JackTReason

While we struggle through the effects of this pandemic, and deal with the legions of nut-cases who support ludicrous conspiracies and outrageous attempts to overturn the election result, as well as a President who seems increasingly detached from reality and appears willing to engage in overt sedition and treason to avoid admitting his loss; we must not lose focus that there are actors around the world who are watching for such a opportunity.

Would this be the right time for Russia to assault and occupy Ukraine and other former Soviet block states? How about China launching at last that war of submission against Taiwan? 

Or skip those two major long-term areas of international concern and contemplate the numerous smaller spots of tension where would be belligerents wait for American attention to be distracted homeward, allowing them the opportunity for wars of conquest in their own region?

Will the threat of civil war or unrest open doors for conflict in other locations?

I suppose that if I am considering this, it is likely that trained experts are aware as well. But will the discord and disruption to the country that Trump is sowing, intentionally it seems, allow for wider disturbances? Will either these or US civil conflict become the catalyst for a larger war? Will our 2020 elections become the Franz Ferdinand moment of the 21st century? Are we living in our Sarajevo moment?

I don’t have the answer to these questions. I voice them to help make people aware that the divide in our country can effect more than just us.

I’m a history minded fellow and sometimes I forget that others are not. I tend to study history more than most, but not as much as many others. And there is a sliding scale of interest that ranges across the vast depth of history. Even the most studious have blind spots where our knowledge is weak. Still others have almost no knowledge of a wide swath of our collective history yet are remarkably well informed on a single area that is of interest to them. When I talk about the past and look for lessons to be learned, I am aware that some several or even many are better informed than am I, but still try to write to those who know less.

Today I address authoritarianism. Right now. Right now it is raging around the world. In countries from east to west people are accepting and even warmly embracing authoritarian leaders in ways that trouble those of us who favor democratic rule. I won’t bother to name countries, but strongmen dictators have found themselves in power in countries that had once shunned such concentrated power. And while this isn’t universal, it has grown in the past several years. And even a glance at history through this lens informs us that this recurs in some irregular cycle. I haven’t cracked the books to see just how often this happens, nor to find the papers that explain it in depth, nor do I pretend to know what exactly happens that make a democratic people turn toward dictators. Fear, perhaps, but that is too vague for a real understanding.

But here we are in the most democratic country, the country that invented the modern version of democracy, facing a rabid lust for a dictator by close to half our people. It is frightening. The idea of democracy is to spread power as a check against despotism. Once power concentrates it is damn hard to split it up again.

But we’ve seen this before in America, and perhaps shining a light on this will help those who seek it understand what they are lusting for.

During the 1930s the Great Depression ravaged not only America, but the whole world. People became desperate and often began to doubt the ability of their democratic institutions to address their privations and fears. From country to country they accepted or adopted authoritarian individuals who promised to make things right. There are plenty of history books that will explain each of these cases in depth, and still others to show how doomed the results were in most of those cases. But the string of truth running through all of them was that the individual in question was really seeking power and glory for themselves, as opposed to genuine relief for their constituents. The most famous of these built countries that required war and conquest to survive the changes made. Through the clear glass of history we can see that the people brought death and destruction on themselves in adopting a dictator to lead them.

America was not immune to this. In the thirties it was fascism that we saw grow in Europe. And while it took hold under that name in Spain and Italy, and as National Socialism in Germany, the same fascist desires were growing in Great Britain and the United States as well. There was an organization called the German American Bund. It was a straight up Nazi party in the USA. It boasted 25,000 members and was meant to be sympathetic to the Nazi party in Germany. They even wore similar uniforms and advocated for similar policies.
But this group was limited to German-Americans. But even amongst those who had no ancestry to share with them there was admiration for the dictators of Europe. There were Americans who sympathized with the Nazis before, during, and even after the war. Across the country people of all stripes were turning toward what they perceived as strong, nationalist leaders that made promises of greatness. People were told to blame immigrants and those who looked different. There was always an “other” that was the enemy. Populists gained greater influence. But always it was the power and glory they sought for themselves that drove them. We managed to keep our democratic government structure through all of that, and while people revered President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he resisted the temptation to establish himself as dictator. I say resisted because in the face the crisis at hand, he considered taking powers not afforded by democracy.

