Along the Timeline

This year ends; the next begins. The king is dead; long live the king. A calendar is as good a marker as any to serve the grand chronicle. In another sense, nothing ends or begins. It just keeps rolling along in every which way.

We tend to look at history longitudinally asking, and then what happened? We think in terms of stories. Nothing wrong with that except that by picking up one thread we often ignore what else happened at the same time which may have had unintended ripples.

I recently read part of a 900 page book about the role of England during our Civil war. 250 pages were enough to get the idea and it was due back at the library. The Northern blockade of Southern ports denied the Confederacy its chief export but also deprived the Brits of their needed cotton and caused half a million British workers to be unemployed. It came close to bringing England into our war. An impassioned letter from Lincoln to Parliament saved the day.

If we think associatively we get a broader picture of the times. Pick a year, I said to myself, and I came up with 1906. Cezanne died and so did Susan B. Anthony and Henrik Ibsen but Dmitri Shostakovich, Satchel Page (we think) and Samuel Beckett came into the world. Monsieur Curie (married to Madame) departed, replaced by Philo Farnsworth, Billy Wilder and Oscar Levant and lots of others including my Uncle Harry who was famous only to Aunt Nettie.

Mark Twain was still alive and Emile Zola was still dead. The Chicago Cubs were so good they won 116 games and lost 36, a winning percentage never equaled. When the season was over President Theodore Roosevelt left for Panama and got his picture taken on a tractor, becoming the first president to leave the country while in office. When he returned he was named recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for his help bringing the Russo-Japanese War to an end. T.R. had also played a part, earlier that year, in mediating the Moroccan crisis between France and Spain. This sounds like Friday and Sunday fighting over Saturday night.

It was a summer of seismic belches and burps. Vesuvius erupted on April 7 burying Naples and 11 days later San Francisco was hit by a 7.8 earthquake and fire. An even larger temblor killed 20,000 in Chile 2 months later and a typhoon and tsunami swallowed another 10,000 in Hong Kong.

On the good news ledger, the first phonograph, the Victrola, appeared and the first radio broadcast occurred: a poetry reading, a violin solo, and a speech. In December of 1906 the world's first feature film, The Story of the Kelly Gang, was released. The worlds longest tunnel (12 miles) was built under the Alps connecting Switzerland and Italy. The Dreyfus Affair ended with his full exoneration which is said to have led to the separation of Church and state in France and a disgraced military. By year’s end The Wasserman test diagnosed syphilis and a tuberculosis inoculation was developed. As tectonic plates were stirring, the Lusitania, the world’s largest ship, was launched... only to be sunk nine years later by Germnan U-boats. A sign of trouble ahead.

And just when you might think a new age of enlightenment was upon us, the U.S found a reason to occupy Cuba. We had already helped ourselves to Guantanamo Bay three years earlier. Across the Atlantic the British built the battleship Dreadnought. It was the first of an entirely new class of warships giving the vessel unheard-of speed. The launching of the Dreadnought was a first step in a naval armaments race with Germany and we know where that led. At the same time the Muslims of India began separating themselves from the Hindus which resulted in the establishment of Pakistan 41 years later.

The agonies and ecstasies of today have their antecedents 106 years ago. Whether these happenings had a cameo role in each other’s story I leave for professional historians and story tellers. As the world shrinks and connectivity grows it’s hard to imagine any local trouble not becoming seismic. I wonder if tears or cheers marked the New Year parties ushering in 1907.

Speak, Monuments... Or At Least, Listen

Here we are between Father’s Day and July Fourth. Imagine our founding fathers breaking through their marble and bronze and coming to life….elongated George Washington no longer an obelisk, Lincoln and Jefferson down from their thrones and Franklin Roosevelt out of his bronzed wheel chair.

Of course FDR isn’t a founder but we need him for the poker game and also to explain to Jefferson why the government that governs least is NOT always the government that governs best.

If we plopped the first three in Times Square or the L.A. freeway interchange we might have to exhume Benjamin Franklin. How else to explain double-decker buses, triple deck sandwiches and Multiplex theatres? I'd leave to him a quick course in all our wireless wizardry.

Wouldn’t you, George, father of our country, (who fathered no children) be surprised to hear your name used pejoratively, as in Washington insider or Washington is out of touch with the real America? And what would you, T.J., think about your initials bringing to mind not our author of July Fourth but, Trader Joes? Somehow I expect Thomas Jefferson to get over it fast enough. But would you get over your now famous liaison with Sally Hemmings and attend the family reunion with descendents perhaps in the thousands?

