
Thank you, Daniel, for the service you provided as well as your family. I wish we had that America again - the one who recognizes service, honors it, and chooses to serve.
Daniel My cousin, a Quaker, was with the First Marine Division that landed in Guadalcanal in November, 1942. His platoon then was ‘island hopping’ for nearly two years.. Jim was the only member who wasn’t badly injured or killed. Another cousin was exec officer on a sub. Soon after Pearl Harbor, his sub was sunk. He was one of four survivors. We didn’t know for two years that he was alive.
My dad had served in WW I as a pilot. Over age, he signed up for the Eighth Air Force in July, 1942. Though in a staff role, he talked his way onto a daylight raid over Hamm, Germany as a waist gunner. 169 crew members took off, only 68 returned, though some planes had gone to other airfields.
As a Foreign Service Officer, during a 1964 Congo foreign hostage rescue operation, I captured several rebels at gun point.
I salute all those Americans who Bone Spur Donnie has categorized as ‘suckers’ and ‘losers.’
Keith, I love that the stories posted here of their (and your) experiences & those of their families bring them to life, like a gift to the reader (me)…a treasured offering in the telling.
Thanks for all the comments. I've been asking people to repeat "not suckers or losers," especially on Facebook, where I am banned. 4 million people on Facebook are veterans or active duty members. 12.5 million people on Facebook are family members of a veteran or an active duty member. 242 million people on Facebook are friends with one or more veterans or active duty members.
I am banned on FB too, called chump’s verbiage Nazi blather almost four years ago. It is the family members and descendants of WW2 veterans who are chump supporters that chap me most.
I enjoyed both until they became cesspools. I never followed idiots. Did follow and un follow some family. Amazing how they turned into crazy for Repub propaganda. Zero tolerance, for them and for Elon and Zuck
Thank you for serving in Vietnam. I'm sad to think you may not have had a warm welcome when you returned but I hope you know that you are very appreciated. My brother served there as well and oddly is a Trump supporter to the end. I can never put those two things together but I love my brother dearly.
Daniel, it was my privilege to know a man who led his platoon in a jump onto Omaha beach and who lost a son in Vietnam. He was a clarinet player in several of the community groups I played in. Never talked about any of it; the only way I learned about his son was at his wife's memorial service.
Sioux, my Dad enlisted in the Army at the age of 26, was detailed USAAC, and was trained as a meteorologist. His overseas service was in China, where he worked on setting up the weather stations that helped the bombers fly "over the hump". He never talked about his experiences, either, and he was not in a real combat role.
I found an article on the coast watchers in Oregon.
Thank you for this. I’m also from Oregon although when my mom did this she lived in California, long before I was born. Then she went on to work as a riveter making war planes at Boeing.
This is a day to remember and you have so wonderfully documented the significance of this. Joe Biden is a great leader because a president is a servant to the people, versus the former president who believed people served him. I also want to add that your YouTube talk today you should post because you Heather are seeing patterns that are essential for us to know. Thanks!
Wendy Eck. -- Thanks for this link to this YouTube video. I didn't know about Heather's YT channel, and will now seek out how to subscribe to it somehow.
Wendy, I am already following her on FB, but I never see anything from her feed. And I didn't see a way to "follow" her on YouTube. I'll figure it out. T'would be nice if she would alert us in her letters. (I have a lot of FB friends, so maybe it's FB being selective on what they feed to me.)
On both FB and YouTube, try entering her name in the search 🔍. Great idea for Heather to let us know how to access her work other than through substack
Let us also honor Al Persichitti from Rochester, New York who was 102 years old. He was a veteran who served on Iwo Jima. He died en route to France for this event, the 80th anniversary.
Good for Heather celebrating the individuals in Normandy today celebrating other individuals.
That's what democracy is -- resting on the potential of individuals to make their own lives, and to respect, honor, celebrate other individuals.
And now we find ourselves engaged in another fight with pernicious fascism -- but at home, in the U.S., with pious hypocrite thugs like House Speaker Mike Johnson, the corrupt of the Clarence court all lying and providing cover for the fat, orange convicted criminal -- and so many allied others contemptuous of American law, traditions, our now-beleaguered American women and their families.
So please, now, readers and fellow commenters on Heather's "Letters from an American": read Diane Ravitch’s "The Language Police.” It reports on all those who lay the imaginative groundwork for the new fascists. These are our committee assemblers of corporate textbooks, and all our vetting, vetted, calculating standardized testers. They all occupy nothing but abstractions. All so pitifully distance themselves so far, far from any individual humans, and equally far, far from all our humanities, so they've zero human truths -- instead forming their own massive black hole of demented delusion to further their 34-count and counting convicted criminal-in-chief.
Specifically, have essay writing programs to nurture the skills for quoting others as to their specific, individual concerns. First, in one classroom essay these personal differences in writing (introductory self introductions), then discussions of first essays, then re-writes for quoting others in the room.
Send rewritten essays to group of "others" elsewhere (others writing, discussing similarly in nearby culture), for new rounds of essays quoting from the other culture. Israeli Jews quoting Israeli Arabs. Russians quoting Ukrainians. Japanese quoting Chinese or Koreans. All in English.
They merge perfectly with the enslavers of yore, as Heather detailed in "How the South Won the Civil War."
I hew to Lincoln, who believed in the programs of a strong enough federal government to uphold rights "of the people, by the people, for the people."
In education we've had the gross opposite. All the standardized testing programs have squeezed, desiccated, dehumanized our schools. They've all targeted schools to be reduced to tools of the billionaires, by the billionaires, for the billionaires.
Even team Biden has nobody with any humanities. Just money grubbers. All the Republicans have become living dead. Team Biden? Not much better.
I'm guessing you refer to the Diane Ravitch book. I have a well-used, much-annotated hardcover edition of its original 2003 publication. Only link to it is the set of stairs going up to the bedroom where it's long been with other treasures beside where I sleep -- and typically also awaken for various middle-of-the-night readings.
Just got it on my new Kindle Scribe for $4.99. This version doesn't let me mark it up like the PDF files I send to it (and have my handwritten notes converted to New Courier font text, a capability that seems to have come with a periodic update). This version doesn't seem to let me add notes other than ones that are then indicated by a tiny icon (now it seems a larger but still small icon has been one of the updates).
It may not be everyone's choice but its unique capabilities are worth the price point since it lets me store hundreds of books (and have access to more if near wifi, I think), with a very low power e-paper screen that lets me go weeks without having to recharge it. I'd suggest looking at Len Edgerly's videos to see what the limitations are and what improvements have been added over the years. I'd love to see the entire series of LFAA letters available on Kindle so I could read them on a slow boat to china with nothing more than a solar powered charger access every week or so.
I just looked it up, and I'm going to get a copy. Diane Ravitch and I had a couple of very tense interactions back during the GHWBush administration when she and Lynn Cheney were advocating for dropping Civics from the curriculum. She eventually recanted, but it was too late for Civics. Neither of them, I felt, had any feel for the challenges of public school classrooms.
Good for you on your struggle for Civics. It was apparently gone in Ohio as early as the 60s, when I was in high school. I learned a little in U.S. History and more from my parents and did the rest on my own. Ravitch has made a career of committing herself to policies and projects she later recants. I guess that’s how she learns, but as you say, the damage is done. She really didn’t have a feel for the experience of teaching or learning in the public schools, though she went to them K-12. Her kids went to private schools. Her view on higher education were pretty second-hand as well, and borderline racist. But she was right, and staunch, on the toxin of charter schools.
Yes, I'm glad she took a stance away from charter schools that leech students and funds from public schools. I believe she also supports the teachers' union now. Both she and Lynn Cheney were infatuated with the ideas of E.D. Hirsch and Allen Bloom, and by coincidence today I saw an article by Will Gordon in the current Atlantic that revisits their theories. Gordon first speaks about Neil Postman, the Canadian author of Amusing Ourselves to Death, which dealt with television. He didn't live to see the internet, but Gordon thinks he might have been more sympathetic to Bloom's suggestions than Hirsch's, which mostly advocate making sure students can identify long lists of cultural references. The article's definitely worth a read.
DJT is a wanna be dictator...he loves absolute power and being above everyone else. It's all he knows and understands. We must stop him from ever holding public office again....and it appears the ballot box is going to be the only way to do it. We have 5 months. If our ancestors could defeat a tyrant on the scale of Hitler, we can and must finish off DJTs political career. One 4 year term was too much. We don't need to build thousands of Liberty Ships or B-17's and no one needs to die. We just need to "nip it in the bud" as Barney would say. Peace
"he loves absolute power and being above everyone else"
That is the product so-called "Republicans" are selling these days, and it's our species' Achilles Heel. "The master race". the master sex", the conceit that one is doing God's bidding by oppressing (or killing) others, and the calculation of every human value in dollars and cents. It always gets ugly, and yet it seems many societies never learn.
Even as a young child I couldn't figure out the "my religion is right and yours is wrong" attitudes among "spiritual" people & leaders. If there is a singular creative spirit, the fact that "the" creator made us all, seems pretty obvious...and why would any creator make some "less than" on purpose? I started to look at the differences as basically tribal...or the region your people came from. The basics of the Golden Rule can be found in most societies. As we intermingled more and more and blended you would think that the old ideas would melt away...but alas it appears that some need to feel and act superior....and fear of "the other" is a powerful motivator.
My favorite Twain quote. “The easy confidence with which I know that another man’s religion is folly makes me suspect that my own is also.” Says it all for me
Mike the "I am right" problem in Christianity goes back to the very beginning. Read your Old and New Testaments. In many ways monotheism is a "virus of the social mind".