But our establishment of democracy in America was a fight against a despot. It was our desire to rule ourselves through collective agreement that prompted us to throw off the yoke of tyranny of a solitary and powerful king. We saw that concentrated power was prone to abuse and corruption. As it was, the people of America, then colonists of Great Britain, had a bad king. But rather than hoping that the next one would be better, or seeking to implant their own, they rebelled and created a country where no one man made the rules.

And we have today organizations lauding those patriots who bore arms and fought to create this nation. We recognize that it wasn’t all of our citizens in agreement to gain independence from the king. No, many of the those in the colonies were loyal subjects of the crown and wished to remain so. We even today have groups that claim (erroneously) that only three-percent of the people fought for the new country. Yet it is true that amongst the population there was a great many who would rather keep the king telling them what to do. Sure, many of these were folks simply preferring the status quo to the struggles of rebellion, but many remained loyal to the crown even after independence was achieved. People went to Canada or back to England.

It is ironic that today many of those who ardently support the authoritarianism that Donald Trump espouses, claim allegiance to the patriotism of the founding armies. They are crying for freedom while supporting the opposite. They are indulging their fantasies of kinship to those who threw off the yoke of regency and tyranny, while proclaiming fidelity to a man trying to subvert the democratic process to retain power. They call on the ghosts of the founding fathers who began a government of the people, while they endorse an authoritarian would-be dictator.

Make no mistake, authoritarianism, by whatever name we call it, has risen its ugly head around the world again. It was the fascists and the nazis then and by other names today, but it seeks to take back what it lost when this country was founded.

The words of President Lincoln ring in my head today. … that government of the People, by the People, for the People, shall not perish from the earth.

As I start writing this piece it is the 79th anniversary of the Japanese attack on US naval and army forces at Pearl Harbor, Oahu, in the (then) US Territory of Hawaii.
I won’t talk about the attack itself, nor the war as a whole. I identify the attack because it was this that brought a state of war between the two countries, and then between the US and Italy, Germany, and several others in the days to follow. In short, after World War II had been going for three years, it was this that brought America into the greater conflict in a complete sense.

But what I want to write about now is not the battles in theater, but the battle of the people at home.

This writing is prompted by an online exchange I had recently over a post asking for examples of “First World Problem” responses to the pandemic we are facing, and in particular in the US. For those few of you who don’t know the expression, first world problem is used to describe situations that would only be called difficult amongst people who faced no actual privation. An example might be a person who says her life is ruined because a store sold out of a particular handbag. Meanwhile billions are facing hunger on a daily basis. In comparison, such complaints seem the acme of self-centeredness and shallowness. A problem that millions would wish they had. And while that expression was generally used to separate those of us in the affluent first world with those in the poverty stricken third world, that divide is increasingly less geographic.

In regard to the pandemic, while we have tens of thousands of Americans lining up at food banks, and millions unemployed and facing eviction and poverty, and hundreds of thousands are dying, some others think that what is really a problem is that they can’t go to the movies or go to a bar to watch the big football game. To the rest of us watching the crisis unfold, people like this seem to deserve our scorn for lack of empathy.

What did we learn as children? Be grateful for your food, as there are starving children in Africa, or Asia, or whatever country was a useful reference for our parents. They weren’t being trite when they said this, but simply trying to convey what they understood to be true. A decent human being accepts the limits of their pantry as a blessing, and wants their children to learn it is their duty to aid that suffering in some way. And to begin they must weigh their complaints against the conditions of those less fortunate.

In any case, in the discussion above, a person was defending those seemingly trivial complaints because they were real losses to their normalcy and effected their happiness. In short, those who couldn’t dine in at a restaurant were actually suffering real trauma.

So I thought I would reflect our country during a national crisis of the past, and I chose WWII because of a coincidence of calendar. It is December 7th.

