Desultory Diary, Episode 28: Towards a Kinder and Gentler Nation

Recently, I saw a YouTube clip of a man in Texas who said to a few friends, "The worst day in America is better than the best day anywhere else." He might as well have said, "Jesus Christ is Lord," for the group around him smiled in pious agreement. O, the arrogance!

The United States is, hands down, Number One in the world regarding Covid-19 deaths, but it lags behind other countries according to many indicators. We are the only wealthy country that lacks universal health coverage; we rank 35th according to longevity statistics, (just below Lebanon and just above Cuba), despite spending twice as much on health care as other wealthy countries; among the 31 OECD countries, we rank last regarding obesity; we are certainly nowhere near the best regarding infant mortality and education. The American Dream is alive and well, well, in Denmark.

Something is rotten in the United States, and it's about time that we do something about it.

The patriotic hubris of the Texans is not an isolated incident.

How many times have you come across someone asserting that this is the greatest country in the world? If you haven't ever been told this by a neighbor, teacher, or friend, you have probably been living on a different planet.

I am 75. When in grade school, I had to memorize the doggerel line, "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." At that time, Columbus was, in effect, a secular Messiah, who brought the gifts of Western Civilization to the New World. No mention of the Arawak Indians, who soon become extinct in Hispaniola, where Columbus first landed; not to mention the genocide against South American Indians, one of the worst genocides in history.

Regarding Thanksgiving, we were led to believe that Edward Hicks's painting, The Peaceable Kingdom, in which Pilgrims and Native Americans got along just fine, was historically accurate.

Later on, we were taught the concept of Manifest Destiny, namely, that it was God's will that the United States gain sovereignty from coast to coast, The wrong people in the wrong place at the wrong time, Mexican and Native Americans, had to be swept away like underbrush. And they were.

I remember the shock I felt, when, fairly recently, I picked up a bible with the American flag plastered all over it. It included on back pages a collection of religious hymns and patriotic hymns, and a mixture of both. America and God--there seemed to be no difference. An aria from The Messiah came to mind, with lyrics from the Old Testament, "Why do the nations so furiously rage together?/And why do the people imagine vain things?" Those lyrics were of course missing in that American bible.

I thought traditional religions taught that, while it is good to be patriotic, we live in a fallen world and every nation suffers from various degrees of fallenness. Not so in the American Religion, as the gaudy bible I had picked up proclaimed. It is dangerous, is it not, when the prophetic maxim, "walk humbly with your God," becomes, in effect, "God has chosen us to be on top!"

America's Original Sin

I grew up in the 1950s, and, like most white kids at the time, lived in a segregated neighborhood. (In a restricted sense, I still do, although my multi-racial family is no longer as unique as it once was.) Race was like rice in a pressure cooker over high heat--God had long since abandoned the kitchen--Pretty soon everything had to explode. And explode it did.

Blacks have had access to higher education; many have assumed positions of power. They are unwilling to be subjugated any longer. Progressive whites reject the racism of the past, as the multiracial protests in Portland attest. Yet not every white person is progressive.

When a pressure cooker explodes, expect a mess. I am firmly convinced however, that the mess can and will be cleared up.

Take the case of kneeling during the national anthem at NFL games. Colin Kaepernick--whose name sounds like that of a Dutch explorer--famously knelt in 2016 during the playing of the national anthem before a NFL game. He was protesting police brutality; his protest caused a furor in our divided country. God-and-country whites were deeply offended. Trump, in 2017, strongly advocated that players who refuse to stand during the anthem be fired. The NFL lost a lot of money.

The vehemence of the protests reminded me of the vehement arguments supporting either transubstantiation or consubstantiation, subtleties of Christian dogma over which people actually killed each other in the past. (Have people chosen to forget that the most important behavior is how we treat each other, not how we treat a flag? Colin Kaepernick has spent a lot of his money and time on children).

Things have since calmed down. On July 4, 2020, during a much-publicized game, it was left to the players to stand or to kneel during the anthem. A professor of African-American studies wrote, "I would have found it hard to believe it a year ago. I would have said something really happened in America to cause that. Clearly what has happened in America...fundamentally changed people's perceptions as it relates to racism in this society." The catalyst for this change was the brutal murder of George Floyd. You can be cynical and believe that the owners found a way for money to flow into their coffers again; nevertheless a change has occurred.

The intolerant God-and-country crowd, however, is still with us. I recently talked to some gym friends, who are mostly Trump supporters. When the topic of kneeling during the national anthem somehow came up, one of our friends went ballistic.

This person is vehemently against the removal of publicly displayed Confederate statues as well. Not much of a surprise there.

