Memorial Day 2011

MEMORIAL DAY 2011We each have our own thoughts and memories that provide a context to this Memorial Day weekend. All Americans share the responsibility to remember and to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms and in defense of freedom around the world. Whether lost to us in direct combat, during clandestine operations or in support of those missions, their memory must be cherished or this nation will be unworthy of their sacrifice. You will be unworthy of their sacrifice. The monuments that we erect are to stand as reminders of sacrifice and not as substitutes for personal reflection on duty, honor and appreciation.

The families who have lost a cherished son, daughter, father or mother need no reminder. We, combat veterans, need no reminder. Thoughts now of those dead in wars long past are no longer accompanied by a personal memory. Today brief media glimpses at the pain that remains with families as another American killed in Afghanistan, Iraq or some other distant place is honored and buried must provide a reminder to all Americans. The freedom we enjoy today is the legacy of the blood and sacrifice of the heroes in all our wars, past and present.

"you must reflect that it was by courage, sense of duty, and a keen feeling of honour in action that men were enabled to win all this, and that no personal failure in an enterprise could make them consent to deprive their country of their valour, but they laid it at her feet as the most glorious contribution that they could offer. For this offering of their lives made in common by them all they each of them individually received that renown which never grows old, and for a sepulchre, not so much that in which their bones have been deposited, but that noblest of shrines wherein their glory is laid up to be eternally remembered upon every occasion on which deed or story shall call for its commemoration. For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb;" (Pericles 430 BCE)

The children in the photo are the sons of friends, a non-commissioned officer and his wife serving in the Army's 10th Mountain Division. The respect, innocently presented in their salute as our flag was being lowered one afternoon recently, may remind us of what values we bring to our own children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews and neighbors by our deeds and our words. What have we said to our own about the meaning of Memorial Day. What have we done to show them that we remember and honor.

"However horrible the incidents of war may be, the soldier who is called upon to offer and to give his life for his country is the noblest development of mankind." Douglas MacArthur, 12 May, 1962, West Point, NY

Executive Power

A brief thought responding to a friend's comment: "Presidents have always used foreign affairs as an excuse to claim more executive power."

Agreed but, wouldn't you also accept that, at times, valid necessity presented more of the justification than an offer of excuse. Necessity having to be valued in the context of the then perceived "reality" where there was no reasonable choice but to grant the executive authority. Our failure has, more often than not, been the continuing acquiescence rather than the initial allowance.

A Response.

My friend, responding to my Friday the 13th comment challenged me saying that my "espousing the need for civility in one breath and then race bating and name calling in the next" was hollow commentary.

Well, I answered that I had intended merely to identify policies and ideological positions in the political arena that I find generally detestable on the present Right. I guess that I do regret having to call the proponents "Republicans."

To clarify, I reject levels of civility that constrain responses from the Democrat Party to what I have described. On the other side, the diversity within the Democrat Party fosters elements of selfishness similar to what I decried in the Republican Party and which work to destroy opportunity for the common good. As with the Right, some of the entrenched political, social and ideological cliques on the Left, though without power to control the nation, seek their own estates no matter the costs to the common good.

After receiving over the last two years blatantly racist jokes, cartoons and commentaries from many sources who each cloak themselves in conservative Republican association and observing the "birthers" driven by antagonistic disbelief that any man of mixed racial blood could be President, I conclude that racist beliefs form a portion of what has stimulated the Republican Party. I do not insinuate. I accuse.

Friday the 13th and I am Scared

The conversation began with a discussion of Ron Paul's latest affiliation. As is often the case, a sub-topic took over and we began to discuss political perspectives of the "media." A friend countered: "I will admit that from my political perspective here on the left coast, the [New York] Times and [Washington] Post seem pretty reasonable and it’s the FOX and other Murdock-controlled types of media that is scary."

And I added: I know that this may surprise some but I agree. However, for me, the baseless inflammatory rhetoric, the racist underpinnings, the fear mongering lies, the non-compromising political extortions, the preference for oligarchical sustainment, the defense of extreme wealth inequality over liberty, the ideological purity demanded, the narrowing of constitutional rights, the duplicitous propaganda concealing political agendas, and the exaltation of unbridled selfishness of and by the Republican Party, its backers, promoters, and the "tea" swallowing, flag wearing fellow travelers who, at best, know neither history nor reality, scare the hell out of me and, in all honesty, deeply anger me.

The America they represent to me is a mockery of a democracy which was to evolve from our declaration of an endowment of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Capitalism is merely the carriage of economic progress. It must not form the engine of democracy. Most of us teach our children that capital will provide a measure of sustenance and goods but it will not provide character. So should it be with this evolving nation.