The world had been in the throes of the Great Depression when the war started. And while it is true that many in the USA didn’t suffer much or at all because of their personal or family wealth or their fortunate positions of employment, they were quite aware of the millions that were. They mostly felt empathy for those who were suffering and sought ways to help; but even if the cold-hearted amongst them didn’t, they had the good sense to refrain from comments that would reflect poorly on themselves. And when the war came to America with the Pearl Harbor attack, the country largely circled the wagons. Huge numbers of men enlisted in the armed forces almost immediately, and the nations industrial might, already having begun large-scale production of war goods, turned the dial up to full blast.

What followed was shortages of the goods and services that normal society relies on. But for a people already accustomed to going without or watching others in those straits, they largely took rationing and other measures in stride. Sure there were those who cheated, gamed the system, and continued their lives as they had before; but most of the country accepted their state. Their sons and the sons of friends were in uniform facing death. They watch newsreels showing bombed out cities east and west. When they felt privation they checked themselves in thanks for their relative safety. They weren’t being bombed. They weren’t refugees. They weren’t facing death. And they mostly all knew these things. People accepted that life was different and rose to the challenge. They grew victory gardens, the engaged in recycling drives, and wore their old clothes for longer, and they made do with what they had. They were part of something bigger than their own wants, and held a dim view of those who focused only on themselves.

Perhaps as a child of those who went through this I learned different lessons than those I see around me today. Perhaps it simply doesn’t occur to those who are complaining about some minor inconvenience of how awful that sounds in the face of the crisis we face. But for those who say we must acknowledge that it is real trauma for them whether or not it pales in comparison to the suffering of others I say no. I say that they need a metaphorical slap in the face if not a literal one. Their behavior is selfish and inconsiderate and it needs to be called out sharply and directly.

Are their hurt feelings more of a trauma than the tears of a hungry child? Should we be worried about the feelings of someone who can’t recognize the suffering and hardship all around them?

I joined the Navy when I was seventeen years old. At bootcamp I got a dose of regimentation and discipline that stunned me. My feelings got hurt quite a bit. I adapted to the conditions of military life fairly easily, but their were others who adjusted more quickly, and those who didn’t. There were even a good sized chunk who couldn’t cope and were pushed out. Unfit for service. Most of us grew up, and right fast. And we had little sympathy for those who didn’t. Manhood demanded the release of childishness. Crying was no longer an acceptable response to difficulty.

And during WWII there were those who couldn’t cope. But people came to recognize the difference between those who needed their help, and those who needed that slap in the face. Then, as now, the time has passed for coddling those who whine about how life has changed. There are too many people who need our actual help for us to be suffering those who don’t but seek our sympathy nonetheless.

Metaphorically, and actually, people need to grow up.

Regarding this latest decision by the US Supreme Court.State lawmakers have tended to view churches in how they are used, while religious leaders view them from subjective importance.The typical church experience consists of sitting in close proximity to others for extended periods while repeating prayers, often in a call and response ritual. In this way they are more similar to theaters and arenas – places where the spread of airborne diseases is greatly increased.And while many churches recognize this and hold there services virtually, others equate the in-person religious experience to be a necessity akin to food and medicine. Thus they compare the church to grocery stores and pharmacies.But people use grocery stores and pharmacies much differently. People tend to get in and out of those latter places as quickly as possible and with as little interaction with others as possible.That millions of people have survived just fine without church for decades but couldn’t survive for even a small fraction of that time without food or medicine seems to prove that the church experience is not a necessity, regardless of how much importance people claim it has. Like going to the movies or to see a basketball game, the necessity of attending a house of worship is hard to argue for from a use standpoint.And when you see religious institutions argue for conduct that has been shown to promote the spread of this virus – even though many others are not – I cannot help but suspect that what they are after is control over parishioners and access to their purses. At the heart of this may be nothing more than keeping their religious power over people, even to their detriment.

It is one week after election day. The obvious reality to anyone not in the cult is that the race is over and the results show Donald John Trump was defeated. But Trump hasn’t conceded and now he is trying to snag a win with a Hail Mary. He thinks he can get enough traction about fraud to convince legislatures in Republican controlled states to overturn the vote and send their own electors in place. It might not even work, he’d need a lot of help, and there are players missing. I’ve mentioned this before but would be conspirators to crime often get cold feet. In other words, Trump can’t pull it off because people don’t think it will work and aren’t dying on this fence. But he sure can try and he can sure do a lot of vindictive damage, which I will add seems just like him to do.

