We owe a debt of gratitude to the Greatest Generation, which beat back authoritarianism around the globe. But today's Republican Party has made a mockery of that legacy.
Late next month I will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the death of my mom's favorite uncle. He died on Mindanao and is buried in Tylertown. My mom lies next to my dad in the VA cemetery in Biloxi, spots he earned through his service on a destroyer in the Pacific. They would be appalled by what's going on--but they would have followed just about everyone else in Mississippi and voted for those who've created this mess.
My dad fought in the Philippines. I remember him coming home in his Military Uniform. I was 4 years old. When I was a teenager, Dad made me promise to only vote for Democrats and never buy a Ford. I didn't dare ask him about the Ford. but I kept my promise about Democrats. Dad must be rolling over in his grave.
I love your sentiment however Reagan ushered in our current system of corporate rule of government and the stagnation of wages, etc. that has transferred more and more wealth to the 1% and the slide into poverty, homelessness and the crumbling of the Middle Class from the bottom up.
The homeless crisis began during his presidency, and he ignored AIDS. He taxed Social Security.
Beautifully written, Stuart. I wake up most days with a heavy heart. Shocking, after nearly 70 years of living in a democracy, our country has come to THIS. Yes, his voice makes me cringe every time I hear it, but I'm angriest with Congressional R's who simply are not doing their jobs, and who enable fascism every single day.
Thank you, Mr. Steven's. I have two MAGA/Republican senators and one MAGA/Republican congressman, and all will receive a printed copy of this posting in their mailboxes next week.
Thank You! 🙏🏼 I concur with your assessment of our present situation as we mourn the loss of those who, like JFK, knew the value of our American democratic legacy and, most importantly, knew how to keep it ALIVE!!!
We must RID OURSELVES of the abomination that is afflicting us now in form of a COUP that is bringing our nation to its knees. How we can do it is beyond my understanding but I only know that WE MUST CONTINUE TO FIGHT HARDER NOW!!!
I have been waiting for this message!! Thank you, Stuart. I just discussed the current situation with my brother and said, "Things could change if the Republicans in Congress would just do something." We discussed the Republicans that we admired as kids. We have always been staunch Democrats, but we grew up understanding compromise, congeniality AND courage in
politics. How bad must things get before the Republicans make a move? I am close to 90 and would like to see something happening now.
We seem to be living in a new American Order where The Lost Boys have taken power, through subterfuge, vanity, and a foolish lack of knowledge of history and how we got to where we are.
My father, too, served with others of The Greatest Generation. For regular inductees into the military, he would have been at the top of the age range at 34. But those with particular civilian skills, he would have been accepted up to the age of 50. He was a member of the United States Navy Seabees and worked in the South Pacific forward areas. Like almost all United States military veterans, he didn't talk about his experiences. I knew men who served in all branches, including those who were under General Patton in Europe. Perhaps they talked about their service when among others who understood at the VFW and American Legion, but not among the general populace. They knew their service accounted for so much and didn't have to brag to the world about their exploits.
The Greatest Generation came to be thanks to the suffering of all Americans, a shared suffering, of the Great Depression, and the camaraderie of pulling forward together. Only the smallest of men held tight to their prejudices and continued to dream of a day when those prejudices would once again rule us all. A small man like Trump.
Excellent article. I email my Congressman daily to tell him how ashamed I am of my county and beg him to DO HIS JOB, but he is right behind Trump like a good little minion. I want to remind him daily how this is not the country I have lived in and been proud of for 76 years. It falls on deaf ears, but someone should remind him that even I can see that we have been infiltrated by Russian agents and it makes me sick to my soul and if it does not bother him IT SHOULD!!
I recently re-read the Declaration of Independence and found that it has some great messaging for our current times. When you see reference to he, that is the king, just like king donnie the orange.
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDECE
(((We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security))) .--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
(((He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.)))
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
(((He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.)))
(((He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.)))
(((He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.)))
(((He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.)))
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
(((He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.)))
(((He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:)))
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
(((For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:)))
(((For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:)))
(((For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:)))
(((For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:)))
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
(((For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:)))
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
(((He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.)))
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
(((In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.)))
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
I fear there is no other solution than partition. I hoped the Reprobate Party would retreat into the Old South and build walls around their sorry selves if they lost this last election. Good riddance. But now that their sticky hands are on the throttle of financial and political power in this country, they won't go quietly. We need leaders making a whole lot more noise, even creating a political earthquake if necessary.
Yes! Now, Sir, how do we respond? They have arrested their first judge who tried to protect immigrants from the gestapo, I mean ICE. Instead of "how do we respond," I should have asked, "How long, oh Lord?" I know we will prevail, but as long as hooligans and vandals continue to act in the name of the person defiling the White House; defending the indefensible, destroying the rule of law, we are part of the shame. Only the ogre squatting in the White House is free from arrest, the rest of them are not. Why are they still free to wreak havoc? We will be known as the cowardly generation that destroyed the dream. Unless we remember the country was born by employing tactics that were not conventional. Have we forgotten that?
Well said! Republicans are so horrible that they say nothing about those legally in US being disappeared. Of course, republicans have disappeared from their constituents by not hosting town halls. Maybe cowardly, anti democracy, anti rule of law and anti constitution republicans can be called the invisible generation of politicians. I can only image that the next time republicans crawl out from their rocks is when they are ready to blame Joe Biden for having such a s good economy that it made trump look bad by comparison.