German Patriotism

I sometimes watch German-language TV. Once they had a segment regarding  teaching German teenagers the horrors of the Holocaust. Regarding the rabid anti-Semitism of those days, a teenager replied, in utter disbelief,  "Is this fiction?!" Yes, the degree of evil of the Nazi regime is beyond comprehension.

How do German patriots--and mostly everyone everywhere is, and should be, patriotic to some degree--fare these days? A teacher replied, "We love Germany. But we must love it with a broken heart."

I like that. America's racism has been, well, awful. America has also committed many atrocities around the world. Vietnam, Iraq, South America. There is a saying in Mexico, "Pity us. So far from God and so close to the United States." If you wonder why they could say something like that, ask a Native American.

There are of course many good things about our country as well. It is still--maybe not for long? a vibrant democracy. Long live the First Amendment--a variation of which in many countries simply doesn't exist. Despite many challenges, contemporary and in the past, the Constitution has been a beacon of light for the entire world.

Germany, with its sad history, is known as perhaps the least overtly patriotic country in Europe. It is also one of the most progressive. We could learn a lot from them, for our history has not been as good as many think. 


Maybe we could learn to love our country while we happily sing, "Hail, Columbia" without Columbus, and with a tear in our eyes. If we do, there is a good chance that George H. W. Bush's dream of a kinder, gentler nation would be fulfilled.

Why I Stand Up for the National Anthem (Most of the Time)

On August 26, 2016, during a preseason football game, Colin Kaepernick, a quarterback on the San Francisco 49ers team, refused to stand during the national anthem.  When he was asked why, he replied, "I am not going to show pride in a flag that oppresses black people and people of color.  To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way.  There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."   Was he being disrespectful or conscientious?  Was he being anti-American or patriotic?

Kaepernick was, of course, exercising his First Amendment right to free speech.

His reaction made me think of why I stand up during the national anthem--well, most of the time.  On one occasion, for a different reason, I did just what the quarterback did.

My wife Nirmala and I had a subscription to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for many years.  Every season began with a rousing rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. 

 On a September night in 2003, the concert hall becomes silent. The conductor springs to the podium and raises her hands.  A moment later, the three descending notes of a major triad, supported by full orchestra, resounds through the hall--the national anthem has begun! 

This was obviously music to my neighbors' ears, but not, at that time, to mine. I was furious about Bush's disastrous invasion of Iraq, begun six months earlier.  So much suffering caused by one of the worst presidents in U.S. history--and for no better reason than (in Bush's words) to "kick ass!"--even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11!  When the music began, everyone rose from their seats--well, almost everyone.  I refused to stand up for an anthem representing a country that was going along with such a reprehensible, criminal activity.

I got a few angry stares, nothing more than that.  Since I am an obscure poet, as far removed from the limelight as the capital of the country, Georgia, is from the capital of the state of Georgia, the little incident was soon forgotten.

After that, I stood up during the anthem for no better reason than that I could hit all the notes and enjoyed singing with a full voice.  But deep down there were and there are other reasons.  Two of those reasons I would like to discuss now.

1.  Free Speech, the First Amendment

The ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights and ratified in 1791, are indeed something to be proud of.  The First Amendment, reads as follows:

Congress shall make no restrictions respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peacefully to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances

All aspects of the amendment are important; in this article we will focus on free speech, which both Mr. Kaepernick and I practiced on separate occasions, thirteen years apart from each other.

The right to free speech is indeed one of the things that makes America great--pace Trump, no "again" needed.    Many countries do not guarantee this basic right to their citizens; I will provide three examples of how free speech has been abrogated around the world.

A. When King George lll was declared incompetent in 1811, the Prince of Wales, who eventually became George lV  upon his father's death in 1821, was declared regent--hence the term for this period, the Regency era.   On the Regent's fiftieth birthday in 1812, an English newspaper declared him the "Glory of the People" and an "Adonis in Loveliness."  This was too much for Leigh Hunt, who was best known for his friendship with Keats, to bear.  He soon published a more accurate description of the royal playboy. In Hunt's words, he was "a corpulent man of fifty" and " a violator of his word, a libertine over head and ears in disgrace, a despiser of domestic ties and the companion of gamblers and demireps." Hunt's depiction wasn't slander, it was quite accurate.  Nevertheless, he was tried for libel and subsequently spent a year in jail.

B.  In India, the national anthem is routinely played before movie showings.  There have been several cases of moviegoers being  ejected from theaters for not standing up while a soundtrack of the anthem was being played. For instance, in 2014, a young man named Salman S had to pay a stiff fine for allegedly hooting during the anthem.  Not only that, his passport was confiscated.  In India, anyone who disrespects national symbols can be prosecuted under The Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act of 1971.