The concept of hierarchy, that some groups/people's are better/superior than others is the underlying indicator for authoritarian belief. And it is strong in America and across the world. But it is learned. No baby is born that way. In the book "On Fascism: 12 Lessons From American History" by Matthew McWilliams, he provides an Index of American Authoritarian Attitudes (before chapter 1):
34% of Americans agree that having a strong leader who does not have to bother with Congress and elections is a good way of governing the U.S.
46% of Americans are inconsistent supporters of democracy and democratic institutions.
44% of Americans agree that increasing racial, religious, and ethnic diversity represents a threat to security of the US.
30% of Americans agree with the statement "I often find myself fearful of other people of other races."
28% of Americans agree that many women are actually seeking special favors, such as hiring policies that favor them over men, under the guise of asking for "equality."
23% of Americans agree that sometimes other groups must be kept in their place.
16% of Americans agree an ideal society requires some groups to be on top and others to be on bottom.
14% of Americans agree some groups of people are simply inferior to other groups.
Mike not wanna be. IS. He ran his company that way and he has acted like a dictator during his first term. It was some of the better people that held him in check. Otherwise, he would have stayed in office.
If there is a Pulitzer or a Nobel prize in history for Substack writers, you should clearly be at the top of the list for an award. What wonderful writing and insightful history.
TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE: U.S. veteran in a wheelchair. When the man tried to kiss Zelensky’s hand, the Ukraine president instead stooped and hugged him. “You’re the savior of the people,” the man said. Zelensky answered, “You saved Europe.” The exchange continued: “You’re my hero.” “No, you are our hero.”
This was so beautiful to witness…And there was my wonderful Prime Minister Justin Trudeau standing behind him. He’s not perfect by any means but has a kindness about him that I deeply respect…
It just occurred to me that we hold Biden to such a high standard that anything but perfect is a deficiency and the “other” is allowed to have another standard. I hear this a lot “not perfect but…” I myself have said this on a number of occasions and I think we should just think of Biden as the citizen at the moment that our country and world needs and only God is perfect with perhaps the exception that He allowed Trump and MTG to inhabit this world in our lifetime. Maybe that’s our punishment for “the fall”
Velensky was honorably spot on.... that said, we can thank the entire organizational effort, from leaders and collective policies made, down to the very nitty gritty.
Wow. Thank you. Such a touching and inspirational letter.
Prez. Biden's speech was very moving and the scenes I've seen from the ceremonies make me proud to support a president that is a truly good person and who understands very deeply the importance on honoring our history and those who made it happen. I liked the way he not only honored those who fought on the front line, but also the many who toiled away in relative anonymity, but whose efforts were essential to the overall effort.
Written yesterday, published again now (with slight editing):
*
Today is the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the landing of 150 000 men on the beaches of Normandy, from which they were to advance, fighting all the way, until the Allied armies met the Red Army on the Elbe in the heart of Germany.
My father, a British naval officer, worked in Combined Ops at the Admiralty in London, among those planning the logistics of that great invasion, in which the fleet brought its harbor with it… He didn’t take part in it, but was detailed to take part in the invasion of Japan. He expected to die there, facing other islanders…
Much later in life, he seemed not to understand me when I spoke of the spirit but to have accepted the logic of superior material power, and I asked him: “Why, then, if you are so impressed by military might, did you not consider suing for peace after Dunkirk?” (Dunkirk: the hurried evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force at end May, early June 1940, leaving France overrun by Hitler’s Blitzkrieg.)
He paused for a moment, then said:
“We knew that it would be hard, we knew that we faced a terrible enemy. Yet throughout the whole length of the war, neither I nor any one of my comrades doubted for one moment that we would overcome.”
I remember the story my father-in-law shared, that as a young man recently married to his sweetheart, my husband's mom,....about being transported from a small town in Iowa where his father was a shopkeeper to The Merchant Marine Academy located at Kings Point, in New York. He became a third mate in charge of navigation.
He recounts the story of being on a ship headed to England with two superior officers from other countries who because of various reasons were not able to navigate....he held the responsibility of navigating the ship he was assigned to which was in a convoy headed to England in the dark....during the "black outs" for safety from bombings. He admitted he was terrified...not wanting to hit the ships on either side and to safely arrive at their designated destination.... he succeeded as did so many young men and women who were experiencing the same fears and uncertainties. They just did their jobs!
The Merchant Marine Sailors had a very tough time (and a lot of criticism for wanting their regular wages). A great uncle captained 3 ships that were torpedoed and sunk. It seems he was rather quickly rescued from the first, spent nearly a month in a lifeboat after the second, appearing as a fraction of his former healthy self, and was lost forever the third time.
My father told me that the warships escorting convoys kept a safe distance from those they were protecting... His were the convoys that rounded North Cape, where the Kriegsmarine had a base, taking supplies to Murmansk and Arkhangelsk.
I'll have to try to find out which ships my great uncle served on to see if he had sailed in any of those convoys. I did attend a meeting where they invited a Navy gunner who had volunteered to serve on Merchant Marine ships (thinking they would not see as much hostile action). One he served on had wooden a replica of a cannon (Quaker Cannon) and nothing bigger than a .50 caliber machine gun for "real" defense.
Right there with you on the tears, Ally. I posted the link because I feared it wasn't getting the press it deserved. In that short 54 seconds, I clearly saw the reality of one man who had played a part in liberating one country having been invaded by another, and another man trying to defend his country from being invaded. I so wish others could see it as clearly as we do here...morning!
I sat at my desk in my office and wept as I watched Zelenskyy’s exchange with an old warrior. They both stand for the fight against fascism and tyranny. I weep now for my fellow citizens who only love themselves and blindly follow a would-be dictator towards the dissolution of this great country at the directions of our home-grown oligarchy.
VOTE! It will prove to be the only way past the existential threat T💩p poses.
The Republicans think they are patriots, but what they are really are are chauvinistic nationalists who don’t understand that patriotism requires sacrifice, willingness to own up to mistakes and to improve things for all. All the self-described “patriots” of MAGA want is to do is grab our resources for the few and to lord it over everyone else while depriving the people a say in their own government,
What a great speech by Biden. I actually teared up a bit reading this letter. It’s true, we are at a very dangerous moment in time and we need to choose wisely. Never forget that Trump mocked veterans, calling them ‘losers’ and ‘suckers’. If nothing else, this tells you everything you need to know about this vile person.
Yes, whoever is writing Biden's speeches has eloquently joined history with the present. Unfortunately, the vulnerability of the past for democracy continues into the present. Let us hope that we don't need to shed as much blood today as in the past to guarantee freedom. As the old veteran and Zelenskyy acknowledged across the generations, our heroes continue to fight for liberty. We must continue to be part of that fight. What can we do? Vote.
Vote, and somehow pay more attention to stuff that really matters. Less to commercial entertainment. Make heroes of real heroes who put our nation's welfare first, and those who aid and protect individuals. Make heroes of those who tell the truth, especially at some personal risk. Greed is NOT good, by definition; it the harm done to others that makes it greed in the first place, and that is very different from responsible ambitions. Domination is tyranny, and was exactly what the Axis was striving to achieve.
Register Democrats -- save the world.
https://www.fieldteam6.org/
Yes, I am communicating with cousins in Texas. The only solution for us is to out-vote them. There is no common ground on facts or theory. One in particular refuses to disclose her information sources, claiming that she relies on common sense.
Oh dear, Richard, common sense...well that is quite the smoke screen. Anyone with an ounce of it would not be defending or voting for death star or his minions.
Is "common sense" sense that is common, or or just "a" sense that is shared among a cohort? People share many beliefs that make no sense from the standpoint of logic and evidence. I think Orwellian propaganda works because it overwhelms critical thinking with a cover of sales pitch. In it's worst forms, it is enforced punitively, as it is in dictatorships, but also less visibly, by people who feel entitled to use violence, or one sort or another, as a tool of coercing complicity with whatever he or she favors. I recall in my youth (1950s Ohio) fearing and despising adults in youth leadership roles who felt entitled to harass, bully, or even abuse children who they felt entitled to mold. Even as a minor, it occurred to me that there seemed to be a general distinction between adults that attempted to influence others behavior with persuasion and support, and those who go-to tool was punishment. MAGAs seem to be in the latter camp. My parents, thankfully, were in the former.
It seems to me that the urge to bully, and vociferous and sociopathic rationalizations for glorifying bullying, are humanity's most severe and persistent source of unnecessary suffering; which might one day kill us all. We desperately need to vote for more kindness, but also work harder to define and present more vividly accessible visions of appealing practical alternatives to authoritarian nightmares. Not just a pullback from runaway narcissism, but an appealing set of outcomes to advance and defend.
What might the realization of the Preamble of the Constitution look like when you pin down the details?
Richard, you mean like TFFFG’s “gut instinct”….maybe she’s following his example! The Guardian article from some years ago:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/shortcuts/2018/nov/28/donald-trump-gut
The only thing is death star's gut is hot air which finds its way upwards and downwards.
I hear that a lot, too. And, at times, from old friends and loved ones. Though I remain a 'slackadaisical' agnostic in my old age, I do thank these people for restoring my habit of praying for those who annoy me. 😉
Richard, you might try asking her to name the three most important traits that an ideal president would possess and the three most important disqualifications for a president. Then ask why it’s important for a president to have each trait. Ask what would be different on her life if the president had each trait. Go as deep as you can until you feel that you’ve got to the root cause. Then ask what Biden could do to help fix that.
