Thanksgiving For Grumpy Old Men

Perhaps I’m a masochist, but I find myself listening to a lot of talk radio when I’m driving around for work during the week. The only options in my community are the conservative talk radio stations with the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity, and Lavin. In the late afternoons there is a local show I will sometimes listen to that features an older local radio host- and he’s very conservative too. I listen these guys for two reasons; 1. I like political talk, and 2. Our community (like so many others) doesn’t have a progressive talk radio station any more. Besides, it is probably good to know what the “other side” is saying, and it gives me a little mental exercise taking them apart intellectually in my head. Although with these guys it doesn’t really take much intellectual fire-power to debunk most of their rhetoric. I get a particular kick out of the local guy.  His name is Fitzsimmons and he has this constant running theme that the country "is going to hell" and that we need to return to the “old-fashioned values” he grew up with in the fifty’s and early sixty’s. He laments, in almost tearful regret, that young people have no respect for society, that people are mean and suspicious of each other “these days”, that we can’t leave our doors unlocked at night, etc. etc. Then about every other day he goes into angry rants about the number of people on food stamps or other programs and, of course is he’s certain that it’s because we’re just becoming a society of lazy, no-good takers who would rather put their hand out-than lift a hand on their own behalf. To cap off this triple crown of daily whining about the “good old days” gone by, he of course blames it all on President Obama. Believe me; I listen to a lot of Obama-delusional rhetoric, but our local guy is as bad, or worse than any of them. I have renamed his show “grumpy-old-man radio” or perhaps it should be “grumpy-old-white-man radio”. Nonetheless, in radio world he’s the guy yelling at the kids to “get off my lawn”, while talking to a bunch of red-neck callers who join the chorus of complaining about the government while collecting their SSI for a “bad back”. (Have you ever wondered why all these middle-aged, white-guy callers are home all day listening to Limbaugh, Fitzsimmons and Co.?)

I don’t get angry listening to this stuff. I admit that sometimes it just have to push the button and switch to classic-rock or I’d go a little crazy. Mostly I react to this type of non-sense by realizing there is another world that is so much better than the one these merchants of negativity (and sometimes hatred) are spewing about all day.  I know that world exists because I experience it. That is the world I’m grateful for in this Thanksgiving season. In spite of the horrible state of national governance and the impossible conditions for future political progress in the near-term, I have faith in the kind of country we live in. My faith comes from remembering that as a nation, we’ve seen success emerge from very poor starts and seemingly impossible odds, spurred on by those who rather see political advantage trump national success. Chances are, those forces will not succeed in the long run. They rarely have.

During the last month and a half our leaders have engaged us in a costly and wasteful government shut down that had no positive results for anyone, followed by a very poor start to one of the most important social reforms in our lifetime. Given this recent record of malaise and political vitriol, it’s very easy to fall prey to the “grumpy-old-man” view of things. Our media, with its 24 hour news cycle and constant intrusion of internet news and opinion, seems only to exacerbate the negativity. But, stepping back a moment, it’s good to remember the other times when we faced similar situations, and things turned out just fine. Oh, I know that we have short memories and even shorter attention spans, but think about the past and take heart.

I’m quite sure there are better examples, but here are a few I thought of where we experienced a bad start, but where the ultimate success now define who we are. Our very nation itself began with an unsuccessful start. From 1777 to 1789 our first attempt at self-government failed. The Articles of Confederation formed our first nation and was a miserable failure. It was replaced by our current Constitutional government after twelve years. Lincoln’s first few years were a terrible failure. His very election was the last straw for southern states in their quest to preserve slavery, even if it meant destroying the union- and they tried to do just that. Lincoln suffered political and military defeats during his first three years in office on a regular basis. He now enjoys the legacy of being our best President and the savior of the Union. His crowning achievement was the abolition of slavery- but let’s remember that politics were far more contentious then than now, and the Thirteenth Amendment only passed the House by two votes in 1865- aided by some monumental skulduggery. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed the House, but then took six more months to get through the Senate, again with monumental skulduggery. And, even after nearly 50 years we are still struggling to fully integrate its true meaning into the American heart. FDR struggled for years to bring the nation back to prosperity during the Great Depression. He had many small successes, but just as many disappointments and setbacks.

During the last week we have remembered and honored the life and death of John F. Kennedy. Fifty years after his sudden and tragic death, we remember his charisma and his message of youthful hopefulness, when the nation seemed reborn. But we must remember too that he endured real failures and troubles in the short time he led us. He totally botched foreign policy in his execution of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, and lost several rounds in international diplomacy to Khrushcev- before facing him down during the Cuban Missile crisis. His domestic policies were stalled almost the whole time he was in office. But now our memories of him are about his inspiration and his soaring vision that inspired a generation to service and exploration. He inspired and challenged the nation to travel to the moon, but that too was plagued by early failures. We forget that all of the early rockets blew up on the launch pad, or exploded in the atmosphere. It literally took years to develop our capacity to travel in space. But we did not give up.

Today’s grumpy-old-man moment is filled with dissatisfaction over the Affordable Care Act. The political detractors of this huge reform are rooting for its failure and devoting not one moment to help make it work. They have filled the airwaves with ceaseless calls to repeal it and done their level best to convince us that we should pay attention to a website and never think about the policy behind it. Once again our short attention span directs us forget why this happened in the first place. In spite of a poor beginning, we did this because 50 million Americans had no access to health care in the wealthiest country in the history of the world. We did this because even those that had access to health care were regularly going bankrupt at a record pace due to the insurance industry’s tyrannical control of our lives. We did this because it was the right thing to do- the moral thing to do. And finally, we did this because there was a national consensus that health care access and costs had to be fixed; and the opposition party didn’t offer one single alternate idea- and they still haven’t! I would remind the repeal rooters out there at that this bad beginning to the ACA is no different than the bad beginning to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid or Medicare Part- D. In none of those instances, or the monumental national setbacks described above, did we ever just give up or succumb the narrow partisan politics of defeat that accompanied all of these events in their day, like they do today. Extreme opposition existed in every one of the events I mentioned above. But somehow our national spirit allows for progressive ideas to win the day and move us forward. Every great step this country has taken in extending liberty, expanding human rights, or enriching the American experience or way of life occurred because progressives (or liberals, if you prefer) pushed for them. In each case the conservatives of the day pushed back, amplified the early failures, and called for them to stop-hearkening back to a past they felt was better, and foretelling ruination should they continue. But those reforms, those new freedoms, those progressive ideas that improved the lives of Americans did move forward because we tend to see things through to completion as a people.

I’m thankful that we live in a country that doesn’t give up. I’m thankful, that in spite of the naysayers and the political charlatans, we generally do the right thing. If those who came before us gave-up or gave-in as some suggest today, we might not have civil rights, women’s rights, Social Security, or Medicare. It's possible we might not have had a space program and the scientific advances it brought. We might not have this nation if initial failures or setbacks led us to just give up. The most important ingredient in any struggle is to keep improving, and keep innovating to overcome problems, not just give in to them. That's a part of us I'm very proud of, and most thankful for this Thanksgiving. Even though I'm getting older, and sometimes get a little grumpy, I refuse to join the ranks of grumpy-old-men who lament the old days, and refuse to look forward to a better time. In lots of ways the "old days" weren't all that good any way. Our memories, like wine, tend to get better with time. The future, even with its bumpy starts always holds more promise.
Thanks for looking in, and Happy Thanksgiving!!