HenryBriggsColumn

It was the question of the era, a time when all things were possible, because we had come through WWII unscathed unlike the rest of the world, our industry expanding, wealth growing, international approval setting records. The world was our oyster.

And then the impossible happened: Kennedy was shot. I was living in an apartment with three other students at the time. One, from Dallas, walked in that morning, tears streaming at what his hometown had done. 

Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley and others talked us through it calmly and succinctly. Time seemed to halt as, first the country, then the world absorbed the news. It took quite awhile for routines to re-emerge.

I have no  idea where I was or what I was doing last week when that guy stormed the hotel and tried to kill Trump, the tenth attempt since Kennedy and the third just on Trump. Ho-hum.

No irony there.

The Second Amendment has turned assassination  – well, killing in general – from novel to ordinary. Nowadays, people take advantage of the right bear arms  just to defend themselves against other people who bear arms. 

No irony there.

The last war this country waged for universally good reasons – a “just” war, as they say – was WWII. We didn’t have to dream up reasons, having watched Hitler for a few years until Pearl Harbor opened the door. Afterward we basked in the glow of saving both Europe and Asia from some very bad people. 

The justifications for the next few wars are still being debated decades later.

The justification for the current one is being debated – by himself – by the guy who started it.

No irony there.

This is the same guy who decided oil and coal energy are good and wind energy is bad, climate change is “fake” and electric vehicles are stupid. So he started a war that put 20% of oil on hold, thereby raising gas prices in the US so high that EV’s are now selling like hot cakes.

No irony there.

The King of England, the country we revolted from when we  invented modern democracy, visits us on our 250th anniversary and subtly and artfully reminds us what democracy is. 

No irony there. 

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” says Lady Liberty, as we chase down, lock up, and then eject those very masses.

No irony there.

News broadcasters, who once focussed on calm and precise language while presenting alarming news, now speak in frantic half-sentences to alarm people while presenting mundane news. 

No irony there.

As a result of all this, I recently started watching TV shows that feature genuinely nice protagonists in plots where good inevitably triumphs over evil. I go to streaming channels, then pull up IMDB on my computer so I can check a synopsis of various movies and shows – just to ensure I don’t see a scary moment or two, or a really depressing ending. 

When I find a good one with a high rating, I get my popcorn and settle in. 

You know why?  No irony there. At all.

When the Pilgrims, the original white immigrants, came over from Europe to improve their lives, they had a rough time dealing with weather, wild animals,  corn, not to mention things like language and customs. The brown Native Americans had early trepidation, too, but then did something really nice; they welcomed and helped the immigrants adjust to their new environment. Both got along. In fact they actually celebrated a holiday together… with weird fowl!

This was before Apple Translator Earbuds.   

The comradery didn’t last though. Instead of melding with the existing culture, the white immigrants overpowered and overran the brown people, shoving them into small, not-so-nice corners of the land, to the point where, today, everybody, worldwide, considers the US a White people’s country. 

The next few waves of immigrants that entered the country to improve their lives were not met with the same welcome as the the original Americans.  

2 million Irish Christians came to the US from 1845 to 1852 to escape starvation and were greeted, not with a holiday dinner, but with bigotry. 4 million Italians (also Christian) fled poverty and government mayhem in the late 1800’s for the US. And, instead of warm welcomes, ran into bigotry. During the same time period, Jews arrived. And met bigotry. Later, East Asians met the same fate. 

WWII triggered additional waves of Europeans, mostly white,  including Jews, immigrants who also met walls of bigotry.   

(I haven’t mentioned the 17th century wave – of black people – because they weren’t immigrants; they were prisoners, kidnapped and brought into the country for economic reasons, which definitely did not improve their lives.)

In the middle of the 19th century, the US “annexed” (definition – take with military force) what is now both Texas and California in The Mexican American War. That “annexation” included millions of Christian, non-American, unwilling immigrants, if you will. 

Oh, and instead of white skin, theirs was brown which triggered…bigotry.

But guess what happened in each and every of these cases? 

Take a look at New York City, or any big city for the answer. In these places people from all over the world meld together. They become neighbors and co-workers. They may live in different areas, but they ride subways and busses together, and work at the same places, share jokes, even political opinions. They become barkeeps and cab drivers, doctors and lawyers, financiers and teachers, friends, lovers, family. In each case, the immigrants meld their culture into the current American culture. 

And their lives improve.

It’s been going on for over two centuries. That’s why we proudly call this country a “melting pot”. As people get to know each other, as “others” enter our culture, we get to know each other and bigotry melts away. Even better? These immigrants, their sons and daughters, grandchildren and more have bettered the country. From the original wave to Tesla, Einstein, Freud, Jonas Salk, Hedy Lamarr, Mila Kunis, and on and on and.…

More recently the immigration process for people south of our border has been a disaster. A primary cause: both Republican and Democratic administrations ignored a simple math problem: (too many immigrants seeking refuge) + (too few judges to decide whether they qualify for entry) = (millions attempting legal immigration being told to “Just come on in. Leave us a contact so we can call you back when judge has time”).

The immediate solution was more border patrols, more judges and courtrooms at the border. The long term solution was aid to countries suffering from climate change, dictatorships, and cartels. But none of these administrations put much effort into either.

So millions of immigrants are now in the US illegally and Trump Republicans, especially White Christian Nationalists, have become outraged at the impurity of it all.  So Trump’s ICE brutalizes immigrants and US citizens. Oh, and shoots them, killing three.

