The Cost of Exceptionalism.

In Chris Matthews’ ad, he talks about American “Exceptionalism” and how one of the primary examples of this is the man sitting in the White House right now, a man of different nationalities, who didn’t have a father growing up or special opportunities handed to him, yet, today, he sits at the pinnacle of power.

Pretty heady stuff!

When I was a kid growing up, I thought everything about America was exceptional. It was exceptional that me a poor kid growing up in Spanish Harlem could spend his afternoons visiting at the governor’s house, that he could get not only a good undergraduate education but a graduate one at that and could go on to run seven different businesses and make all the relevant “Who’s Who” books? What a great country!

I also believed that my good fortune required someone of my ilk to give back and I have tried to do that all my life in all possible ways.

But what Chris Matthews failed to address is that American exceptionalism is undergoing deep-rooted change! People of narrow vision and a meaness of spirit have taken over our government and steered us away from all the things that made us great in the past and pushed us towards balancing the books over greatness. And, sadly, the archetype for this American exceptionalism, president Obama has bought into their view of the world and is not only allowing them to have their way, he has been hard at work finding ways to cut back those areas that contributed to our exceptionalism!

Oddly, that nobody has connected the dots to see that ‘exceptionalism’ that we tout, did not simply fall from the heavens fully formed, but was the product of sacrifice, hard-work and commitment.

It is disappointing that America has listened to their claptrap and not declared it unfitting to a resurgent America; instead, we take it like lap dogs. In fact, it is astounding to me that we are so compliant that we are already sliding down the flag pole into a state of benign mediocrity. And that’s particularly troublesome for me having visited many of America’s cemeteries around the world where people fought and died to protect what we stood for.

How easily we forget!

I think about how dad spent most of his life in VA hospitals after five years on the front lines and wound after wound that sent him to the hospital and then back to the lines, only not to recognize all of his mates because they had been killed; and even after the War when he couldn’t adjust to civilian life, joined the Army air force until he crashed into a lake and spent a year recuperating. He had believed that America was worth the sacrifice.

I think about my own experiences visiting all the America cemeteries through-out the world, from northern Europe to Hawaii. I think about what I knew from my service during the Korean War and Vietnam era and the trips to Washington to see the black granite and weep openly for names I didn’t even know….

And I ask myself how is this happening after the passage of so few years. What we have failed to real;ize is that you have to work for exceptionalism; it is not a free gift.
And our particular brand extends back more than two hundred years to the founding of this great country. And I shed a tear to think that a blind-sided Congress which such little vision could somehow set the tone for an America I can no longer be proud of.

The People’s Movement Escalates….

First observations:

Today, I watched and listened as they covered the build-up to the protest on Wall Street. And I came away with a few observations . For one, I disagree with most of the critics and especially Obama strategists, who see the election in terms of independents and democrats, and the black and white issue.

The Obama strategists recognize that their hopes rest on the Independents. I agree with that, but I do not feel based on what I’ve seen up ‘til now with the burgeoning protests anything that indicates color as an issue. What in fact I do see is not based on party politics, but issues. And it is to the credit of the planners of the protest that they have left it open ended, because under those conditions “one size fits all.”

As a result, people of every political persuasion and perhaps no persuasion at all are finding a place in this big tent where it seems everyone represents a different perspective, a different point of view that inveighs against the party in power.

Mostly, if we were to generalize the themes that come through have most to do, it seems to me, with politics and business in bed together and the dissonance it produces among the people who make up this country of ours.

What is most moving is the fact that the people are showing far more common sense, far more in common with each other than apart, and that the politicians, per se, don’t come close to representing their interests. And nowhere have I seen the specter of black and white politics introduced.

As a result of this open-ended spectrum that only invites more dissatisfied people into the tent, I don’t think it is a movement likely to fold any time soon….quite to the contrary, it seems like a movement that will continue to grow as long as there is dissatisfaction among the rank and file, and until the parties learn to talk with each other.
For them, the danger is that this kind of a forum could replace either one or both parties and it could happen relatively quickly if politicians forget the powers of the people to replace them.

I will have more to say in coming days.

In the meantime, I am getting pangs of deja=vu from old movements and old marches and having the Unions cover my back; maybe even plant a little time capsule at the foot of the Big Bull outside the Big Board to remind myself that the last decade was the decade of terrorism and big government controlled by business, and, now, ten year’s later, we are at the beginning of the Fall of those “Too big to fail!”

And, so, in these final moments in the lead up to 2012, the people are speaking out. When that happens, both sides of the spectrum should be paying close attention; their survival may depend on it.

The people are speaking.

And that most ephemeral of things, hope, is in the air again! Makes me feel like I’m back in the 60’s.

The question is will the rest of us listen.