Trump is leaving office likely facing federal and state charges of one sort or another. Perhaps many. He’s trying to avoid jail, and more importantly a trial. A trial eats up money and time he would use for his next deal. What comes after this for Trump? Nothing good unless he and other parties can come to an arrangement.

What does he want? Easy, he and his family face no charges at any level. Not for anything. Taxes, self-dealing, fraud, everything is off the table. He could want other things, including bankruptcy protection, but he needs immunity.

What does Trump have to offer? Peace, I suppose is the best way to describe it. He has a virtual army of men with rifles that would commit mayhem on his word. Many of these men have organized themselves into gangs which they self-style as militia. Trump might well be able to plunge the country into civil war. His back is against the wall and he fights like a rat. Right now he is making a public pitch that the election is invalid because he feels he couldn’t possibly lose. He cries cheat and his core base eat it up. And for all the love of country those people profess, many of Trump’s base hold allegiance to him first. And they cannot see the difference. They have literally embossed Trump’s name and likeness across the face the United States Flag and stuck it at the ends of their driveways. And even if some of them get cold feet, there are so many others that are waiting to start.

The short of it is that he can unleash a great terror on opponents both political and societal.

He could offer to take that away. Though a civil war here would more resemble the one in Spain than the one we had in America, it would still be a bloody mess. An ideological war between left and right. (Mostly.)

Meanwhile in the Senate.

What about the Senate? What’s going on there? The Senate race North Carolina has been conceded. The Democrat conceded to the Republican as a gesture of cooperation. But this is larger than that. It guarantees a Republican Senate for the next two years. With leadership knowing that they have control and therefor can strictly limit legislation, there is less incentive to go all in with Trump and join his executive coup attempt.

I’ll go one step further. I think it is possible that this is part of a deal that is mostly complete in detail. The nuts and bolts are that we get free of Trump and the fascist future he represents, and avoid open rebellion; but we lose the ability to get a lot of progressive work done, and we can’t get national revenge on Trump.

But should we make that deal?

“We’d be sending a message to all future would be dictators that they won’t be punished for trying.” I’ve heard that too. I’ve probably even said it. But the reality is that anyone with the power to try doing it isn’t concerned about punishment if he fails.

The ugly side is we might face a civil war. Regardless of what happens to Trump we may anyway. Trump was an answer to their problems for a lot of people. They still have the same problems now. But Trump could certainly plug the cord. It would certainly be better to give us a chance to bend things back to a more unified focus. America against the virus to start, and go from there. Conflict of such a nature should be avoided unless the actual Republic is under threat.

And Trump has some control over this.

It is naive to think they won’t make a deal. Just telling Trump to get out and daring him to start a war is a bad strategy. Make a deal and he concedes. And whatever deal it better disallow Trump stoking unrest or fomenting rebellion in the future. Make that deal and we get peace and a chance to unify. Because the alternative is we kill each other.

I hear some people are still thinking that we are rushing to conclude that the election is decided.
That Democrats are pushing our national acceptance of a Biden victory before the results are certain. This isn’t true.
Of course there are still votes to count, but not enough to change the outcome.
Of course there will be at least one recount, but we have a long history of recounts and they have never moved enough votes as separate the candidates today, nor is it likely they will.
Of course the states electors haven’t met to vote, and the states haven’t certified the vote; but again, the long history of our democratic process shows that this too will be followed like the ones in the past.
Leaders from around the world are calling to congratulate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris already, because they have seen us do elections for many generations. The process is normal.

No one is rushing to judgment. Except the President when he claimed victory before the votes were counted.

But the thing is, this is how previous elections have gone. The votes are cast and when there aren’t enough uncounted votes left to change where things stand, the Associated Press “calls” the election. In that they predict what can’t change mathematically.
Just like they have done in elections going back a long time. No, their call isn’t official, but it doesn’t need to be because it is a reflection of reality. The official part is legal formality.
By now in any other election the loser would have conceded to the will of the people and offered a wish of success to the winner. It isn’t close enough to do otherwise.