As a commentator said—we’ve forgotten how to listen thoroughly instead of merely listening to refute talking points. He said that, until someone fells heard instead of attacked, they cannot acknowledge another point of view. The book “Takibg the War Out of Our Words” is really helping me.
I have lots of relatives living southern states who apparently rely on fake news and conspiracy theories...so frustrating and sad.
Writing postcards, GOTV activities… all needed. Thanks!
As you do so often, Daniel, you use few words toward many benefits.
Greed is a form of gluttony that robs the many of their security and peace of mind. It has never been good. Well said, J L Graham.
I think greed is good, if tightly circumscribed to avoid excess mal-distribution and prevent a collapse of ethics.
The only way to "tightly circumscribe" greed is through external force (IMO). The Scandinavian countries have done it most successfully with their form of pragmatic capitalism.
Well said, Richard. I hear this scheiße from the G.O.P. that President Biden is leading us to socialism, some even say communism. Yet the moderate liberalism of President Biden would be center-right in Europe and 'wild child' Representative Ocasio Cortéz is a Social Democrat. I guess they need that straw-man communism to justify Trump's tripe of open fascism.
If we actually want " government of the people, by the people, for the people" then we are the final authority in matters of law. WE authorize and set the goal for the processes of commerce in the US, and not the other way around. The notion that an immensely powerful, impactful, and necessary set of activities, motivated in large part be "the love of money" should be left free of societal guidelines and responsibilities is every bit as irrational as MTG and her "space lasers"; and far more pernicious.
No, giving a tiny minority of the richest among us a far larger cut of our aggregated wealth, and pretty much letting them call the shots, has never resulted in a more empowered, more broadly prosperous society, and never will. Why the hell would it?
Removing the guard rails we installed on business since the excesses and corruption of the "Gilded Age" makes as much sense as pulling out the stop signs at 4-way stops.
"Conservatives" (who seem only focused on conserving what they are personally invested it) promote a lot of conflation and doublethink to justify their predatory impulses. "Greed" is excessive and harmful by definition, so there is no way to separate the harmful part from an action that includes harm. else it is not greed. Republicans picked up the phrase, Greed is good" is an attempt to normalize it's predatory nature, just as they bloviate about the "free market" when what they mean is facilitating monopolies and plutocratic impunity. A free market is no more one dominated by monopolies on market share and ownership, than a "free county" is one dominated by a small minority with an monopoly on ownership and political power.
True, the term "conservative" as applied to American politics has no meaning. A more apt description of many of those folks is white Christian nationalist, or even Fascist. They have completely forsaken the core principle of democracy: one person, one vote, majority rule. No violence. No threat of violence.
J.L., I can not agree with you. Economic incentives induce people to better themselves through harder work and / or innovation. Economic incentives appeal to greed. The market economy has elevated more people to the middle class around the world than any other system. Abusing that system, as we are seeing now with the acquiescence of the Democrats to Silicon Valley and the full-throated cheers by the G.O.P. to Wall Steet, is excessive greed.
Richard, I am all for calling out the current minority rulers by their real identities. I use to believe in the conservatism as a complement to liberalism. The latter would experiment in pushing the society forward and the former would make the successful and popular experiments fiscally sustainable or would abolish a failed or repudiated experiment. Certainly not the 'conservative' ethic we have now.
Thanks, JL. You've said more in this post than you have written.
¡Hear, here! Anne-Louise, very well said.
Greed is a sin. All world religions decry greed, which elevates self above all.
The technical term for that frame of mind as a way of life is antisocial personality disorder, so a problem in the secular sector as well.
More like malignant narcissism -- One can be greedy about anything as long as it does not affect others, as in I can eat all I want, but it is when it takes things away from others that it becomes a problem or a disorder. I see it all going back to the low quality in our educational system. Not teaching civics and critical thinking skills in elementary school sets one up to focus on the lower level cognitive behavior. Scandinavian countries were mentioned above. I come back k from visits there impressed with how respectful people are there towards others, and to laws. No crazy drivers...
Excellent comment, J L. Thank you!
Yeah. One day it hit me.
Greed is not good. Who knew? Thanks JL
Dear gods, yes. Pay attention to what really matters. Not fluff, not flotsam, not "reality" TV.
"Reallty TV". Now there is an Orwellian label.
👍
The problem is too many people are listening to Fox News (for their entertainment).
The problem is, they don't get that it's not a real news station. They don't get that what comes out of the commentator's mouth is just an opinion based on lies. They just make shit up and the stupid audience believes them because the mini mushroom man tells them what to believe, and it feeds their fear and anger! My Trumpster sister won't even talk to me or listen to anyone who goes against her Messiah. I'm counting on the debates to show the stark difference between a wise and dignified statesman and an outrageous, nasty, vindictive autocrat. Our choice of who to elect to be the President of The United States will be crystal clear!
I totally agree and understand. I have many friends and family that are like your sister and fewer family and friends that don't worship him.
And way to much concentration of media ownership. I thought we had learned that lesson
Someone shared this “folk” several days ago. It has been a strengthening message for me because I’m still too heartbroken to share my views here in Boebert country.
Tim Grimm, “Broken Promises”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7XYGLjP-58
How about restoring the draft? Even as a teenager I knew its importance for linking Americans rich and poor.
Knowing that there was a military draft in effect, I joined the U.S. Army in 1960. It changed my life dramatically. That experience set me on the road to earn a Ph.D. and a J.D. from Harvard. This ordinary kid from West Texas could never have conceived of such a journey but for the changes that military service brought to my life.
Thank you, Ned McDoodle. At 13, in 1947, in the only “real” debate I ever took part in, I argued for the draft, having seen the variety of people put together by the draft and WWII. It included 3 of my uncles (my father was a year overage at 39), a concert pianist from Brazil, and a number of “regular” people from farms in several states. We lived near an army air base, knew people in the regular army as well as draftees. Post Depression America made unity obvious.
With luck we can restore a draft like “volunteers in service to America” covering both military preparedness and caring for national lands, orphans, those impacted by climate change, etc.
Really good point. I surely could have used the forced maturation of boot-camp, especially with others from other backgrounds who would have knocked me down a few pegs, or more.
It's complicated. I agree that the draft had some good points to it, though I'm not sure universal military training is what we most need. Perhaps kids would benefit from a year of field trips learning about the realities of what is necessary to keep a modern mass society viable and sustainable. I don't think you can build self-governance with cluelessness.
Revival of public education (including history and civics) would do a lot for cluelessness.
Think of all those inner-city kids drowning in the under-class in dangerous drug-overwhelmed neighbourhoods. One thing the Army, likely the other services, have gotten right is providing mobility to minorities. If the draft came back, expensive outsourcing (LogCAP) would be brought in house. Many people might then get the skills needed to settle into adult life. And it does not have to be military service. Could include my service (i.e., Peace Corps), Americorps, V.I.S.T.A., the civilian climate corps, etc.
Greedflation is the current economic force that we’re currently experiencing because by now normal market forces would have certainly had more than enough time to gravitate toward equilibrium!!!
Beautifully and dutifully stated, J.L. A stalwart defense of what American Exceptionalism really should be.
https://nedmcdletters.blogspot.com/2014/03/letter-96-is-american-exceptionalism.html
But we’re still the bad teenagers on the block. Can we grow up?
Well, that is the challenge. Many of us -- I can not judge me very well, of course -- are NOT bad teens acting out. Can we prevail and can our example lift up our fellows in distress, despair, dysfunction? We are all states(wo)men now by the example we set.
I think that "bad" behavior is mostly due to excessive narcissism or ignorance. Some people whose behavior is a problem only need get a clue to be willing to modify it. Others pride themselves on "getting ahead", regardless of means and peril forced on others. Nothing seems to please Trump more than breaking rules and getting away with it; and unsurprisingly, nothing enrages him more than being held to responsibilities that apply to anyone. That's the complete opposite of what a respectable citizen of just republic is expected to do.
I almost teared up too with the image of the old man telling Z I pray for you.HCR is so good at making our history come to life.And true democracy means more choices on the ballot for president, anyone against that isn’t being honest about democracy.
John, please check out what Robert Reich says about voting for third parties in this election: "Psst: Don’t fall for a third party (pass it on)" on
https://robertreich.substack.com/
Also, there is a good interview of Reich by David Pakman about this issue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN_4ILTqTn4
Voting for third parties is a vote for death star just like it was in 2016. I hope that not many people are like our garden helper who believes that everyone in our government is no good. I do understand her cynicism as she has been an outsider all her life and our government has certainly done nefarious things on the world stage, but sometimes it has been other countries doing the bad stuff. Right now there is no good place to move to primarily because of climate change and the disruption it is causing both with weather and people immigrating
Thanks Carol , I read his opinion about voting for in my case Bobby. I have lots to disagree with here.if you look up HCR’s letter from February 11 2024 you will find her assessment of Lincoln’s position on slavery.” I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence which declares all men are equal apon principle, and making exceptions to it, where will it stop?”In my opinion, it’s the same with third party candidates in our elections. Reich is making an exception for this election because of his fear of Trump. I say there are no exceptions for this election or any other. And the current idea that just a few votes for Bobby will swing the election to Trump is just speculation. And now there is evidence a few votes for Bobby will swing it to Biden.Things usually change at election time from the way they are this far out. And what if that does happen? What if Bobby gets more votes from disgruntled Trump supporters? Telling people to not vote for Bobby then could stop the tipping in favor of President Biden.So I want you to know that my vote is for hope , that’s for Bobby. It’s not a vote taken from President Biden because I wouldn’t vote for either he or Trump.I believe in Bobby’s vision and I believe he has a good chance of winning.I respect your right to vote as you want to, please understand this is the first time I have gotten involved in a presidential campaign and it’s because I can relate to RFKJR!
