Memorial Day 2020

Did you know the Warren G. Harding campaign slogan of 1920 was, "Return to normalcy"?

It’s Memorial Day Monday.

We should all take a moment to honor those who served throughout our country’s history.

Those who fought bravely to achieve our independence.

Those who fought bravely to reunite our nation.

Those who fought bravely to preserve and protect our sovereignty.

Those who fought and served and died and were permanently maimed either psychologically or physically or both even when the cause was unclear or uncertain or muddled.

Moment taken.

Let’s talk about what men and women in uniform did not mean to serve, fight or die for.

I don’t believe they served in order for one political party to purposely pull the rug out from under what is still a nascent experiment in the grand sweep of history.

I don’t believe they served in order to preserve the rights and privileges of only certain Americans who meet a certain racial profile.

I don’t believe they served in order to have kleptocrats drain the nation’s treasure.

I don’t believe they served in order to allow domestic terrorists to terrorize and threaten and mangle the intentions of our founding documents.

I don’t believe they served in order for online terrorists to strike fear into other Americans in an effort to stifle free speech.

I don’t believe they served in order for our leader to take cues from fascists and dictators and thugs from all around the world.

I don’t believe they served in order to see the American Dream kept out of reach for the majority of Americans, whether purposely or not, by a rapacious system disinclined to be inclusive.

The idea of America is intoxicating. There is a reason why people the world over strive to reach our shores. I’ve always wondered why we feel we must bomb countries into submission when the allure of our freedom and independence has long been a siren song to the huddled masses.

Why we feared the spread of ideologies when we were convinced ours was best and the “tired and weary” clearly agreed. Given time the idea of America would win out.

The idea of America has been too successful. At least in the eyes of white Americans.

A vast majority of white men are inclined to vote for authoritarianism over democracy.

A vast majority of white men are willing to look the other way no matter the daily atrocity - elementary school shootings, black men hunted down in broad daylight, yelling for political female leaders to be locked up or lynched.

A vast majority of white men would rather suppress voting than risk having their delicate privilege over the last two hundred years infringed.

A vast majority of white men who wear religion like a badge of honorability, or a cloak of righteousness, will wield that same religion like a sword to deny other rights.

A vast majority of white men, and some of their women, live in fear of ‘Others’. They live in fear that the jackboot of white privilege they have had on the throats of others - for centuries - will one day be held on them. So, they get dressed in camo flak jackets and an armory of weapons and strut about capitol grounds as if they are defending liberty, the notion, not liberty, just for themselves.

They have lost hope in the idea of America. Instead of being confident in the words of our founding documents they prefer a ‘scorched earth’ strategy.

A vast majority of white men like our president’s mien. They like his style. They like that he’s a grabber. They like his lasciviousness. They like that he can use shithole in a sentence. They like that he never apologizes. They like that when asked if he would have done anything differently in regards to the pandemic, he says,

“Nothing.”

America may have been born in a time of slavery as an all white patriarchal nation with the blood of Native Americans on our hands when the nation’s progenitors wrote those founding documents but - since that time - veterans have served and fought and died and been maimed, both psychologically and physically, believing they were doing so for the idea of America, for the ideal of democracy, for those truths that are self-evident, “that all men are created equal”.

So, when I celebrate Memorial Day, I give thanks that the grand experiment called America is still alive. Intubated, perhaps, but alive.

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The article that sent me down most of today’s path can be found here.

Also, a picture from a Georgia Tech football game circa 1918.

Just take a look at all those freedom-haters. Or, as someone on Twitter noted, maybe they were just more comfortable with masks then. Also, Georgia…