In reply to: I share you heartache and disgust. posted by Brahms
but I think you should tell us why you can't comprehend our perspective or understand what we are talking about. Time to open your kimono. I've done enough of it on this board. Your turn. Tell us about your world.
Dinner time here, and laptop is shut for the night.
When I look at America, I see an imperfect nation formed with the idea of becoming more perfect. To that end, we've dealt with slavery, women's suffrage, Jim Crow, civil rights, voting rights, gay rights, etc., all in pursuit of that ideal. But still, we've always been, and likely always will be, a 'work in progress.'
So, I try to look at things and ask, "Are we making progress?" Not, "Are we there yet?" or "When will we be there?". But, "Are we getting better, moving forward, working on the problems?" And in America 2024, I think we are. Sometimes quickly, sometimes far too slowly, but still, forward.
We're a heterogeneous group here in the PBR. Yet, you can see the vast differences of opinions we have between us. Even with such common upbringings and interests, we still find it challenging sometimes to knit together a solution. Now, throw together all of the other cultural, ethnic, economic, and religious blocs in this country. Many different sets of concerns, opinions, solutions, etc., get thrown into the mix that maybe even our tiny PBR group doesn't understand. That makes moving forward highly challenging, sometimes. It takes men and women of goodwill and faith to work through those challenges and find a path forward. That goes for most public policy issues today.
Funny, as I was gathering my thoughts and writing this, I stumbled on David Brook's column "The Cure for What Ails Our Democracy" in yesterday's NYT (linked below). And it struck a chord with me because it accurately depicts where we are today. We've become so polarized as a nation that every disagreement or difference of opinion becomes a battle between 'good' and 'evil' that my side must win. Instead of looking at the good on the other side, we focus on the bad and build up these impediments to progress that leave us stuck in the mud.
That's certainly an immense frustration for me. But I don't get the 'shame' you say you feel. Or the disgust Brahms feels. I may get the cynicism that Marine Domer feels. There are plenty of men and women of goodwill on all sides. They need to be empowered, and the charlatans, grifters, and hucksters cast aside.
We've never been a perfect nation. We've never had 'it' and lost 'it.' It has always eluded us. Likewise, we'll always have challenges, both foreign and domestic. History waxes and wanes
My frustrations with the current state of affairs do not make me hopeless. The generations behind us have the energy, goodwill, and ability to work across interest groups to get us unstuck and move forward again. We needed to cede power over to them nearly a decade ago. Once we can make that transition, the wheels will turn again.
I'm appreciative of the job that President Biden has done. He's willing to work hard to find common ground and accomplish things. He has a steady hand and competent people under him to handle many of our foreign challenges.
Domestically, I'm a massive fan of the 'Build Back Better' framework. We've gone decades where we haven't publicly invested in America. To that end, the [ill-named] Inflation Reduction Act, CHiPs Act, and other aspects of that framework are focused on those areas of our country that have been under-invested in forever, regardless of whether they are red state or blue. And those policies are also bringing private investment into solving many of these issues.
More work needs to be done to deliver quality healthcare to all Americans. Better solutions are also needed for housing and education so that future generations have a positive American experience.
But yes, overall, I'm optimistic. Mostly because I see the quality of people in our upcoming generations. They really are a group of amazing people.
I have posted the following paragraphs from my Navy memoir on a previous occasion:
Helicopters on the roof
“…After the fall of the South Vietnamese government, stories leaked out describing the hardships suffered by people we left behind. The saga of the Boat People was covered extensively. However, the plight of former RVN military personnel and civilians who had worked for the Americans was largely ignored. Sometimes, it seemed as if government officials, journalists, academics, and ordinary citizens conspired to push the story to the back pages. In today’s vernacular, they wanted to “move on”. This was understandable, I suppose—the country had just endured a national humiliation. Yet, we knew that senior RVN military officers and civilian officials were being tortured and executed. We knew that many more people were sent to “re-education” camps in the countryside where hard labor and political indoctrination hastened acceptance of the new reality.
What about Trinh? In the turmoil after the war, was she able to reunite with her children? She had worked for the US Army—was she persecuted? Or sent to a re-education camp? What about Dai-uy Be? On my last day at Ben Luc, Be looked me in the eye and said, “We are freedom men”, adding that he was proud to have fought alongside such a good friend. Did he end up against a wall?
On those occasions when I think about my Vietnamese friends and comrades, people like Trinh and Be, the guilt and the shame are so overwhelming that I struggle to breathe. I know I didn’t do anything wrong. I just left. And that’s the problem. We all did. We did as we always do—we got on our planes and helicopters, and we left. And when we did, we abandoned people who had invested everything—their safety, their futures, their entire lives—in us.
Americans do not think of themselves as a treacherous people, but our recent history teaches us that we are. We think of ourselves as a generous and kind people, not people who are careless and sloppy with the lives of others, lives that have been put in our hands. But the pattern repeats: We demand trust and obedience. Then, when the going gets tough, or when we become distracted, or when we grow tired of making sacrifices, we leave. It happened in Vietnam and Iraq, and it will happen again in Afghanistan.”
Of course, it did happen in Afghanistan when the Biden Administration painted its masterpiece at the airport in Kabul, an event characterized by spectacular ineptitude, cynical indifference, and cravenness. You say you don’t get the disgust part. What reaction other than disgust can one have when confronted by the scenes we witnessed in August 2021?
Your exposition leads us in many directions, and that’s fine. I intended to make a point about our abandonment of Ukraine. As Sir Winston explains so eloquently, we make a fatal mistake when we fail to confront evil. Or confront it far too late as we did in 1941 by which time the men who signed the petition of the Oxford Union were serving at sea in the North Atlantic, in the air over Britain, or in the desert at El Alamein. Just as they were, we will be levied a toll, and it will be paid by young men like my grandsons. That is not progress.
has three elements to the pledge. Lives, Fortune, Sacred Honor.
It is that third element that seems to be missing in the cases where we have walked away. Lives, treasure - those can be written off as 'sunk costs' - especially when it is the lives of others or draftees, when the money is borrowed or taxed from the masses. But the willingness to still do right when it hurts, or when it's unpopular, or inconvenient is an important factor in shifting history.