Third party candidates are spoilers in our current system. Check it out.
Lawrence O'Donnell covered Biden's speech on his program last night. At the end is the clip of Zelensky. Worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUWIRD9x8_o
Until we can institute ranked choice voting, 3rd party votes are deadly. They usually wind up helping the person you would LEAST want to be president.
Biden is the spoiler in this election because he has zero chance of beating Mr. Trump in a two way or three way race, according to the largest polls. Surprisingly, RFK Jr, does have a narrow lead over Mr. Trump in a RFK against Trump ballot. And Bobby actually understands how to breath life back into our corporate captured regulatory agencies since he's sued most of them on behalf of the people over the decades.
No anti-vaxxer can be president as the next pandemic, thanks to climate change, will arrive.
And it will arrive sooner than later.
I don't think you have accurate information about Kennedy.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/rfk-donors-trump-investors-celebs-1234975307/
Jeff you are a breath of fresh air with your beliefs in Kennedy. I’m with you 100 percent. Many people here have not it seems, listened to what Bobby is actually saying. There is lots of false info about him.Have you seen the video- who is Bobby Kennedy? It’s awesome!
Vote like it matters
Because it really does! VOT BLUE ALL THE WAY THROUGH!
Always have, ever since a John Birch moron at work expressed glee at the JFK murder.
Wow! Jeri, it’s even worse than Trump’s tax cut which has finished what trickledown started.
I voted for Eisenhower, but no Republican since, remembering the relief when many felt Truman beat Dewey.
I did like Ike
All the presidents use speech writers. They are mostly unsung heroes "behind the stage". Not that presidents aren't also their own authors. FDR's "day of infamy" speech came straight from the man, i believe.
Each President does it their own way of course. As Biden has been a public servant for 50+ years, he appreciates the benefits gained through collaboration.
He is often the smartest man in the room, but more importantly he also is a great delegator. John Meaham assisted with the D-Day speech and others have been mentioned as well.
Frank Yes. Incredibly, with all that was occurring on December 7th FDR dictated his Day of Infamy speech and only made minor changes before speaking in Congress the next day. After such an extraordinary day, in the late evening he met with Edward R. Murrow, who had just come from London, where he was close to Churchill.
FDR gave Murrow a full description of the naval disaster. With such a ‘news scoop,’ Murrow went back to his hotel room and ordered room service for two days so that he couldn’t inadvertently reveal what FDR had told him.
What a day!
I wish that, from now til November, Biden's speech writer would make his speeches line up all the forces of Fascism that we face: the paralysis of Congress, the corrupted Supreme Court, the corrupted voting rights in many states, the agenda in "Project 2025," the loss of women's right to decisions about their bodies and their futures.
Over and over again, just as the Fascists do. Fight fire with fire. It's what the lower-educated voters absorb.
He did and he reworked it up unit the time he gave it
As did the Gettysburg Address, written by President Lincoln in his way to bake a Speech at The Battlefield.
Last evening, I was appalled by a small gathering of Georgia women who were asked whom they would vote for. (PBS News Hour) With only one firm opinion that she would not vote for Trump, the others repeated sound bites: Biden is not of sound mind, and Biden has poor foreign policy. Biden has been wrong for my (small) business; inflation is terrible. I said, "Good God, how have they been so duped?" The issue is more profound than just voting; it is about too many Americans believing the hype, not looking deeper into the flimflammery of Trump's lies, because they have never been taught critical thinking skills. All Trump's crimes seem irrelevant to them, and the voters follow him like lemmings into a sea of disaster. What is needed, and appears to be happening, thankfully, is an
intense campaign of information that reaches the ordinary citizen. The media, even supposedly serving "both side-ism," is rampant Republican, and it's probably related to cash incentives from the far right.
It all comes down to information sources and confirmation bias.
If I had a dollar for every time one of my MAGAt friends has posted a meme that I agree with 99%, the only disagreement is WHICH presidential candidate we believe fits that meme, I could most likely buy enough coffee for the LFAA readership to all have a cup (and I'd toss in tea, sparkling water, and other palatable alternatives for those who don't drink the elixir of the gods).
I like this, Ally. I think I will use this as a response: "I agree with everything you said, except I apply it to Biden."
My last foray was one where someone posted something to the effect of "If you hate one man so much, you must be part of the problem". The guy is a MAGAt, retired command staff from my former agency. My reply was something along the lines of "why do you hate the President so much? Oh, you mean hate the former president? My bad."
Hope, it happens multiple times a day.
You're a hero(ine) Ally. I notice your efforts to keep up the good while surrounded by jerks. That takes moxie.
Nicely said. 'Daily Kos' called me out for using the term 'MAGAt' as it de-humanized another; I am grateful to that progressive journal for chiding me.
Hope, I am a long time fan of PBS Newshour, but have been disappointed recently by their failure to dig deeper when someone tells untruths, knowingly or not. CNN is guilty of just letting people say what they want. Where are the fact-checkers we used to have?
Restoring the Fairness Doctrine -- erased by President Reagan in 1988 -- may help by making such assertions accountable in real-time as both sides must be presented.
There you go again, Ned! Bravo! How many times a day do I ask for restoration of the Fairness Doctrine. Pre-Reagan, of course. Do you remember that his WWII service was propaganda in Hollywood?
We can vote and support Ukraine. That minute of the ancient US warrior with the younger Ukrainian was the best expression of the D-Day message I saw.
Betsy Remember that it was Ted Sorensen who provided such eloquence to JFK’s speeches, especially the inaugural. Also, Sorensen had a major hand in writing Pulitzer-winning PROFILES IN COURAGE, on which Jackie’s professor also had a hand.
How eloquent was JFK on his own? Who knows. His college thesis that was published owed a great deal to a senior NYT correspondent.
P. S. Lincoln wrote his own stuff!
I was not putting down Biden for having a script writer. To the contrary. I think that every word that he said was a true reflection of his sentiments, so I was praising the speech writer for crafting such a moving and authentic piece.
Well written and touching.
" If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”
There are crucial times when you so, so need emotional adults in the room. Ike was a Republican of a different era and a whole different school. Only this kind of discipline of ego can save us from the malignant narcissism that is undoing our civilization, much as the Axis was those decades ago.
Eisenhower was a leader. His party no longer exists. Nixon, his VP, helped the Republican party a great distance down the road it has gone. When people like Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich, and Steve Bannon spewed their battery acid vitriol all over the country, the R party started swirling down the toilet. Now that party is a cult, and it lives in the sewer. Today's MAGAts aren't fit to clean General Eisenhower's boots. The comparison is so stark.
Who could ever have imagined that cheap and inexpensive mass communications systems could or would have been manipulated by those spreading outright lies that would be believed by a significant portion of our population? In retrospect, our schools failed in the areas of teaching history, politics and critical thinking skills. What I see among virtually all of the MAGA acquaintances that I have is the lack of critical thinking skills. They normally don't challenge the authenticity/factual basis of their sources' information nor its validity or implication. In one case, a cousin of mine in Texas is absolutely certain that there are no laws on the statute books in New York that Trump violated or for which he was convicted by a jury of 12 Americans. We simply must outvote them to save them from their own folly.
Our schools failed because the focus of education became job training and not learning. That focus changed during the 1970's and has continued its rapid decline of true education since the 1980's.
I think, also, that we never imagined that Americans would ever seek to dump our democratic process. In that we were naïve, forgetting the lesson that we should have learned from the Civil War, Jim Crow and world events, thinking that we were somehow different, immune from those forces. I shouldn't have been so naïve myself. I read Eric Hoffer's book, "The True Believer" decades ago. What I think we're dealing with now is hate. Hate of minorities, of women's rights advocates, gay rights advocates, non-Christians, immigrants and woke Liberals. MAGA is a movement of hate.
Some worried about that eventuality: ". . . . if we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason & Dixon . . . but between patriotism & intelligence on the one side & superstition, ambition & ignorance on the other." --President Grant.
¿ME? I surely did NOT. Thank you, Richard, for the timely reminder.
M.A.G.A.-types and the intellectual fascists on the left are like active drunkards in their illusions -- enjoying a few moments of power through the drink, followed by hours or days or a life-time of regret and excuse-making.
I agree about the hate. Just this morning on NPR I heard about teenage voters in Europe trending to the right, anti immigrant and anti-woke! And in the US, police who were defending the Capitol visited the legislature in Pennsylvania, I believe, and were booed.
And very likely, hatred of themselves and lives "that signify nothing."
So many feel looked down upon, or not in the mainstream, and their values disregarded. LBNL, xenophobia, and racism are manifestations of white fears of subjugation.
Deprived of slave labor, corporations have wanted robots. They are cranking up new ones made of steel. In the meantime they have drawn up the specs for those based on carbon and DNA, trained, compliant people. The want cheap, predictable and disposable. That said, education for consciousness and competence expansion literally expands and enriches ones share of living experience. At least as far I've seen.