And honestly Abe, you humble guy, could you imagine 16,000 books written about you? Would you please set them straight. Now let me tell you about your son, Robert, who got rich and infamous as the V.P. of Pullman Railroad Co. and his role as strikebreaker extraordinaire.

I wonder if the vast number of people would be the first clue that your utopian vision had gone dystopian. Our current population of 350 million-plus would surely be beyond computation for those who saw an agrarian country of five million they checked out circa 1800.

Even with your encyclopedic brain, Jefferson, you had a small fraction of knowledge compared to the average six-year old sitting in front of Google or Wikipedia. Sorry, Tom. But you, of all people, would welcome the refreshment of change.

I’ll have to break the news to Lincoln that in spite of your good works inequities persist in this land and our house is still divided against itself seven score and seven years later.

I suspect, F.D.R., you would not look kindly on Reagan who dismantled your alphabet of agencies, smashed unions and set into motion the national tide against government as a provider of services for the less privileged. Patrician that you were, you would also shudder at the diminished I.Q. which Reagan established for our highest office. On the other hand did you not contribute to our national shame with your illegal internment of Japanese and unconscionable indifference to Jewish refugees?

Given these several missteps and revisionist history they might all wish to take refuge back in their metal casting. Their images are secure in stamps and currency. Their names live on in highways, bridges and universities.

Looking back at our most visionary leaders it is clear that this country has always been in a fickle embrace between our better and bitter angels. From one angle we have made a Faustian pact trading our humanity for a muscular foreign policy, ignoring George's warning against foreign entanglements, marked by arrogance, and greed. From another perspective we are the beacon of freedom and opportunity. These four of our best and brightest speak to us from their graves of our duel heritage, the stain and the shine.

1688

If I said to you, 1688, would you immediately think of:

1- The number of cheeseburgers sold by the new McDonalds in Kabul?
2- The combined I.Q. of any hundred tea-baggers?
3- The price of Smirnoff's Vodka at Costco marked down from $20?

Let's not always see the same hands. For all I know they're all true ..... but the combined intelligence of the Palinoids is probably lower than that.

The answer is: 1688 is the year Holland invaded England with 400 ships including a new King and Queen and 20,000 of their close friends. Strong winds sped their journey across the Channel while the British fleet was stuck in the Thames estuary by that same gust. William & Mary deposed James II and that ended the Papist rule in England forever.

The Brits don't like to talk about it; in fact they spin the whole takeover as The Glorious Revolution. To be sure the new monarchs were welcomed by some but not all. There were battles waged in England, Scotland and Ireland.

William of Orange brought significant changes into Britain. He invigorated the parliamentary system, initiated new finances (stock market), made innovations in horticulture, encouraged scientific inquiry (optics and astronomy), philosophy and the Arts. The reign of William and Mary triggered the Age of Enlightenment which led to our Democracy.

The Dutch had recently lost several wars to England including their New World colony. What was "New" changed from Amsterdam to York but their footprint had already been laid down.

A case could be made that governments then (as now) are instruments of business interests. The British East India Co. swapped with the Dutch East India Co. In one of the great swindles of history the Dutch traded Manhattan for Suriname in South America.

Among the club of West European imperialists (Spain, Portugal, France and England), Holland did the least nibbling at the Americas. Their time came and went yet it was not without a trace.

There are currently five million Americans at least partially descended from the Netherlands. They bequeathed to us some heavy hitters including five presidents, Van Buren, the two Roosevelts and the two Bushes. Also of Dutch descent were Walt Whitman, Thomas Edison, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Walter Cronkite, Marlon Brando and Meryl Streep.; the first voice of America, foremost inventor, first tycoon, respected TV journalist and our finest actors.

We have also kept some of their place names like, Brooklyn (Breukelen), Coney Island, Harlem, Staten Island, and Schenectady.

Look how much more you know now than you did five minutes ago. No need to thank me, just pass a slice of Dutch apple pie and a Heineken.

Those Teed Off Tea Baggers

Certainly not my cuppa. In what waters are they steeping? What are they thinking, presuming they are thinking at all?

Angry?, to be sure. Palinoids?, with no triple digit I.Qs, no question. Libertarians? who want to pay no taxes except for traffic lights, prisons, libraries, parks, unemployment insurance, Social Security, Medicare, and anything else they might , in their lifetime, find useful. Racist; they do appear to be monochromatic? Corporate-funded, they do have that whiff about them? Come with me to their family tree.

