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Wednesday, July 4, 2018

After Watching "The Great War," A Friend Asked, "Were We Ever The Best?"

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On Tue, Jul 3, 2018 at 11:13 PM, FV wrote:

I'm watching a documentary on the Great War. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/great-war/#part01
What a horrible history we have. Post war lynchings were common to keep Blacks in their place even after they had fought for the country. 1919 was a red year for all the black blood that was shed here.
How we have idealized our wars as fighting for world Democracy and hidden the truth of denying it here at home. The cover up of Wilson's final days is another post war shame.
It's a history we never learned in school. We are a terrible country with a disgraceful past yet we managed to convince a world that we are the where the best. 
We're we ever the best? 

Love


F


Dear F,

Between the unnecesary Revolution (largely propelled by inordinate greed as I see it), the genocidal theft of the land mass, and the curse of slavery which The Bible Belt - Neo-Confederacy would like to see re-emerge with all its white privelege restored, it's a pretty sordid place politically. 

But there has been a remarkable attempt to live under Rule of Law (even if it disproportionately favored white people and oppressed people of color) with a remarkably distributed democratic sense.

Even Trump's election shows that "people power" a la americana can overturn the entire existing order.

We will see if the current manifestation of people power will be our undoing, or a complete re-shuffle of the deck so that something unexpected - and perhaps even better - comes of it.

If it's true that Bernie would have won, perhaps that democratic socialist/European impulse is on the verge of "taking over."

In 2043, 60.7 percent of people under age 18 will be people of color,  

Whites will comprise 46 percent of the U.S. population by 2050, down from the current level of 66 percent.

Of course capitalism -- and the consumer bubble it has created -- has degraded us all. 

And sho knows if the habits of democracy will take deep root in immigrant populations?

That said, I think white people have been unusually prone to rationalize any damn thing as your learning from the Great War documentary. 

Latinos have a gut feeling for the central importance of extended family, and although they tend to be more cynical politically than Americans, they always look to celebrate life and, in the main, try to loop everyone into the celebration.

Often, the difference between white people and latinos feels like the gap between irreality and reality. Black people also feel more real.

There are, of course innumerable exceptions to every rule.

My friend Lino Núñez Huerta put it best. "El problema con ustedes los gringos es que no saben sufrir."


Un Cadáver Inesperado
Lino Núñez Huerta

And we are all up against the wall of comfort and convenience now.

What Henry Miller called "the air-conditioned nightmare."

Love

A



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