Richard, Ally: The rise in fascism is a global problem. Plenty of countries with good schools (France, Germany) are struggling with their own right wingers. “The only thing that we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.” --Georg Hegel
Ally and Lindsay make good points about childish score-keeping and fear of losing out. I would add one more thought: that of widespread 'anomie' pervading Western societies. Anomie comes from French and refers to the sinking demoralization that comes with the sense that one's world is falling apart. Responses vary:
> suicide (trending up sharply);
> addiction (eluding policy responses to address it);
> hating the other (e.g., our M.A.G.A. brethren);
> discounting oneself (manifested by the 'crisis' of mental health);
> enduring the feeling (e.g., Thoreau's life of quiet desperation;
> et many al.
Yes, Becky, totally agree a " global problem"!
Read Anne Applebaum. She connects the global dots!
An apples to "horse apples" comparison.
Ike made a gutsy call on the weather. There seemed to be a possible small window in the gale force weather. If they didn’t invade by June 6th the tides would not be appropriate for a landing fo another two-three weeks. The surprise of the landing would be lost.
BUT if the weather closed in, the landing was likely to fail. Ike took five minutes weighing the alternatives, before saying ‘We’re going.’ One of the most gutsy calls of WW II.
Well said, Keith. That is command responsibility and command presence personified.
As opposed to chump, who said Never admit it if you do something bad, blame somebody else. Never blame yourself. Damn, maybe Ike should have blamed any number of generals. But then he was a real human, and not a caricature.
J L, I was a chaperone for my son's 8th-grade field trip to D.C. in 2002. When we visited the National Archives, Eisenhower's note he wrote in the event of failure was on display where items of interest are rotated in and out for public view. What a treat it was to see that penciled note.
JL, each one of us need to rally the folks who will save our democracy! It is a joint effort state by state all across our free land—kept free and resolute by the unsung heroes of the war! Unsung back home were the Rosie The Riveters who worked two jobs, one through the night for meager wages. We each hung on every inch of news of our relatives so far away fighting for our freedoms. I was ten (10) years old thinking of my uncles, one in a Nazi prison camp hiding his Jewish birth, another fighting across North Africa! They made it back home to our cheers and tears. I collected old newspapers in the slums of the lower East Side of NY and turned them in to make something I had no idea of what?Hidden among the newspaper scraps was a piece is sharp glass which cut my hand severely.Mom raced me to the hospital and I proudly displayed my big bandaged hand as if I was a veteran. All of your comments about your families are so meaningful. Thank you for your remembrances. We did it together, each in our way, didn’t we?I can’t hold back the tears of joy now when I remember the bells ringing across our newly free world in 1945! Please work tirelessly to keep us free from the tyranny of Trump!!
Living memory of the World War II generation fades from living memory. Individual brethren in democracy like you, Ira, assume the mantle of an oral tradition not to forget that many of our forebears acted heroically, just as many of us shall when our moments come. Thank you, Ira, thank you.
I wonder how this Republican, a fellow Midwesterner with President Eisenhower, would react to all of this free-floating scheiße.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4679797/user-clip-gerald-ford-united-states
Not just you. Got a bit misty over here as well.
Same! Watching as much of the D-Day memorial speeches and program in Normandy yesterday as I could, it gave me hope. It was very emotional.
Kerry, my grandson amd I had the chance to visit the American Normandy Cemetery in 2022. I was in tears the entire time I was there, or walking on Omaha beach, visiting Pointe du Hoc, etc. -- it was such an emotional day, contemplating the sacrifice those brave men and women made. The museum at the cemetery highlighted the brief lives of some of the fallen with a photograph and brief biography. These were ordinary Americans who did the extraordinary.
My grandson was 13 at the time, and the war in Ukraine was just a few months old. I tried to correlate the events of today with what happened on 6/6/1944, asking him to imagine what it would have been like to be 5 years older and emerging from one of the landing craft, or defending Mariupol.
I remember visiting the cemetery in 1994, two months after the fiftieth anniversary. I had much the same reaction, starting with the tri-coloured signs whizzing by: "Bienvenue à Nos Liberateurs." 💓
¿ME?
I was busy setting Franco-American relations back many years as l taught me to drive with manual transmission in real time along the road-ways of Normandy. 😉
Glad you could ! MSM was only, of course, sound bites. Too bad that’s what passes as news.
I teared up as well. We see so little actual heroism these days. I believe that Biden is one of the heros of our era, although the media blankets most of his accomplishments, dwelling on the antics of tfg, etc. Biden is up against very difficult challenges, and still pushes ahead with grace to make this country and the world a better place for all.
Oh, I disagree. We see heroism every day, but in less dramatic ways.
1. Adult children sacrificing time and family life willingly to care for agèd parents;
2. Men and women, black and white, rising up after the murder of George Floyd, Breanna Taylor, et al.
4. President Biden exercising moral suasion by admonishing us to knock it off with the anti-Asian and anti-Semitic violence and bigotry.
5. Parents often sticking with boring jobs to raise, not raze, their children's prospects.
6. Younger people holding doors open for the Elderly as a show of respect.
7. Exasperated citizens confronting the new fascists with an even temper to remind the rest of us of how to act in a democracy.
8. In a million other ways every day.
These little acts -- much like the grievances of M.A.G.A. types and articulated by their cherished nattering nabobs of narcissism -- accumulate over time. Hopefully, the little heroisms of today we all do will enable flawed people, like me, to have the courage to be notably heroic when the time calls for it.
Definitely appreciate your uplifting perspectives! 👍😁👍
Thank you, Sunni, for your gracious compliment. 🤝 Makes my insomnia almost palatable. 😉
Dabbing my tears, too, as I read HCR’s post.
Good morning, James-
evocative writing, and shared response-
best to you and yours-
DWC
So too did I, Midnight. What a great speech...and a huge thank you to Dr. Richardson for including the exchange between Zelensky and the WWII vet. That was heart-wrenching and wonderful.
Yesterday I wept when I saw that exchange between President Zelensky and that veteran, and teared up again at Heather’s poignant recounting. It’s heartbreaking that we are near to this again, and that Ukraine is deep in it.
Yes, the speech was poignant. Zelensky's hug brought home the awareness that history repeats itself.
Thank you… enough for me tonight.
I did get goosebumps as I watched clips of the ceremonies last night and now today reading this letter. Yesterday's letter upset me so much that I couldn't even comment. Many of the veterans I know not only remembered this day, but several also noted what death star has said about them as losers and suckers. I say that death star and his minions are all losers and anyone who is still following that monster is a sucker. And as Betsy has already noted we must vote to see that democracy endures and unpatriotic losers are out.
I teared up, too.
Insult and Disrespect veterans? Yes. "HE" did, and so blatantly.. the visuals clear, the verbiage distinct, real-time, smack-dab in our face...! Our eyes watched as the lips moved in concert with the sound.., of those words, confirming the noise entering our ears and our brain. #45 is a total piece of shit "POS" IMHO. Tabloid to the core.
Agree wholeheartedly! Biden’s talk was spot on.
I looked for video of Zelensky and the veteran. That looked like sincerity to me … ! Everyone knows what the world is up against right now … we are facing a break in the trajectory of our democracies, and we might not be able to recover from that break, if we let it happen …
In Noveember…the task is clear.
Vote blue.
Me, too.
I read it aloud to my husband and choked up. A beautiful moment in another terrible time.
I also teared up.
Same here, Midnight, and I don't often do that.
A total POS.. #45.
I couldn’t have said it better. Thank you for your wisdom.
Excellent, thank you Heather.
I am always humbled every June 6th, thinking about the sacrifices my parents' generation made for us. Today, thinking of a twice-impeached, many-times-disgraced former president—and now a convicted felon—running for president as a fascist makes me believe that the millions who died defending against the tyranny of fascist leaders are not only rolling in their graves but are ready to jump out and fight.
Vote.
I was reminded, reading this letter, of the reality of war in my own family. My father and my uncle both volunteered, both served, only one returned home from the battles of the Pacific.
My father died in 2014 . He never wanted to talk much about the war . His generation was characterized by quiet service without chest beating. Common men and women who were heroes when heroes were required. My fervent hope is that the world they enabled will be preserved by those of us who were beneficiaries of their service and sacrifice.
Thanks to Heather for this poignant reminder.
My father was disabled in WWII while serving in the Navy in the Pacific theater. He lost 3 fingers on his right hand. When he returned from WWII in spite of having an accounting degree he had a lot of trouble getting a job. He eventually went to work for the IRS where he worked for over 30 years. Our family received a monthly stipend for his disability of a whopping $30 a month during the 1950's. He never complained about his injury but he never talked about the war either.
My mom's brother served in the US Army during WWII and contracted malaria. He too was disabled but not seriously enough to receive any benefits.
"War is hell," a phrase repeated time and again. But usually not by those who saw action. They tend to be mum.
Every time I read that convicted felon draft dodger Trump calls those who serve "suckers and losers" I wonder how ANYONE can support this POS.
I had an uncle who was hero in the South Pacific. He served 20 years in the Navy, then returned home and bought a farm, which he worked for 40+ years. He never talked much about the war until he was in his 70s and 80s, when he would flirt with waitresses, by telling them a little about his war experience. The waitresses were charmed. But he was charming.
Most people in our community knew about some things about his war experiences, but I don't think any of us knew the full extent.
He was a modest, humble man of great honor. After my father died, he became my kids' "grandpa.". I don't think any of us can talk about Uncle Joe without smiling.
Thanks for sharing a portion of your family’s story. I also wonder how anyone can support TFG. There is a short circuit somewhere within supporters’ value system.
