I guess you could say I became politically \u201caware\u201d in the summer of 1968.\u00a0\u00a0I was always interested in politics; at four I was wearing a 1960 \u201cKennedy\u201d button.\u00a0\u00a0We went to see President Johnson speak in 1967, and I was shocked at the black turtle-necked protestors from Antioch College who dared to interrupt him.\u00a0\u00a0And Dad introduced us to Vice President Humphrey on the tarmac at the Dayton Airport.\u00a0\u00a0But in August of 1968, I broke my arm.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The front wheel came off my bike in mid-pedal, and the bike flipped completely over on top of me.\u00a0\u00a0I knew, right at that second, my right wrist was broken \u2013 bent in a direction I hadn\u2019t seen before.\u00a0\u00a0Dad took me to the orthopedic:\u00a0\u00a0they had me hold a bar on the wall with my right hand and hang my elbow down from it.\u00a0\u00a0I remember the nurse saying \u201cI hate this sound\u201d, and had just enough time to wonder what she meant.\u00a0\u00a0Then the doctor grabbed my arm and set the bone \u2013 the snap \u2013 and the pain.\u00a0\u00a0It was the 1960\u2019s, no need for painkillers, just snap, pop, and it was in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t even have time to try out my new Second Class Scout profanity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They casted my arm, elbow locked at ninety degrees, and sent me home with orders to keep it elevated for a week. I missed the Summer League Swim Meet, where I was scheduled to \u201cclean up\u201d at the top of the twelve year-old age group. All I could do was sit on the family room couch, my arm on top of my painted Boy Scout beer box (where I kept clothes at Scout Camp), and watch TV. It was the week of the Democratic Convention in Chicago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back then it was gavel to gavel coverage, twenty-four hours of riots and disorder and verbal fights on the floor of the convention. The Democratic Party was without President Johnson, Bobby Kennedy shot dead in a Los Angeles hotel hallway, and a chasm between the Johnson war supporters, the Kennedy\/McCarthy anti-war Democrats, and the students in the streets of Chicago chanting \u201cThe whole world is watching\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Humphrey got the nomination, but was never able to unite the party. Republican Richard Nixon promised a quick peace settlement in Vietnam, but we all knew he was lying (it wasn\u2019t until five years later, that a deal was actually reached). What we didn\u2019t know was that his campaign was actively interfering with the ongoing peace talks in Paris. They didn\u2019t want an October \u201csurprise\u201d that might tip the election in Humphrey\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a close election on the first Tuesday of November in 1968. It wasn\u2019t until the middle of the next day that the votes were finalized enough to declare a winner. I was sitting in Mr. Schnapp\u2019s 7th<\/sup> grade math class at Van Buren Junior High School in Kettering, Ohio, when the principal made the announcement: Richard Nixon won. It seemed like the whole school cheered: Kettering was a very Republican suburb at the time. I put my head down on my desk, near tears. How could America survive four years of Richard Nixon, four years of division, four more years of war?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Close to 2 million Vietnamese died after Nixon won office, and over 58,000 Americans. Elections have consequences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That was the first Presidential election that shook my faith in American decision making. The second was twelve years later, when a glib actor turned Governor of California won an overwhelming victory over my former boss, Jimmy Carter. Ronald Reagan used uplifting oratory, describing the United States as a \u201c\u2026Shining city on a hill\u201d. But his real agenda was to turn America over to private industry. He sacked the air traffic controllers, he \u201cfreed education\u201d from Federal interference by carving $10 billion out of the Federal funding, he ignored the AIDS epidemic because it was a \u201cgay disease\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The third faith-shaking election for me was in 2000, when George W Bush won the Presidency by one vote (the Supreme Court ruled in his favor five Republican Justices to Four Democrats). It seemed to me the \u201cwill of the people\u201d didn\u2019t matter anymore, it was simply who could more effectively pull the levers of power. It didn\u2019t hurt Bush that his brother was the Governor of Florida, the state in question. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On September 11th<\/sup>, 2001, I \u201cunited\u201d under George Bush.\u00a0\u00a0But a few years later, after the atrocities at Abu Gharib and the private profit-taking in the Iraq war and the Defense Department, my \u201cfirst impression\u201d of Bush was still the most accurate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And last night, I came face to face with the fourth time that my belief in America is shaken.\u00a0\u00a0Yes, I know the 2024 election results have been well known for months.\u00a0\u00a0But last night I watched President Biden\u2019s \u201cexit interview\u201d with Lawrence O\u2019Donnell on MSNBC<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0And right after, the ad came on about \u201cgavel to gavel\u201d Inauguration Day coverage on Monday.\u00a0\u00a0And I realized, that now, at my advance age of sixty-eight, I am faced with four years of Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi, of Elon Musk and Steven Miller, of inhumanity at the border, and watching the rich get richer, especially if the rich is named Trump.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Four years to a twelve year-old seemed like forever, a full third of a life.\u00a0\u00a0But four years now (a nineteenth of my life) stills seems like forever; four years of \u201cMaking America Backward Again\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0At the end, if 2028 is the end; how much will we have to do to get America back on the \u201cThe Arc of the Moral Universe bending towards justice\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t hate America. But I hate the narrow decision that puts these oligarchs in control of our Nation. President Biden last night, characterized his whole political career as fighting against \u201cbullies\u201d, like the those that bullied a scrawny stuttering kid from Scranton, Pennsylvania. A slim margin of Americans have put the \u201cbullies\u201d in control now: to bully the migrants and minorities, the disabled and the disenfranchised, the queer and the quiet. That\u2019s the America of Donald Trump, now back for a second, more experienced, and more vindictive term in office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t hate America.\u00a0\u00a0But it\u2019s hard today to see the good, when we stand on the cusp of this awful period of darkness.\u00a0\u00a0I want to go back to Mr. Schnapp\u2019s math class, and put my head down on the desk.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0I won\u2019t write about this inauguration;\u00a0\u00a0I can\u2019t watch it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Faith<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Head Down<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Can’t Watch<\/h3>\n\n\n\n