While the President has the right to challenge close calls, his doing so under the circumstances of so great a difference demonstrates his mistrust of American democracy. Changing the outcome could only be done by either demonstrating with factual evidence that he is right to mistrust it, or by staging an executive coups with the aid of courts and legislatures.
But for all the talk by radical cultists, when time comes for the necessary political actors to throw their hands in, they are unwilling to do so. Is it fear of failure and prison? Is it fear of the civil unrest that would follow? Is it love of our democratic values? Or is it simply political expediency? After all, the Republicans gained a few Representatives and may well hold the Senate. Add to that conservative federal courts at many levels and they probably don’t think trying to keep Trump in office worthwhile.

I am reminded of the end of the movie Seven Days In May, staring Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Frederic March, and other stars. When the leader of the coup was exposed and confronted, his sycophants and toadies lost their nerve.

Perhaps one day memoirs will reveal some similar tension in the White House. Perhaps Trump and his capos were ready to cross that line. Maybe they are counting oaths to see who will join, and finding insufficient support. I don’t know, but for a long time it smelled like the plan they were hatching.
But Trump hasn’t called for an uprising. He isn’t winking at his “2nd Amendment people.” He hasn’t tried to take custody of ballots, as was suggested by his ally Roger Stone. He didn’t send federal police and brown shirt “militias” into the streets to chase away voters. And the calls his lackeys are making for state legislatures to dismiss the votes of their citizens and offer their own slate of electors seem to be gaining zero traction.
The declarations Trump is making about fraud and cheating will only ring and then echo in the minds of his devoted base. The rest of those who supported him are disappointed but accepting.

There is no rush, but there is a process that follows the vote.

Tomorrow we vote.

This is how we decide who will lead us. We vote. And then we count the vote and we go forward with (most) people hoping that whoever wins does a good job. And we keep working to find the best way forward for us all.
There was always disagreement, and there was always agreement too. Keep working on the agreements until things get better.

John Wayne was an arch conservative. Look him up if you didn’t know that. He supported Nixon in the 1960 election for President, but when JFK won, Wayne said that he didn’t vote for Kennedy, but he’s my president now, so I hope he does a good job.

This has been a difficult year for many reasons. We are at each others throats over several things, and nature has chosen now to deliver us a pandemic.

It is times like this we realize that we still have to work together to overcome the problems that we face. And our problems should never be the other citizens because of their politics, religion, or diet.

We have so much to get done and together is how we must do it.

We have had some very tough times in this country. We have disagreed most of the time about something. We’ve even come to blows, with people beaten and killed in the streets; just like now. The Vietnam War and Civil Rights pitted us against each other. The anarchism of one hundred years ago had bombs being set off in the streets. And union men fought bloody fights to gain the working rights and regulations that we have today. And before all of those when the issue of slavery came to a head, we went to war against each other.

And looking back we wish the conflicts had not happened, but it is fairly easy to see that there was a right side in each of those fights. Imperfect yes, but more right than the other. Try to be sure you are on the right side. Many have been wrong.

But we got through all of these things. And together we march toward the future. We’ve never failed unless our unity broke.

Our secret has always been faith in majority rule. It goes to the core of civilization. Majority rule, with protection against abuse of the minority.

Every club we join, every organization formed from the people, we elect governing bodies and trust that more of us will be right most of the time. We make mistakes, and later we correct them. Sometimes that takes awhile. But bit by bit we forge a better country and world.

It is the founding ideal of our Republic. Let We The People choose our representatives and leaders to guide us. Let the losers remember that they would expect to lead if they had won, so they must respect the will of The People when they don’t.

We all think that we have a better idea of what should happen than do others, but we all can’t be right; at least not about the same things. So we compromise and work together. Nobody gets it exactly their way. But the whole effort brings a better country. If it is better for me but not for you, then I lose out on what you would contribute. Our victories must include us all. And often that means us accepting less than we want.
And at our core we get it. We thrive because of, amongst other things, we have faith in the democratic principles that inspired our forefathers.

This is ALL of our country. We can share and work together in spite of our differences. We can forgive each others name calling and ugliness and get on with the work of everyone’s success.

Peace to you all. I’ll see you all after the election.

Jack T Reason.