Gary, my late father-in-law served in the Pacific during WW2, and similarly never wanted to talk about it, which I respected despite my enduring curiosity. He did tell the story of returning home to the East Coast by train, on a cot , fevered by malaria as he rode across the country.
I think the stories are impactful and I don’t want to overlook the burden on those who stayed home, raised families, worked on assembly lines, and prayed for the return of loved ones. In quiet moments it’s easy for me to be overwhelmed with what was given to us. We were blessed by “The Greatest Generation”.
My wondering too. What are they missing in human ‘sensitivity’… must only be basic early childhood education.. “give that seat to your friend.. “ Share & Care in musical chairs…
A lot of that silence i think was a form of "battle trauma"... ordinary people were subjected to emotional horrors which they had somehow to accommodate in their subsequent civilian and family lives. An oral history movement picked up in the 70s and later to throw more human light on what these men mainly had to endure.
My parents both served in Italy. My dad after North Africa. He led infantry platoons, wounded twice. My mom was his nurse. We can only imagine the horrors of the wounds she had to treat.
They rarely spoke of their experiences - even when asked. For them, it was their way of dealing with the trauma. And remember that their generation was supposed to just suck it up and move on.
Anyway, that's how they met. And my sister and I are the results. It's weird to owe my existence to a world war. But that's life.
Bill, reading your comment and others like it about the “keeping it to themselves” of their war experiences, my mind’s eye saw the way a tree can grow around a rock or other solid object, fully encasing it, yet continuing to grow….and observers are often not fully aware of it. ❤️🩹
Bill, We share somewhat similar experiences. Father was a tail gunner in a B17.
Mother trained pilots in nite navigation . As boys , my brother and I would admire my father's medals and the knife he brought back from the army air corp. Father didn't talk much about his service beyond explaining why he had a 6" scar in his side. He was lucky. Year later when I'd ask him why he went he just said he was young and naive. He was able to bury the trauma for a while and became quite successful . Later when life became more challenging his PTSd took over and ruined his life. He'd awaken in the middle of the nite from dreams of dropping bombs onto German cities and seeing formation aircraft descending in flames. I can't understand why we have retained this seemingly senseless need for war but it persists to our own peril.
Frank, "battle trauma" now called PTSD. A very serious condition.
Gary Anderson - I feel compelled to write a personal response. We know a little more now about what those who saw battle and killed other human beings suffered -- unspeakably suffered -- named in more recent years "PTSD". My favorite uncle (born in 1920) was one of them. And he never spoke within my earshot of the atrocities he witnessed. (Nor do I think he did with my parents during his furloughs with us or after the war.) But several years after the war he suddenly disappeared from his post-war family of wife, 6 adopted children, 7 children of his own, his parents, his sister, 2 brothers, 2 nieces (including me), and a sister-in-law. At some point, a jacket was found hanging from a tree branch above the Niagara Falls with hand written ID in a pocket. We all knew he didn't (wouldn't) take that route, but he totally disappeared, not contacting anyone. Then a number of years later his body was found hanging in a San Francisco hotel room. The ID of his assumed name was fake of course, but his fingerprints eventually were identified through War records. PTSD in my opinion is the number one silent killer, going undetected for years, maybe forever. (Thank you for indulging this personal story.)
My heart goes out to you and so many others who experienced traumatic family events as a result of the war to preserve the world. Thank you for describing your reality. I appreciate you taking the time to share it with those of us who are here.
They were fighting for the democratic Republic. They didn’t need to protest.
Truly. My prayers continue this thread daily , often minute by minute when I’m frightened by the daily ‘news’.. I will be ‘leaving’ sometime soon and pray for a kinder WORLD for my 4 & 7 y/o grsons.
I too was reminded about my father's service as a Marine. He was a sergeant of an anti-aircraft gun crew in the South Pacific, was wounded with a ricochet & killed the Japanese man who shot at him. Had a belly scar & a purple heart (which I didn't see until after he died in 1993). He never spoke of the war- I only heard about it from my mother & later read some of his journal notes where he named his fellow Marines who had been killed in action. Maybe I was afraid to ask. I sometimes wonder if he lived the rest of his life in service to others as atonement for killing another. He never allowed us to have guns. He was a kind gentleman & supportive father. I was fortunate.
Beautifully written, Gary Anderson !
Thank you, Gary et al., for these stories of our brave kinsmen and kinswomen. As that 'Greatest Generation' passes out of living historical memory, it is the emergent oral tradition of what these Americans did that keeps the legacy alive, relevant, inspiring.
Bravos to President Joe Biden & to author HCR!
Yes! Jump out and fight! All of us!
Let’s not get complacent now!
Fight for sure, and fight smart. The enemy is entrenched.
At the very least, Michael, I hope they return to haunt his dreams. Not that it would prompt a change in him, as I believe he is incapable of that psychologically…but I like the idea of him being chastised by those brave and honorable souls.
Michael- And what a contrast to this dumb era's MAGAts cosplaying military patriotism. Sacrificing nothing.
It’s 3:30 in the morning & I’m lying in bed crying after reading Biden’s speech. Two years we buried my dad, the last of 3 WWII vets in our family.
His casket had a been draped in the same 48 star flag that covered the caskets of his brother who died in the war and his sister who served in the WAVES. Of the three, my dad was the only one born in the US.
Dad had watched while the Capital stormed and was horrified that what he had fought for was in such danger and more horridly, by Americans.
I was watching the whole thing online, it was appalling and very obvious Trump was behind it. I also could not imagine Trump giving a speech like President Biden did. Trump thinks the people who died in battle are “losers and suckers.” He and his family have never served. I have never served, but I respect those who have.
Didn’t he refuse to go to a ceremony there because there was a light rain and he was worried about his hair. Or did I dream that??
No, you didn’t dream that. He’s a horrible person.
When Academics and journalists compared what we are living thru to Germany in the 1920s and 30s I initially thought maybe. Now I see that the unimaginable is occuring in our country. The ease with which the national socialists were able to control the narrative and manipulate the german people is scary. The fringe right in this country is now mimicking, almost verbatim, the words used by Hitler and Hess while they were taking power from the Weimar Republic.
Thank you, wish MSM would mention it
Not a dream. Neither was the "losers and suckers" part.
MsM will mention the s and l comment, but haven’t heard any mention of his hair priority
I saw it when he went. Not sure which channel.
Wish MSM would remind MAGAts what a “hero” the cretin was. A Whinny bastard no matter the subject…
He did Jeri. You didn’t dream it.
Thank you, sometimes I think, surely that can’t be true. But yep, it usually is
You've said it all. Thank you.
❤️🩹☮️
You always provide a moving historical and human context. My father was in the pacific during ww2 so my family stories aren’t of Normandy or the war in Europe. My mother was a coast watcher, a volunteer corps known as the Aircraft Warning Service who watched for incoming planes after Pearl Harbor along the pacific coast. So far as I know no planes were ever detected this way but it was a morale booster and a way for civilians to participate. I think hearing and reading about these stories helps remind us what we need to protect, and I’m not referring to foreign aggression, except as it applies to disinformation. Thank you for yet another snippet of context from history as it ties into today’s events.
My dad went into Rome after he was wounded in North Africa and had frostbite in the Italian mountain campaign. My mom's older brothers were in the US Army air corps in England, flew cover for D-Day. My dad had one brother who had been wounded in the Navy and another in Burma at the time. My mother in law served under Jimmy Stewart in England, my father in law was at Utah Beach.
I was born in 1943. Many of my classmates lost their dads, some in France but most at the Battle of the Bulge.
I am a Vietnam veteran. Only 80, but pretty sure I'm the last one left from my unit.
Not suckers or losers. Please pass it on.....
@Daniel Solomon - Wow. Now I'm crying all over again.
We've sacrificed TOO much the let the wannabe dictator turn the USA into the new AXIS with Russia and North Korea.
Your words put more steel into my spine as we continue this fight for democracy and freedom.
Thank you for your service.
My family has veterans from the Revolutionary war to active military today. I had three uncles and one aunt who served in WWII. I get weepy when I read about D-Day every year. They returned home safely but not after an uncle spent 2 years in a POW Camp. I have lots of memories of my relatives who we saw often. Uncommmon Valor.
"Uncommon valor." Yes.
"Uncommon valor was a common virtue" is a saying that I've seen many times.
Daniel, that is quite a gold star history you’ve descended from. I’m in awe. Despite my decidedly mixed feelings about the whole business of war, I found myself tearing up over and over again yesterday - the D-day news reels, those ancient living veterans, watching the Bidens and Macrons walking in hand in hand, the French and American anthems, Biden’s speech. It’s a comfort to find there is still some patriotism within me in these awful times.
Thank you, Daniel, for the service you provided as well as your family. I wish we had that America again - the one who recognizes service, honors it, and chooses to serve.
Daniel My cousin, a Quaker, was with the First Marine Division that landed in Guadalcanal in November, 1942. His platoon then was ‘island hopping’ for nearly two years.. Jim was the only member who wasn’t badly injured or killed. Another cousin was exec officer on a sub. Soon after Pearl Harbor, his sub was sunk. He was one of four survivors. We didn’t know for two years that he was alive.
My dad had served in WW I as a pilot. Over age, he signed up for the Eighth Air Force in July, 1942. Though in a staff role, he talked his way onto a daylight raid over Hamm, Germany as a waist gunner. 169 crew members took off, only 68 returned, though some planes had gone to other airfields.
As a Foreign Service Officer, during a 1964 Congo foreign hostage rescue operation, I captured several rebels at gun point.