(It’s not a little ironic that Stephen Miller, Trump’s whisperer in this attempt to cleanse the country of brown-skinned immigrants, is of Jewish descent. Probably unaware of Hitler…or an avid student?).

Thousands and thousands of people in 23 states and 40 cities around the country have erupted at ICE. Noem erupted back. Then Trump and Noem’s boss, Homan, backed down, clearly stunned that so many Americans reacted with anger that ICE treated all brown skinned immigrants, including children, as killers and drug dealers.

And that, Mr. President and White Christian Nationalists Followers, is what you don’t get: Everyday Americans consider those people Americans, too. Every immigrant wave except the first, from Irish to Italian to East Asian to Jewish to Hispanic – and those in between – has melded into the American culture, a culture that defends and protects each other, even – especially – in the face of Gestapo tactics.

It’s Superman’s iconic motto. Corny? Maybe. But it spoke for most of the country at one time.

Superman first arrived as a comic book hero in 1938 when the Depression was ebbing ever so slowly, when Hitler was taking Czechoslovakia, then Poland, on his quest to take Europe and Russia in WWII. 

Life had a grim horizon.

The Superman motto was a pick-me-up after a financial tsunami that had spread waves of hunger and pain from the beaches to the plains to the mountains to the beaches of this country, from the Americas to Europe and Asia…and maybe Mars.

Superman helped in WWII, too, at least in the comic book world. He beat this stuffing out of bad guys and made little kids – and not a few grownups – feel better, like there was a chance of beating the devil. Which, eventually happened, just as Superman would have done it.

Truth, Justice, and the American Way  became a beloved slogan for decades.

Superman was just one of a long line of heroes created during the first two hundred or so years of this country.  From Kit Carson to Danial Boone to George Washington and more, historians glamorized stories of American heroes, people who fought and died for truth, justice, as they created the American Way. 

Fictionists in the 20th Century picked up the baton by creating new heroes like The Shadow, The Green Hornet, The Lone Ranger and the guy from a Galaxy far, far away. In every case, integrity and ethics, the rule of law, justice for all, the nobility of the individual, protection of the minority – the American Way – was threaded through the story lines like the steel wire that holds up bridges.

Much of it was an aspiration, our culture’s way of competing with the Greek and Roman myths. But it was also great inspiration: liars, cheats, and thugs were the exception, not the rule. 

Sure there were the Billy the Kids and Al Capones, but there were also Clara Bartons and Teddy Roosevelts, Sgt. Alvin Yorks, Amelia Earharts and Martin Luther Kings, Audi Murphys and Jonas Salks, Dwight Eisenhowers and Maya Angelous, and so many others who came to embody Truth, Justice and the American Way.

Then, sometime into the second century of this unique experiment, the myths began to lose luster. Truth, Justice and the American Way became first tired, then corny, then, more recently,  the object of cynicism and disdain. 

It may have started in the 50’s when Attorney Roy Cohn helped Senator Joe McCarthy use fear of communism and lies to attack the State Department, the Truman Administration, the Voice of America, and the US Army. They shook our faith in government like an infant in the hands of an enraged drunk. 

Or it may have been in 1968, when “the most trusted man in America”, Walter Cronkite, used truth and justice in the form of simple images to strip open the lies behind the Vietnam War, tarnishing the glow of The American Way and the legacy of World War II.

Eventually, little cracks of distrust began to appear as singers like Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez to questioned the American Way. Hollywood, in films like Jaws, The Godfather, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’sNest, and Serpico created more cracks.

In 1973,  27 year old Donald Trump, a racist, wanna-be real estate tycoon and his real tycoon father were sued by the Federal Government for discrimination against black people. Instead of settling, under the tutelage of Roy Cohn (yep, that one) they attacked, smeared, and lied. And then settled.

The next year Tricky Dick Nixon was caught in the Watergate Scandal and fled the White House in disgrace. In later years, Bill Clinton took fellatio to new political heights. Bill Belichick made the Chicago Black Sox look like school kids. 

In 1987 Gordon Gekko’s famous line,  “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good!” in the film Wall Street marked a turning point in the culture as we began to accept lying, cheating and stealing as the new American Way. 

Today, we are a country awash in Roy Cohn – now Donald Trump – ethics. Canada and Europe distrust us. Mexico, Central and South America fear us. Scandinavia watches us like a grandparent protecting a newborn. 

Our own citizens now look upon Federal Police with fear, disgust, and fury. Anyone with brown or black skin is liable to be shipped to prison in another country. Even small kids are being kidnapped.

Our President, a mob boss and 34 time  convicted felon, has become a fountain of corruptions. He continues to try to undo the last election and sabotage the next one.  His Cabinet is incompetent and corrupt. With rare exceptions, Republicans in Congress stand by and watch it happen. 

As Europe and Scandinavia hold people accountable for Epstein connections, the US holds back millions of files.

In a little over 50 years, oligarchs like Musk and Bezos have started taking over capitalism and MAGA politicians are now threatening democracy. 

Have we become inured to lying, cheating, and stealing?

Is growing public anger at ICE, a corrupt President, Republican lackeys, and a sycophantic Supreme Court enough to turn the tide?

Does might make right, now? Or will right make might once again?

Will something as corny, but vital, to democracy, as Truth, Justice and the American Way return to favor?

I still believe in it. Do you? Do enough of us to save the country?

We can always hope…

…or vote.