Of our last dozen presidents, seven had no male heirs. Only a bit unusual but if any were like Henry the 8th, some heads would be rolling. We’ve come a long way. Now one wonders whether Chelsea or Malia Obama might one day take their father’s place.

Among our first five presidents only one (Adams) had a male heir and he became our 6th president. In those days it was a major concern that our country not create a dynasty. The monarchial system was devoutly to be avoided. From our inception we have defined ourselves as a nation suspicious of tyranny.

After our successful revolution, we remained a confederation of sovereign states with conflicting interests and laws. It took five years after our victory to band these former colonies together as an indivisible nation with a single constitution. Such was the resistence to a central government.

Ideological battles were waged between Hamilton and Adams, the Federalists, and Jefferson & Madison, the anti-Federalists. It came down to Al versus Tommy with Georgie steering a path above it all and Johnny and Jimmy finding some middle ground.

Gradually the names disappeared but not the fault lines. Jefferson put aside his anti-government bias and muscled his way along with the acquisition of the Louisiana territory which doubled the size of our country and expanded the executive power beyond anything specified in the constitution.

In the same way, John Marshall, as chief justice of the Supreme Court exceeded the authority of that branch of government. In 1803 his decision established the right of the court to strike down a state law as unconstitutional.

I would argue that the anti-government rhetoric, particularly from the Virginia planters, was disingenuous from the start. Such oratory was designed to fever the minds of the disenfranchised rural poor who never met a scapegoat they didn’t love to hate. It also ensured the continuation of slavery and later the poll tax.

Indeed, certain elements in the New England states also threatened secession when their interests weren’t being served. Opposition to a strong central government has long been a self-serving voice disguised as populism in the hands of demagogues. It's always easier to inspire hatred of something far away.

In fact a case could be made that Washington is the privileged few's best friend. The federal government supported our railway system with huge giveaways. It is Washington that subsidizes agri-business today as well as enormous defense contracts. War itself is an extension of foreign policy intended to extend and/or defend American business interests.

The Libertarian / Tea Baggers have swallowed the old slogans of these interest groups misdirecting their rage. Their antecedents are not the patriots in Boston harbor so much as the trampled-upon poor, both urban and rural, who have suffered by the inequities built into our system.

The power of repetitive lies has transformed the role of government to something demonic; as if the word itself cannot be uttered without, big in front of it and bureaucracy exists only in public institutions. The corporate world has won the battle of words. To transform their greed into a battle cry of the under-served is their greatest accomplishment.

Life Stories

People, like nations, have several autobiographies in them,
multiple versions as if the shard of glass in the kaleidoscope shifts a bit with each retrieval.

On Monday, Wednesday and Friday I might be the hero of my narrative; the one person whose autograph I cannot live without. On Tuesday and Thursday I could be the guy who bluffed his way this far with a paucity of smarts and a plethora of nonsense. On weekends I abstain and the wise-fool emerges.

It helps to have a long memory for events that never happened. Like some pebble on the beach polished by the rush of waves I can see myself rounding the bases after hitting the homerun and the ovation in my ears is deafening . Too bad I didn’t make the team.

When I wrote my memoir I did it as a manuscript of about 90 poems. Many were imaginings or outright fabrications. My references were not necessarily factual but sought an emotional truth instead. They were just one version of the chronicle. From a slightly different perch I could view it otherwise.

Was FDR the compassionate and bold leader who responded to the economic crisis with social programs that made him beloved to every class and race? Or was he the president who denied entrance to Jewish refugees, interred the Japanese-Americans and continued Jim Crow in the armed forces? He was all of the above.

When we first studied American history in school we got a simplistic account of our past. As young adults we probably add some movie images into our heads and come away with a pale distortion which serves us for a lifetime. How many of us think we know the French revolution from the film version of A Tale Of Two Cities?

If we are serious about our beginnings we would do well to reconsider our presidents, our wars and the entire arc of our relatively young republic. Too often we are taught military campaigns apart from social history or technological innovations or religious movements or through the lens of architecture, language or entertainment.

Neither individuals nor countries can escape the distortion of a single perspective. As muddled as they may be lives are dimensional and warrant a cubist rendering, up close then back then off to this side and that as various as the viewer.

We have art, Nietzsche said, so we shall not be destroyed by the truth.