I salute all those Americans who Bone Spur Donnie has categorized as ‘suckers’ and ‘losers.’
Keith, I love that the stories posted here of their (and your) experiences & those of their families bring them to life, like a gift to the reader (me)…a treasured offering in the telling.
Thank you for your service, and your family’s sacrifice. No, not suckers or losers, never.
Thanks for all the comments. I've been asking people to repeat "not suckers or losers," especially on Facebook, where I am banned. 4 million people on Facebook are veterans or active duty members. 12.5 million people on Facebook are family members of a veteran or an active duty member. 242 million people on Facebook are friends with one or more veterans or active duty members.
I am banned on FB too, called chump’s verbiage Nazi blather almost four years ago. It is the family members and descendants of WW2 veterans who are chump supporters that chap me most.
Jeri I am not banned on FB because I never joined. Same with TIKTOK. Never Twitter or X.
I enjoyed both until they became cesspools. I never followed idiots. Did follow and un follow some family. Amazing how they turned into crazy for Repub propaganda. Zero tolerance, for them and for Elon and Zuck
Don the Con, of German ancestry, is a known compulsive liar and fraud. As President he never failed to shame us when he went overseas. https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/05/politics/trump-marines-cemetery-france/index.html
Thank you for serving in Vietnam. I'm sad to think you may not have had a warm welcome when you returned but I hope you know that you are very appreciated. My brother served there as well and oddly is a Trump supporter to the end. I can never put those two things together but I love my brother dearly.
Try showing him the many testimonials from people who voted twice for Trump but now support Biden. https://rvat.org/
Republicans vow to sunset all benefits.
If that doesn't work, try "Trump hates dogs" or "Do you support stealing from kids with cancer?"
Daniel, it was my privilege to know a man who led his platoon in a jump onto Omaha beach and who lost a son in Vietnam. He was a clarinet player in several of the community groups I played in. Never talked about any of it; the only way I learned about his son was at his wife's memorial service.
Thank you Daniel
"So far as I know no planes were ever detected this way but it was a morale booster and a way for civilians to participate."
And it could have been a lifesaver. I think primitive RADAR was being developed in the 1930s. but I don't know how widely it was deployed.
Beautiful.
Sioux, my Dad enlisted in the Army at the age of 26, was detailed USAAC, and was trained as a meteorologist. His overseas service was in China, where he worked on setting up the weather stations that helped the bombers fly "over the hump". He never talked about his experiences, either, and he was not in a real combat role.
I found an article on the coast watchers in Oregon.
https://sos.oregon.gov/archives/exhibits/ww2/Pages/threats-bombs.aspx
Thank you for this. I’m also from Oregon although when my mom did this she lived in California, long before I was born. Then she went on to work as a riveter making war planes at Boeing.
My Mom was a telephone operator in LA.
This is a day to remember and you have so wonderfully documented the significance of this. Joe Biden is a great leader because a president is a servant to the people, versus the former president who believed people served him. I also want to add that your YouTube talk today you should post because you Heather are seeing patterns that are essential for us to know. Thanks!
Please post your YouTube talk!
https://youtu.be/jABSOUFseM4?si=oGj0lfDqn73ul6ES
Here's Heather's latest YouTube video.
Wendy Eck. -- Thanks for this link to this YouTube video. I didn't know about Heather's YT channel, and will now seek out how to subscribe to it somehow.
I think Heather posts the same videos on both FB and YouTube.
According to this video, she's considering posting shorter videos more frequently.
Wendy, I am already following her on FB, but I never see anything from her feed. And I didn't see a way to "follow" her on YouTube. I'll figure it out. T'would be nice if she would alert us in her letters. (I have a lot of FB friends, so maybe it's FB being selective on what they feed to me.)
On both FB and YouTube, try entering her name in the search 🔍. Great idea for Heather to let us know how to access her work other than through substack
Hope she continues to do that.
Let us also honor Al Persichitti from Rochester, New York who was 102 years old. He was a veteran who served on Iwo Jima. He died en route to France for this event, the 80th anniversary.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqlle8dljnno.amp
Wow a soldier until the end!
"The doctor was with him... he was at peace and he was comfortable,"...
"She put his favourite singer, Frank Sinatra, on her phone and he peacefully left us."
How sad, but how fitting. Thank you for sharing this.
Oh wow, how sad he passed away in route to Normandy. My condolences to Al’s family, may he rest in peace.
Good for Heather celebrating the individuals in Normandy today celebrating other individuals.
That's what democracy is -- resting on the potential of individuals to make their own lives, and to respect, honor, celebrate other individuals.
And now we find ourselves engaged in another fight with pernicious fascism -- but at home, in the U.S., with pious hypocrite thugs like House Speaker Mike Johnson, the corrupt of the Clarence court all lying and providing cover for the fat, orange convicted criminal -- and so many allied others contemptuous of American law, traditions, our now-beleaguered American women and their families.
So please, now, readers and fellow commenters on Heather's "Letters from an American": read Diane Ravitch’s "The Language Police.” It reports on all those who lay the imaginative groundwork for the new fascists. These are our committee assemblers of corporate textbooks, and all our vetting, vetted, calculating standardized testers. They all occupy nothing but abstractions. All so pitifully distance themselves so far, far from any individual humans, and equally far, far from all our humanities, so they've zero human truths -- instead forming their own massive black hole of demented delusion to further their 34-count and counting convicted criminal-in-chief.
Thanks for your reference to "The Language Police" - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1304525.The_Language_Police?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=V0xrfuivto&rank=1
I believe it is a driving force in the dilemma of our politics, but I haven't heard anyone propose an effective solution.
Solution, Jeff: center humanities in education.
Specifically, have essay writing programs to nurture the skills for quoting others as to their specific, individual concerns. First, in one classroom essay these personal differences in writing (introductory self introductions), then discussions of first essays, then re-writes for quoting others in the room.
Send rewritten essays to group of "others" elsewhere (others writing, discussing similarly in nearby culture), for new rounds of essays quoting from the other culture. Israeli Jews quoting Israeli Arabs. Russians quoting Ukrainians. Japanese quoting Chinese or Koreans. All in English.
Sounds great but how do you implement that in Red states that are focused on limiting public education?
Today's corrupt, dark-money billionaires hide behind "states' rights," Jeff.
They merge perfectly with the enslavers of yore, as Heather detailed in "How the South Won the Civil War."
I hew to Lincoln, who believed in the programs of a strong enough federal government to uphold rights "of the people, by the people, for the people."
In education we've had the gross opposite. All the standardized testing programs have squeezed, desiccated, dehumanized our schools. They've all targeted schools to be reduced to tools of the billionaires, by the billionaires, for the billionaires.
Even team Biden has nobody with any humanities. Just money grubbers. All the Republicans have become living dead. Team Biden? Not much better.
Thank you..
Do you have a link to this?
" . . . to this," progwoman?
I'm guessing you refer to the Diane Ravitch book. I have a well-used, much-annotated hardcover edition of its original 2003 publication. Only link to it is the set of stairs going up to the bedroom where it's long been with other treasures beside where I sleep -- and typically also awaken for various middle-of-the-night readings.
Just got it on my new Kindle Scribe for $4.99. This version doesn't let me mark it up like the PDF files I send to it (and have my handwritten notes converted to New Courier font text, a capability that seems to have come with a periodic update). This version doesn't seem to let me add notes other than ones that are then indicated by a tiny icon (now it seems a larger but still small icon has been one of the updates).
It may not be everyone's choice but its unique capabilities are worth the price point since it lets me store hundreds of books (and have access to more if near wifi, I think), with a very low power e-paper screen that lets me go weeks without having to recharge it. I'd suggest looking at Len Edgerly's videos to see what the limitations are and what improvements have been added over the years. I'd love to see the entire series of LFAA letters available on Kindle so I could read them on a slow boat to china with nothing more than a solar powered charger access every week or so.
Google Amazon and look up the title.
I just looked it up, and I'm going to get a copy. Diane Ravitch and I had a couple of very tense interactions back during the GHWBush administration when she and Lynn Cheney were advocating for dropping Civics from the curriculum. She eventually recanted, but it was too late for Civics. Neither of them, I felt, had any feel for the challenges of public school classrooms.
Good for you on your struggle for Civics. It was apparently gone in Ohio as early as the 60s, when I was in high school. I learned a little in U.S. History and more from my parents and did the rest on my own. Ravitch has made a career of committing herself to policies and projects she later recants. I guess that’s how she learns, but as you say, the damage is done. She really didn’t have a feel for the experience of teaching or learning in the public schools, though she went to them K-12. Her kids went to private schools. Her view on higher education were pretty second-hand as well, and borderline racist. But she was right, and staunch, on the toxin of charter schools.
Yes, I'm glad she took a stance away from charter schools that leech students and funds from public schools. I believe she also supports the teachers' union now. Both she and Lynn Cheney were infatuated with the ideas of E.D. Hirsch and Allen Bloom, and by coincidence today I saw an article by Will Gordon in the current Atlantic that revisits their theories. Gordon first speaks about Neil Postman, the Canadian author of Amusing Ourselves to Death, which dealt with television. He didn't live to see the internet, but Gordon thinks he might have been more sympathetic to Bloom's suggestions than Hirsch's, which mostly advocate making sure students can identify long lists of cultural references. The article's definitely worth a read.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1304525.The_Language_Police?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=V0xrfuivto&rank=1
DJT is a wanna be dictator...he loves absolute power and being above everyone else. It's all he knows and understands. We must stop him from ever holding public office again....and it appears the ballot box is going to be the only way to do it. We have 5 months. If our ancestors could defeat a tyrant on the scale of Hitler, we can and must finish off DJTs political career. One 4 year term was too much. We don't need to build thousands of Liberty Ships or B-17's and no one needs to die. We just need to "nip it in the bud" as Barney would say. Peace
"he loves absolute power and being above everyone else"
That is the product so-called "Republicans" are selling these days, and it's our species' Achilles Heel. "The master race". the master sex", the conceit that one is doing God's bidding by oppressing (or killing) others, and the calculation of every human value in dollars and cents. It always gets ugly, and yet it seems many societies never learn.