To some of you good folks who are still planning to vote for Trump.

We all know that some of his supporters are vile people, so know that I am not speaking to them.

I understand the appeal four years ago. Trump was brash and independent. He was going to shake things up and upend the system that you felt had ignored and abandoned you. He would bring his get things done attitude to Washington and make things right.

Yes, you heard the awful things he said about people. You watched him make fun of a disabled man. You listened to him brag about sexually assaulting women. You heard about the porn star. But we’ve all said and done things we weren’t proud of, and you weren’t electing a scoutmaster.

Maybe it rankled you a bit when he called the free press “the enemy of the people.” Because you know that the job of the press is to inform the people of what those in power are doing. Honest and just politicians might not like what the press says about them, but they have nothing to fear from them. Sure, that is what authoritarians and dictators like Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler used to call the press, but you let it slide. Trump was not used to the press and didn’t always say the right thing.

And you put blinders on as things got uglier. The defense of white supremacists, the attack on black Americans and women, snatching babies from refugee mothers at our border and locking them in cages must have slipped past you. Perhaps you just dismissed all that as lies told by Trump haters. Confronting the horror of people fleeing the only homes they have known and throwing themselves on the mercy of the great America, only to be treated like animals and have your children taken away and caged would break the heart of anyone who really thought about it.

Maybe the constant lying and narcissistic behavior was just part of what you got with a guy who was getting things done.

And maybe you became numb to it all and the attacks against lawful protests, the obvious racism, the cozying up to dictators, the working our government for personal profit, etc., etc., etc.

You tried not to think about his draft-dodging during the Vietnam War. After all, it was an unpopular war that many people tried to avoid. And you weren’t going to believe the reports of him calling those who served America “suckers,” and those who were killed “losers,” even though he said as much about genuine American heroes and their families on camera in front of microphones.

You knew when you voted for him that he was uncouth, brash, mean, and dirty; and you cast your ballot for him anyway.

But what you didn’t know then, what few if any of us knew back then, is that he is a psychopath.

A couple weeks ago the FBI and Michigan State Police arrested more than a dozen men for conspiring to kidnap the Governor that that state, as well as launch an armed attack against the state capitol to start a civil war. These domestic terrorists claimed that they were going to “arrest” the Governor and secret her away to Wisconsin for a trial for treason. Never mind the disregard of the Constitution they were supposed to be defending, or any actual crimes.

Trump complained that the Governor didn’t thank him personally, for allowing the FBI to stop the conspiracy. And then this Saturday agreed with a crowd of passionate devotees that they should “lock her up.”

What sane person would do this? Who but a psychopath would continue to fan the flames of lawlessness and violence in the aftermath of so real a threat?

Add to this his unfounded and imagined claims of crimes by his opponents, and his insistence that his Attorney General should invent some charges against those who oppose him, and you have a full-blown lunatic. He believes and repeats wacko conspiracies and threatens retribution against anyone who stands up to him. 

You must take notice of the hundreds, no thousands, of committed Republican politicians, former politicians, retired generals, admirals, and ex-government officials who are all endorsing and voting for Trump’s opponent Joe Biden. This isn’t because they agree with the policies Biden endorses, but because he is an honorable man who will work for good government, and that electing him will stop Trump’s deranged attack against our Republic.

What do they fear? Well, I recently saw a quote online. I don’t recall who it was from, so I apologize for not acknowledging the author, but the quote was,

“Hitler wasn’t Hitler until he had unfettered power.”

Turn away from Trump. Stop dismissing his critics and stop defending his actions.

I have always enjoyed going to the polls on election day. For all the study I’ve done about what people went through so that I may cast a vote and share in the democratic process, I consider voting a sacred honor.

Going back multiple great-grandfathers, voting has been a tradition since the founding of the country. I don’t have the voting records, but as a volunteer in Washington’s Continental Army, I’m sure my ancestor wouldn’t have skipped voting in that first election. Of course he was a property owning white man, so voting would have been his honor and duty.
So I now also vote to honor all of those who had to wait and fight to earn their voting rights. Those who didn’t own property, those who weren’t white, those who weren’t men. To not vote would be to spit in the eyes of all of those too, along with my own ancestors.

