A Time for Thanksgiving – Visiting the World War II Museum

One hopes that some Americans remember the origins of what we celebrate on the fourth Thursday of each November – the Pilgrims’ survival after landing at Plymouth Rock in 1620.  Their sea voyage from England had been harrowing, and the avoidance of starvation once ashore had been a close call.  But they persevered and gave thanks to God and their Indian neighbors with a feast of gratitude.

Today, however, the holiday is more likely to elicit thoughts of the beginning of the Christmas season, family gatherings and copious food consumption.  I’ll concede that each of these aspects has a positive feature yet none captures the depth of the dangers overcome which generated the intense Thanksgiving of 1621 or after World War II.

Looking back, one is inclined to see America’s survival and successes as fore-ordained.  Wasn’t it meant to be?  Perhaps.  But in each of these historical events (and I’ll include the Civil and Cold Wars), the outcome was not seen then as certain to end well. 

Visit the World War II Museum in New Orleans, as The Sensible Conservative did recently, and you’ll see what I mean.   The facility - part museum, displaying artifacts of European, African and Pacific battles, and part Disney World “you-are-there” immediacy, with visual and sound effects – is the site of a stirring and highly emotional experience.

One cannot walk through – and absorb – the Normandy and Guadalcanal presentations, among others, without appreciating that wars do not follow scripts.  Outcomes can be quite unpredictable.  Actual events can challenge even the strongest faith.

The horrendous losses endured, and inflicted, by American forces in Okinawa (intended to be the last major stepping stone to the invasion of Japan) were recognized as but a fore-taste of what awaited.  [A somber projection at the time:  the US would need two hundred and fifty thousand body bags for its dead if the invasion went forward.]

Some see President Harry Truman’s decision to drop atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as morally questionable.  Visiting the museum makes obvious that there was no other choice.

The end of World War II – and the survival of the Western democracies – generated unmitigated Thanksgiving in November of 1945.  That was a gratitude without reservation

The Return of Racial Labels

In the 1950s and before, it was common for the news media to identify those accused of crimes by race, as in “John Doe, a negro, was arrested yesterday by police”. 

The labeling was certainly meant to be pejorative, at least by some, and left the impression that members of some races were more inclined to criminal activity than others.

With the arrival of the sixties and increased racial sensitivity, the practice largely ceased (at least outside the South), and properly so.  The race of an alleged law-breaker is not relevant; the individual, not his heritage, is responsible for his conduct. 

How ironic, therefore, is it that the liberal media has fixated on the race of individuals when there is a violent confrontation between a police officer who happens to be white and a criminal suspect who happens to be black.  Think of the “wall to wall” media coverage, in print and over the air, of the police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri.  The phrase “a white police officer shot an unarmed black man” was the favored summary of the story.  What exactly did that mean?  The police officer, a white racist, targeted an unarmed man (thus posing no threat) because he was black?

Leave aside the fact that even the Obama Administration – never chary of ascribing racial motivations to opponents’ actions – put the lie to that canard.  Do you read a story about a white police officer named as such shooting a suspect of the same race?  Of course not.  Race is simply not relevant. So why is its relevance presumed in police shooting stories involving different races without any evidence to support it? 

Racial prejudice against blacks was rampant in the 1950s.  Press stereotyping reinforced it.  Are we now in the era of prejudice against whites who are police officers which is reinforced by negative stereotypes by the liberal media?

The bigotry is not only against white law enforcement officers.  Think of Barack Obama’s derisive reference in 2008 to white blue collar workers “clinging to their guns and religion”.  (The 2016 election is a reminder that they did not forget the slander.)

Were we then – and now – to believe that black workers in the same economic status were any less distressed by the loss of employment opportunities?  What did the workers’ race have to do with it? 

And to think that many white Americans were attracted to Barack Obama’s candidacy because they thought his presidency would lessen America’s racial tensions… it resulted in the opposite.  

Shock and Horror on the Left – “Explaining” Trump’s Win

The idea that liberal elites – politicians and media members – live in an insulated bubble is not a myth.  In that restricted space, they are always right.  Those outsiders who do not recognize that are looked down upon, ignored and worse.

No wonder so many on the Left viewed the election results with dismay.  How is it possible that there could be so many wrong-headed, even malevolent, people in America?  To their credit, a few were reflective, noting that they were guilty of group think, like the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein.

But for most, they took no blame for their condescending, arrogant view that was best summoned up during the campaign by the Democratic nominee herself:  half of Trump’s supporters could be “put in a basket of deplorables”. 

For New York advertising executive Donny Deutsch, a frequent on MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough’s program, Trump’s success meant that fear of the status quo was the cause.  [No, it wasn’t fear; it was anger with the disconnect between what Americans wanted – not Obamacare, for instance – and what Washington gave them.]

For others on the Left, the results were illuminating in an oddly comforting way for them.  For instance, Dan Rodericks, a Baltimore Sun columnist, wrote

“The eyes of more Americans are now wide open to just how much racism, sexism and ethnic and religious intolerance remains in this country.”

Such opinions simply reflect the Leftist contempt for a large segment of the American populace:  “there is plainly something wrong with them since they don’t agree with me.”

Such views are so preposterous – and twisted – it’s hard to suppress laughter. 

But, alas, those who refuse to stray from the ideological path are notoriously likely to be blindsided when they intersect with reality.  Some will recognize they should have paid attention; most will simply blame the outsiders for not being on the same road. 

Note:  Along the lines of the biblical proverb that there is nothing new under the sun, consider this: 

It was reported, after the 1968 election in which Richard Nixon prevailed over Hubert Humphrey that a New York City socialite was perplexed by the results.  “I don’t know how Nixon won; none of my friends voted for him.”

It can be shocking, indeed, that there are people who live outside the bubble with different views.  That doesn’t make them unworthy of respect or attention.  And that is why Donald Trump, as vulgar and crude and insensitive as he has been, is President-elect of the United States.

Hobson’s Choice

The Sensible Conservative will vote Republican down the line and leave it at that. 

A Hobson’s choice is defined, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, as “the necessity of accepting one of two or more equally objectionable alternatives”.  

On one hand, the voters are confronted with a choice between a person, by policy endorsements, who is left-wing, and who would come into office with a storm of corruption raining down upon her.  On the other, is an individual who has little acquaintance with what it means to be either Republican or civil. 

One candidate is plainly no good – the other may merely prove to be not quite as bad.

God Bless America.  We surely need Him.