Even as a young child I couldn't figure out the "my religion is right and yours is wrong" attitudes among "spiritual" people & leaders. If there is a singular creative spirit, the fact that "the" creator made us all, seems pretty obvious...and why would any creator make some "less than" on purpose? I started to look at the differences as basically tribal...or the region your people came from. The basics of the Golden Rule can be found in most societies. As we intermingled more and more and blended you would think that the old ideas would melt away...but alas it appears that some need to feel and act superior....and fear of "the other" is a powerful motivator.
My favorite Twain quote. “The easy confidence with which I know that another man’s religion is folly makes me suspect that my own is also.” Says it all for me
Never heard that before. Good one. Thanks, Jeri.
Love Twain, he nailed so much…
Jeri, closest I can ever come to religion/belief is “may the Force be with you”….the yin/yang of everything & nothing.
I’ll bet Twain would have agreed. I do…
That is a great quote, Jeri. Religion is folly.
It really explained so much for me…
Mike the "I am right" problem in Christianity goes back to the very beginning. Read your Old and New Testaments. In many ways monotheism is a "virus of the social mind".
The concept of hierarchy, that some groups/people's are better/superior than others is the underlying indicator for authoritarian belief. And it is strong in America and across the world. But it is learned. No baby is born that way. In the book "On Fascism: 12 Lessons From American History" by Matthew McWilliams, he provides an Index of American Authoritarian Attitudes (before chapter 1):
34% of Americans agree that having a strong leader who does not have to bother with Congress and elections is a good way of governing the U.S.
46% of Americans are inconsistent supporters of democracy and democratic institutions.
44% of Americans agree that increasing racial, religious, and ethnic diversity represents a threat to security of the US.
30% of Americans agree with the statement "I often find myself fearful of other people of other races."
28% of Americans agree that many women are actually seeking special favors, such as hiring policies that favor them over men, under the guise of asking for "equality."
23% of Americans agree that sometimes other groups must be kept in their place.
16% of Americans agree an ideal society requires some groups to be on top and others to be on bottom.
14% of Americans agree some groups of people are simply inferior to other groups.
Chilling statistics. I have a garden flag that says "Equal rights for all does not mean fewer rights for you. It is not pie.
Mike not wanna be. IS. He ran his company that way and he has acted like a dictator during his first term. It was some of the better people that held him in check. Otherwise, he would have stayed in office.
If there is a Pulitzer or a Nobel prize in history for Substack writers, you should clearly be at the top of the list for an award. What wonderful writing and insightful history.
Thank you.🙏
TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE: U.S. veteran in a wheelchair. When the man tried to kiss Zelensky’s hand, the Ukraine president instead stooped and hugged him. “You’re the savior of the people,” the man said. Zelensky answered, “You saved Europe.” The exchange continued: “You’re my hero.” “No, you are our hero.”
Trumpers, MAGAs and GOP would find their kindred spirits in Hitler, Mussolini and the cowardly collaborators.
This was so beautiful to witness…And there was my wonderful Prime Minister Justin Trudeau standing behind him. He’s not perfect by any means but has a kindness about him that I deeply respect…
Rhonda thank you! So well said.
It just occurred to me that we hold Biden to such a high standard that anything but perfect is a deficiency and the “other” is allowed to have another standard. I hear this a lot “not perfect but…” I myself have said this on a number of occasions and I think we should just think of Biden as the citizen at the moment that our country and world needs and only God is perfect with perhaps the exception that He allowed Trump and MTG to inhabit this world in our lifetime. Maybe that’s our punishment for “the fall”
Velensky was honorably spot on.... that said, we can thank the entire organizational effort, from leaders and collective policies made, down to the very nitty gritty.
Wow. Thank you. Such a touching and inspirational letter.
Prez. Biden's speech was very moving and the scenes I've seen from the ceremonies make me proud to support a president that is a truly good person and who understands very deeply the importance on honoring our history and those who made it happen. I liked the way he not only honored those who fought on the front line, but also the many who toiled away in relative anonymity, but whose efforts were essential to the overall effort.
Written yesterday, published again now (with slight editing):
*
Today is the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the landing of 150 000 men on the beaches of Normandy, from which they were to advance, fighting all the way, until the Allied armies met the Red Army on the Elbe in the heart of Germany.
My father, a British naval officer, worked in Combined Ops at the Admiralty in London, among those planning the logistics of that great invasion, in which the fleet brought its harbor with it… He didn’t take part in it, but was detailed to take part in the invasion of Japan. He expected to die there, facing other islanders…
Much later in life, he seemed not to understand me when I spoke of the spirit but to have accepted the logic of superior material power, and I asked him: “Why, then, if you are so impressed by military might, did you not consider suing for peace after Dunkirk?” (Dunkirk: the hurried evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force at end May, early June 1940, leaving France overrun by Hitler’s Blitzkrieg.)
He paused for a moment, then said:
“We knew that it would be hard, we knew that we faced a terrible enemy. Yet throughout the whole length of the war, neither I nor any one of my comrades doubted for one moment that we would overcome.”
I wish us that spirit.
Peter Burnett,
I remember the story my father-in-law shared, that as a young man recently married to his sweetheart, my husband's mom,....about being transported from a small town in Iowa where his father was a shopkeeper to The Merchant Marine Academy located at Kings Point, in New York. He became a third mate in charge of navigation.
He recounts the story of being on a ship headed to England with two superior officers from other countries who because of various reasons were not able to navigate....he held the responsibility of navigating the ship he was assigned to which was in a convoy headed to England in the dark....during the "black outs" for safety from bombings. He admitted he was terrified...not wanting to hit the ships on either side and to safely arrive at their designated destination.... he succeeded as did so many young men and women who were experiencing the same fears and uncertainties. They just did their jobs!
The Merchant Marine Sailors had a very tough time (and a lot of criticism for wanting their regular wages). A great uncle captained 3 ships that were torpedoed and sunk. It seems he was rather quickly rescued from the first, spent nearly a month in a lifeboat after the second, appearing as a fraction of his former healthy self, and was lost forever the third time.
My wife's grandfather was Merchant Marine in WWII. I never met him, but I've heard stories...
My father told me that the warships escorting convoys kept a safe distance from those they were protecting... His were the convoys that rounded North Cape, where the Kriegsmarine had a base, taking supplies to Murmansk and Arkhangelsk.
I'll have to try to find out which ships my great uncle served on to see if he had sailed in any of those convoys. I did attend a meeting where they invited a Navy gunner who had volunteered to serve on Merchant Marine ships (thinking they would not see as much hostile action). One he served on had wooden a replica of a cannon (Quaker Cannon) and nothing bigger than a .50 caliber machine gun for "real" defense.
An American Hero. Something the "Sucker and Loser" FELON will never be.
Here is a clip of President Zelensky of Ukraine engaging with that veteran of WW II. I heard it went viral worldwide.
https://youtu.be/KBofHkLqXZE?si=okXY8vW7oNtCfl5E
So much captured in that brief moment.
Thank you, Lynell. So moving, I'm brought to tears.
Good morning, Lynell. I watched the link (for which I thank you) and the tears started again.
Right there with you on the tears, Ally. I posted the link because I feared it wasn't getting the press it deserved. In that short 54 seconds, I clearly saw the reality of one man who had played a part in liberating one country having been invaded by another, and another man trying to defend his country from being invaded. I so wish others could see it as clearly as we do here...morning!
I share your wish, my friend.
Find the cost of freedom
Buried in the ground
Mother Earth will swallow you
Lay your body down.
CSNY
I sat at my desk in my office and wept as I watched Zelenskyy’s exchange with an old warrior. They both stand for the fight against fascism and tyranny. I weep now for my fellow citizens who only love themselves and blindly follow a would-be dictator towards the dissolution of this great country at the directions of our home-grown oligarchy.
VOTE! It will prove to be the only way past the existential threat T💩p poses.
The Zelenskyy-Veteran moment was a joy and tears.
Biden’s speech was excellent, and Macron’s speech and awarding medals was just perfect.
So was Biden's interview with David Muir on Utah Beach yesterday. Clear, direct answers to tough questions from Muir.
The contrast between President Biden standing up for democracy and Trump pandering to Putin is glaring.
Dishonoring D‑Day: MAGA Republicans Choose Putin Over Patriots
https://thedemlabs.org/2024/06/06/dishonoring-d-day-maga-republicans-choose-putin-over-
The Republicans think they are patriots, but what they are really are are chauvinistic nationalists who don’t understand that patriotism requires sacrifice, willingness to own up to mistakes and to improve things for all. All the self-described “patriots” of MAGA want is to do is grab our resources for the few and to lord it over everyone else while depriving the people a say in their own government,
Republicans are PINOs--Patriots In Name Only. They wave the flag to get votes.
They are jingoists, not patriots, just like chump