For me it is an event to dress for. Often I will don a suit and tie, and shine up a pair of oxfords. At the minimum I’ll appear in a blazer or sport coat, but a tie is always around the collar of a freshly pressed shirt.
I greet the poll workers cheerfully and thank them for taking the time to help with this important cause. And it is so very important. Our entire system of government hinges on us doing so in a free and fair manner.

After getting and completing my ballot I turn it in and collect an “I voted” sticker and proudly wear it for the rest of the day. I used to have a paper that I stuck them to. I lost it somewhere in a move, and have no idea how many stickers were attached. Now, I’ve taken to sticking them on my computer monitor. This is self regulating, as I can’t completely fill the perimeter with them before I need a new monitor. Oh yes, there are votes to cast most every year, and even more then once. There are local elections, votes on milages, primary elections, besides the general. I get them all. It is my sacred duty, remember. I would be shirking my responsibility as a citizen to be unaware of an election. Democracy is a participatory process.

When I was a sailor I often voted absentee. This was fine, I was gone. But I always looked forward to elections where I was home so I could participate in person.
This year is different. Though I expect to be around, I will definitely be staying home. There is a pandemic afoot, and I would like to vote in many more elections in the years to come.

But voting is no less sacred this year. And more important than any in any year of my life. For this year it may well be that the democracy that supports our republic is on the line. As in generations past, Fascism is alive and growing. Oh sure, they aren’t calling it that, but make no mistake,

It is what it is.

But fortune has shined on the state of Michigan. During the last election we passed by voter initiative a law allowing for absentee voting without reason. Previously you had to apply and swear to a reason you couldn’t vote in person. Now, just ask for a ballot and do your duty from the safety of home.

I Dropped my ballot off at the Township Hall the other day. My vote will be cast and counted. Across the country millions more have done or are doing the same.

On Election Day I will be secure in my home away from the scourge of SARS-CoV-2. But I’ll know that I’ve done my part and completed that most sacred duty.

And I will absolutely be wearing a suit.

I enlisted in the U.S. Navy when I was 13 years old. Or at least I tried to. I was a bit large for my age and faked my birth certificate to say I was 18. It didn’t work, as my mother stepped in when the recruiter showed up to take me to AFEES (Armed Forces Examining And Entrance Station.)

But when I was 17 I convinced her to sign permission for me to join for real. It was 1977.

There were many reasons fueling my desire to enlist, from being the last of nine children at home smothering under a parent who didn’t want to let go, to a drifting and directionless view of my future, to my ever unquenchable wanderlust. But more than all of that was my desire to be part of something bigger than myself. Something I saw as necessary and worthy of commitment.
Sure I had those notions of glory and honor that pervade all boys becoming men, and the structure and rigidity of military life sounded great for one without a father who was left largely to raise himself; but I truly wanted to follow in the footsteps of so many American men who put aside individual recognition and became that cog in a gear in a great machine whose whole mission was to protect the rest of the people.

I spent four years on active duty, with part spent aboard a ship based at Norfolk, and the larger portion aboard one at San Francisco.

I won’t sugarcoat the story and pretend that it was all great or that I was the model sailor. I broke some rules and went to Captain’s Mast (non-judicial punishment.) But I managed to reach the rank of Petty Officer Third Class and earned the respect of the men below me and the officers above. Truthfully, prior to my discharge, the ship’s captain wrote to my mother and asked her to try and encourage me to re-enlist. Though I didn’t earn a Good Conduct Medal, my discharge was honorable.

I’ll pass over the part about life at sea and the adventures of a young man visiting exotic places, as well as the dangers encountered and the moments of peril.

I’ll note that this service followed freshly the US experience in Vietnam and the uprising of popular anger that lead to our quitting that war. We all heard stories of returning soldiers being spit on by American anti-war protestors. But I knew that they were a minority who were misguided in laying blame for that war at the feet of those cogs in the gear, and didn’t believe that the country as a whole felt that way.

And though in Norfolk, Virginia and in Alameda, California the townsfolk who had to deal with thousands of drunk and rowdy sailors developed a “Dogs And Sailors Keep Off The Grass” attitude, I knew that the people at large and around the country held a mostly positive attitude toward us for doing our job.