Late next month I will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the death of my mom's favorite uncle. He died on Mindanao and is buried in Tylertown. My mom lies next to my dad in the VA cemetery in Biloxi, spots he earned through his service on a destroyer in the Pacific. They would be appalled by what's going on--but they would have followed just about everyone else in Mississippi and voted for those who've created this mess.
My dad fought in the Philippines. I remember him coming home in his Military Uniform. I was 4 years old. When I was a teenager, Dad made me promise to only vote for Democrats and never buy a Ford. I didn't dare ask him about the Ford. but I kept my promise about Democrats. Dad must be rolling over in his grave.
I love your sentiment however Reagan ushered in our current system of corporate rule of government and the stagnation of wages, etc. that has transferred more and more wealth to the 1% and the slide into poverty, homelessness and the crumbling of the Middle Class from the bottom up.
The homeless crisis began during his presidency, and he ignored AIDS. He taxed Social Security.
Beautifully written, Stuart. I wake up most days with a heavy heart. Shocking, after nearly 70 years of living in a democracy, our country has come to THIS. Yes, his voice makes me cringe every time I hear it, but I'm angriest with Congressional R's who simply are not doing their jobs, and who enable fascism every single day.
Thank you, Mr. Steven's. I have two MAGA/Republican senators and one MAGA/Republican congressman, and all will receive a printed copy of this posting in their mailboxes next week.
Thank You! 🙏🏼 I concur with your assessment of our present situation as we mourn the loss of those who, like JFK, knew the value of our American democratic legacy and, most importantly, knew how to keep it ALIVE!!!
We must RID OURSELVES of the abomination that is afflicting us now in form of a COUP that is bringing our nation to its knees. How we can do it is beyond my understanding but I only know that WE MUST CONTINUE TO FIGHT HARDER NOW!!!
This is one of the most meaningful essays describing this time in our history. Thank you, Mr. Steven’s.
I have been waiting for this message!! Thank you, Stuart. I just discussed the current situation with my brother and said, "Things could change if the Republicans in Congress would just do something." We discussed the Republicans that we admired as kids. We have always been staunch Democrats, but we grew up understanding compromise, congeniality AND courage in
politics. How bad must things get before the Republicans make a move? I am close to 90 and would like to see something happening now.
We seem to be living in a new American Order where The Lost Boys have taken power, through subterfuge, vanity, and a foolish lack of knowledge of history and how we got to where we are.
My father, too, served with others of The Greatest Generation. For regular inductees into the military, he would have been at the top of the age range at 34. But those with particular civilian skills, he would have been accepted up to the age of 50. He was a member of the United States Navy Seabees and worked in the South Pacific forward areas. Like almost all United States military veterans, he didn't talk about his experiences. I knew men who served in all branches, including those who were under General Patton in Europe. Perhaps they talked about their service when among others who understood at the VFW and American Legion, but not among the general populace. They knew their service accounted for so much and didn't have to brag to the world about their exploits.
The Greatest Generation came to be thanks to the suffering of all Americans, a shared suffering, of the Great Depression, and the camaraderie of pulling forward together. Only the smallest of men held tight to their prejudices and continued to dream of a day when those prejudices would once again rule us all. A small man like Trump.
Excellent article. I email my Congressman daily to tell him how ashamed I am of my county and beg him to DO HIS JOB, but he is right behind Trump like a good little minion. I want to remind him daily how this is not the country I have lived in and been proud of for 76 years. It falls on deaf ears, but someone should remind him that even I can see that we have been infiltrated by Russian agents and it makes me sick to my soul and if it does not bother him IT SHOULD!!
Focused, devastating, correct. 👏🏻👏🏻
I recently re-read the Declaration of Independence and found that it has some great messaging for our current times. When you see reference to he, that is the king, just like king donnie the orange.
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDECE
(((We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security))) .--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
(((He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.)))
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
(((He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.)))
(((He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.)))
(((He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.)))
(((He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.)))
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
(((He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.)))
(((He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:)))
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
(((For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:)))
(((For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:)))
(((For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:)))
(((For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:)))
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
(((For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:)))
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
(((He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.)))
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
(((In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.)))
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
Folks, President Kennedy’s middle name was Fitzgerald, not Fitzpatrick.
I fear there is no other solution than partition. I hoped the Reprobate Party would retreat into the Old South and build walls around their sorry selves if they lost this last election. Good riddance. But now that their sticky hands are on the throttle of financial and political power in this country, they won't go quietly. We need leaders making a whole lot more noise, even creating a political earthquake if necessary.
Yes! Now, Sir, how do we respond? They have arrested their first judge who tried to protect immigrants from the gestapo, I mean ICE. Instead of "how do we respond," I should have asked, "How long, oh Lord?" I know we will prevail, but as long as hooligans and vandals continue to act in the name of the person defiling the White House; defending the indefensible, destroying the rule of law, we are part of the shame. Only the ogre squatting in the White House is free from arrest, the rest of them are not. Why are they still free to wreak havoc? We will be known as the cowardly generation that destroyed the dream. Unless we remember the country was born by employing tactics that were not conventional. Have we forgotten that?
Well said! Republicans are so horrible that they say nothing about those legally in US being disappeared. Of course, republicans have disappeared from their constituents by not hosting town halls. Maybe cowardly, anti democracy, anti rule of law and anti constitution republicans can be called the invisible generation of politicians. I can only image that the next time republicans crawl out from their rocks is when they are ready to blame Joe Biden for having such a s good economy that it made trump look bad by comparison.
Fabulous!