I am not criticizing the government of India; I am too unfamiliar with the context in which this law was passed.  But I'm pleased that the U.S. doesn't have any regulation even remotely similar--for what could be more un-American than this law, the very title of which is an outrage to American sensibilities?

C.  In Russia, one is required by law to stand during the national anthem.  A recent bill has been passed, as yet unsigned by Putin, that specifies a jail term for up to three years for mocking the national anthem, including changing or making fun of the lyrics.

When I was a pre-teen, I wrote a parody of the U.S. anthem.  We all knew the mocking phrase,  "Jose can you see any bedbugs on me?"  I decided to complete the lyric in that vein:

Jose can you see/any bedbugs on me/if you can't see them rant/perhaps you need glasses--I forget the second stanza, so we will proceed to the ending: Right now on my head/see them bury their dead/Hear them groan in their home/though most are unwed/Jose, all these bedbugs/ are getting me down/Take a few, start a zoo/on your mangified crown!

A silly version, no doubt, but if silly poems were punishable by time in prison, there would have to be more prisons in the U.S. than there are fast-food joints.

Would a pimply kid like I was then be put in jail in Russia for writing a parody of the Russian national anthem?  What American would like to find out?

These three examples are three among many around the world; there are, unfortunately, many that are far worse.

2. The Fourth Amendment

Another reason for Americans to be proud!  This is the amendment that guarantees the right of citizens to be "secure in their persons," and protects them from "unreasonable searches."

One egregious example here: I met a lady who escaped from Nazi Germany just in time.  She told me that she had no idea that she was Jewish until the Nazis determined that she was.  If she had remained in Germany, an inevitable knock would have come to the door, while she and her family were sleeping.

Today, dissidents are thrown in jail in China.  In Russia, a recent NY Times article reported that opponents of Putin are beginning to disappear.

Next time you think that members of Congress are acting abominably--which, admittedly, many of them are--be consoled by the fact that they're only trying to verbally destroy their opponents.

We do indeed have many reasons to stand during our national anthem--including the freedom to remain sitting.

Conclusion

Now that I'm older, I feel I can put the United States' positives and negatives into better perspective.  As an amateur student of history, it is clear to me that there has never been a major power in history that didn't occasionally, and often more than occasionally, behave abominably.  This does not provide an excuse for abuses of power; it does, however, provide context--While protesting the minuses, one should not forget the pluses. If its minuses and pluses add up to zero or less, that country is a bad place in which to live.  I don't think we have reached that point in the United States, and I hope we never will.  

Good laws need to be practiced in good faith, or they risk being reduced to mere words on paper.  In the case of the First Amendment, first-amendment behavior of the citizenry is essential.  Free speech means that if you protest something, you tacitly acknowledge that you might be wrong; the same thing applies to anyone who protests that specific protest.  Free speech means that all views should be out in the open; the diamonds, burnished by public discourse, will eventually outshine the fakes. If, however, the "other side" demonizes and slanders its opponents; if the "other side" dehumanizes the protester and reacts with anger instead of with a well-thought out counter protest, democracy is being undermined.  

 Unfortunately, there is a lot of fake jewelry being forced on  Americans by fellow Americans these days. Regarding Mr. Kaepernick's protest, many responses were very appropriate.  You don't have to agree with him, good comments asserted; the right to protest is sacrosanct.  I was pleased to discover that the management of Mr. Kaepernick's football team strongly defends his First Amendment rights.  As might be expected, there have been vile and vulgar comments against the quarterback as well.

The police union of the Santa Ana police deportment has threatened to no longer supply security to 49ers games if the team doesn't discipline Mr. Kaepernick.  Since security is provided by police volunteers, they have a right not to volunteer.  But the idea that the team should abrogate Mr. Kaeprnick's First Amendment rights is, well, just about as anti-American as you can get.

As a democracy and a major power, the United States will always be the subject of protest and celebration.  There have been terrible abuses--the fact that Congress has been bought off by the NRA and refuses to pass any form of gun control in a country prone to violence is nothing short of disgusting.  This is a reason to sit down during the national anthem if there ever was one--in my opinion, at least.  That the First Amendment is still in effect, however, is a reason to stand proudly.  I firmly believe that if there aren't a few who remain sitting during the national anthem, we run the danger of complacency and conformity; what we need is engaged determination to do the most important thing of all, namely to work towards the day when the words"liberty, equality and justice for all" become an accurate description of the way we are treated and the way we treat everyone else.

When a man or a woman acts according to his or her conscience, it is always a cause for celebration.  What should be the American response to Mr Kapernick's protest, whether one agrees with it or not?  Two words come to mind.  Thank you.