1/14/23
Newsletter #219
The Crack of Dawn
In April of 1959, four months after the Cuban revolution, Cuban leader Fidel Castro visited America. Having not yet declared himself a Communist, no one was quite sure what America’s relationship with Cuba would be. But Fidel was young and charismatic and America treated him like a rock star. The highlight of his trip was a visit to the Bronx Zoo. Fidel hopped the fence into the enclosure of the Bengal Tiger. Castro petted the giant cat and everybody thought he was terrific.
To both annoy and educate my hardheaded, right-wing father, I once said to him, “You do realize that historians in the future will pay far more attention to Fidel Castro than any of the nine U.S. presidents who served during Castro’s tenure.” Just as I’d hoped, my father immediately became apoplectic, stating, “That’s not true!” I said, “Fidel inspired revolutions all over Africa. About a dozen countries threw off the yoke of European colonialism that they’d been living under for two hundred years and proclaimed their independence. Fidel Castro, and his cohort, Che Guevara, are considered heroes by millions of people. You can buy Che t-shirts all over the world. Name one of those nine American presidents who is considered a hero by anyone?” The best my dear old dad could come up with was, “Nixon opened up China.” I nodded, “Yes, he did. You see anyone wearing a Nixon t-shirt?” These late political discussions with my dad were the highlight of our relationship. The farther right he went, the easier it was to irritate him.
And since I’m off on a political rant, which is not what this newsletter is about, let me share an observation. Although the Republicans don’t have a platform – they’re not for anything; they’re only against things – there seems to be something of a consensus that the American government is screwing them, can no longer be trusted, and must be drastically changed. I don’t believe that any president, Republican or Democrat, ever brought that up as an issue before Ronald Reagan. True or not, until that time we Americans were reasonably united in our belief that we had the best government in the whole world. Suddenly, Reagan convinced half the population that their own government had grown cancerously out of control and was now out to get them. And the result of taking that approach is that Republicans now feel like victims – their own country is against them, including the media. This attitude has not only persisted, it’s intensified.
Bill Maher brought up a good point that I’m all for. Stop telling me what you don’t like about America, and please tell me what you do like. I’m a big fan of the United States. There’s no other place on Earth like it. And we’re extremely lucky that in 1776, when the entire population of the country was a mere 2.5 million people, and in Europe, Americans were thought of as ignorant, backwoods, hicks, we happened to have the eight smartest men in the world with a common dream – freedom from both monarchy and autocracy – a thing called democracy. This may be hard to swallow, but these eight men were white, and half of them owned slaves. Most of them were not religious, and several were avowed Atheists. But that we were lucky enough to have at the same time: Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Benjamin Rush and James Monroe, is a miracle. There are now 350 million Americans and we don’t have eight people that smart. Benjamin Franklin may now seem like some cartoon-like character with breeches and round glasses, but he was considered in his own lifetime to be the greatest scientist in the entire world.
That these astonishingly smart men were able to not only throw off the colonial binds of the largest, empire-driven monarchy in the world, but then conceive and implement a democratic government that is still functioning 250 years later, is humanity’s greatest achievement, so far. America, fuck yes.
With all due respect to Ronald Reagan as both a lifeguard and an actor, I think he started something pernicious in politics – self-hatred and victimhood. Ronald Reagan was not a good president; Ronald Reagan played a good president.
Please pardon my rant. Have a lovely day.