The major events of my enlistment were the Civil War in Yemen and the Iran Hostage Crisis, both of which extended our deployment and raised our level of alert.
But I never witnessed a shot fired in anger, nor engaged an enemy. It was the peacetime Navy that I served in. There were encounters with our adversary of the day, the Soviet Navy, and many storms at sea – some of which certainly could have killed us. But nothing about what we did can be compared to the lives of our forbearers of wars past, or of the dangers faced by uniformed men and women who came later and went to Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iraq again.

When people thank me for my service I feel a slight amount of guilt, because I know that in their eyes there is no distinction between the frontline troops who took fire in combat and those of us who spent our service years in (relative) safety. 

Later, as a civilian mariner – a deck officer on merchant ships, I volunteered again, this time to carry the supplies and munitions the country needed to prosecute the actions of Desert Shield and Desert Storm. I spent the whole of the shooting war in the Persian Gulf, and this time took fire from the enemy in the form of a Scud Missile (it missed.)

But the job I did wasn’t attacking the enemy or defending in a battle. It was supporting the effort. It was holding together a crew of men who were brave enough to volunteer to go, but who were mostly emotionally ill-equipped to be in a war zone.

After the ground forces went in and the battle against Saddam Hussain was won, I saw and talked to a soldier who had been wounded. I met a tank commander who seemed to be coming to terms with how many enemy tanks he had destroyed and how many men had been killed. My hopes for these men to go on to happy lives in peace has never left my mind.

Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 the national support for our women and men at arms has only grown. We are a country that admires and respects those who enlist at a level not seen since the Greatest Generation fought against the fascists.

(Fascists. That is a word I did not think I would ever use outside of a conversation about history. But here we are in 2020 and they are trying to hold sway in America.)

But we as a people are eager to let those who have served their country know that we appreciate their courage, their sacrifice, and the honor they show the country they love. I am with them. Both as a recipient of the thanks (however deserved I am,) and as one who thanks. Perhaps because I know the difference between the support guy in the back who helps and those who took and gave fire, I thank them with a bit more understanding and appreciation for what they have done. And I know that the biggest difference between those who lived and those who died was luck. And that those families who never saw their child, husband, wife, or parent again, or those who welcomed back those who would spend years or their whole lives coping with the damage the war had done to them, deserve our thanks and respect. And they deserve our help.

Maybe none of them truly thought they would be the one killed or wounded, or that the war experience would drive them to suicide or thoughts of same. But they each and all knew that this was bigger than just them. The country. The Constitution. This Republic that has changed the world.

Where am I going with this?

The recent story in the Atlantic Magazine that revealed some of the deplorable things that our President, Donald J. Trump said about those who served and those who were wounded, and those who died in answer to the call of duty to country upset me. It upset me much more than I expected it to. This is because it does not surprise me.

It isn’t a surprise because of the numerous things he has said in front of an open microphone. Both about our acknowledged heroes and the families who survived them.

It isn’t a surprise because he shirked his obligation to serve and used his family money and power to avoid the draft. Our President is a draft dodger. He thinks those who didn’t avoid Vietnam were suckers.

And while I knew about that, and I heard him say such awful things about gold star families and about John McCain, and many other things. And it has been clear for all of the years that he has been in the public eye that he only cares about himself, it is still revolting to hear that it goes beyond disregard for those who served. It is his disdain for our heroes. It is his petty need to never let anyone’s heroics outshine his own self opinion. It is his utter lack of understanding that service to others is the greatest thing we can do.
Service is our highest calling.

And I know that his devoted followers, whether veterans or not, will deny that this is true and continue to attack anyone who disapproves of Trump, but for those of us who are not in his cult we must reject him. We must repudiate him. The name Trump should evermore be synonymous with villain.

Not just for me and the paltry service that I offered, as sincere and effective as it was. But for all those who didn’t have to go but did. And all of those who looked upon this country and our ideals as worthy of sacrifice. And all those who know what it means to serve something bigger than your own desires. And for all of us who look upon a service man or woman and say thank you. You are not suckers. You are not losers.

You are heroes.