Showing posts with label America. Show all posts
Showing posts with label America. Show all posts
Saturday, December 16, 2017
Warm greetings from the Northland
To hug or not to hug: that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The clings and squeezes of joyous greeters,
Or to hold arms against a sea of babbles
And by opposing end them? To lie, to shriek.
Customs of greeting and congratulations vary across the world from a cursory acknowledgment of the presence of others to an effusive extravaganza of hugging and kissing. And, of course, the customs vary within the U.S. among families and other social groups, and even among individuals in a family or a group.
I reflected about hugging as our family gathered for Thanksgiving and I saw the photo of President Bush kissing Condoleezza Rice on the cheek to congratulate her on her nomination as Secretary of State. I thought it was a bit condescending but I will say no more; I’m not Karl Rove.
Hand-shaking on first meeting others has been a custom in Europe and America for a long time. Some insist on a firm handshake with a direct look in the eye, others give a limp hand and look elsewhere. In the recent BBC “David Copperfield”, Uriah Heep not only gave a limp handshake and looked “humble”, but people wiped their hands after shaking his.
Once Americans are familiar with one another, they generally don’t shake hands daily with the same people. On the other hand, the French shake hands on first meeting colleagues each day. I remember being at a French company in one group approaching another group in the hallway. People started shaking hands with the members of the other group. One man who had already seen me that day started to shake my hand but quickly withdrew it, saying “Déja vu (already seen).”
If Americans see an acquaintance outside of work, many shake hands on meeting. For example, people who work together and don’t shake hands each day may do so when they meet at church.
Other than business situations, hand shaking by women has changed almost exclusively to hugs, hugs even for introductions to women or men. About the time I was married, hugging seemed to done only among relatives – women hugged women, women hugged men, and men shook hands with men.
I know I shook hands with my dad and stepfather, my grandfather, my brother, and my father-in-law; and I hugged my wife, mother, mother-in-law, and sisters-in-law. Of course, I hugged my wife, and after forty-four years each hug seems more precious.
On the other hand, I dreaded seeing my mother because of her extremely emotional hugs. We moved to Europe when I was thirty and stayed six years; I came back to the U.S. only once in that time. Whenever I visited my mother after our return she would run out of the house wailing and hug me as if I been lost and gone forever. I finally had to ask her to calm down, and she did so reluctantly, making snide comments each time we met again.
I started seeing more hugs when women’s sports became more popular. The enthusiasm of the sports victory seemed to carry over to other victories or moments of pride. Women giving certificates or awards to other women didn’t shake hands anymore, they gave hugs. Then hugging became the standard greeting between women, sometimes even of the remotest acquaintance.
Now some women hug on the slightest pretext – do something moderately well and you are hugged, make a big or small mistake and you are hugged, have an unhappy event in your life and you are hugged, have a happy event in your life and you are hugged. Generally these women hug other women on these occasions but rarely other men. I may think this because I seem to be mostly in groups that are predominantly women. Hm! Women in their sixties and older don’t seem to hug as much as women in their fifties or younger.
At some time or other, many women all but stopped shaking hands with men, they hugged them. Two or more couples get together, the men shake hands with one another and the women hug everyone. Now this is where the fun begins. Just how do you hug someone of the opposite sex?
Some people bend at the waist, put one arm over the shoulder of the other, and briefly touch cheeks. It seems more like a formality than any friendly interest in the other person. Other people stand tall, put both arms around the other and squeeze chest to chest. I often wonder if some women are oblivious to what they are doing or if they are sending a message that I’m not getting.
No, I’m not a grouch about people’s enthusiasm for others. I’m not going to be cold to others who want to hug me as a greeting; I will continue to be reluctant to initiate it. On the other hand, I will initiate hugs in certain circumstances. When someone has done a good job and I am standing close, I will stand beside him or her and give a one-hand hug to his or her far shoulder. If someone has a setback or is exhausted from some task, I will put his or her head on my shoulder and put both arms around his or her back. I will give back rubs whenever needed and when my hands can still knead.
Excuse me, my wife just came home and I want to give her a good hug.
©2004, 2007 Melvyn D. Magree
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Whither America? Idealism or Ideology?
The following was published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth on 2013-11-14 and can be found at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2013/11/14/2433_party_of_one_whither_america_idealism_or_ideology
Idealism is a set of goals; ideology is a set of rules. Idealism is a guide to how you act; ideology is a set of rules on how you and everybody else must act. Idealism takes into account reality; ideology creates its own “reality”. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” This is attributed to Karl Rove or Dick Cheney. They ignore to our detriment Newton's third law of motion: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." If you create your own reality, then others will create their own reality. Overwhelming force meets roadside bomb.
The Alworth Center for the Study of Peace and Justice had two recent speakers who addressed these issues. Robert J. Art, author of “A Grand Strategy for America”, cautiously leaned toward ideology. Andrew J. Bacevich, author of “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism” and “Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War”, is fed up with the “Imperial Presidency” and the “Wise Men” who are getting us deeper and deeper into problems, thus creating even more problems.
Art states that we must strike a balance between isolationism and being the world’s policeman. Isolationism often means withdrawing from most of the world’s affairs. This is rather difficult given how intertwined the world economy has become. We have already seen how often being the world’s policeman causes more problems than it solves.
Art says we have six important interests:
1) Protect the homeland and prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction
2) Keep deep peace among Eurasian great powers
3) Assure assets (oil) for market
4) International economic openness
5) Democracy’s spread and observance of human rights
6) Avert severe climate change
To support these interests, Art gives eight grand strategies, including dominion, isolationism, and selective engagement. Dominion just won’t work; it will get us into deeper and deeper military involvement. The U.S. has tried it on various scales for over a century, and our politicians still haven’t learned. Isolationism has many aspects, but if the U.S. isolates itself from the rest of the world, will the rest of the world help if the U.S. needs help?
Art prefers selective engagement. Selective engagement is based on fundamental goals, it concentrates on those “regions of most consequence to the United States”, “it maintains a forward-based defense posture”, “it prescribes a set of judicious rules for when to wage wars”, and “it calls for American leadership.”
But the devil is in the details. It seems to me that this selective engagement has been going on for decades. President after president, Republican or Democrat, has had a set of fundamental goals, has thought that region after region was consequential, has had “defensive” forces all over the world, has thought his rules for war were correct, and of course, has insisted on being first among “equals”.
In both “The Limits of Power” and “Washington Rules”, Bacevich examines the consequences of strategies like Art proposes. We have moved to an imperial presidency where the President not only does his best to ignore Congress in “power projection” but ignores the military and diplomatic departments and huddles with his “Wise Men”. Kennedy did it in the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Bush did it with Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama is doing it with drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And often the President doesn’t understand that he, the unelected “leader of the free world” is being manipulated by his “Wise Men”–McNamara, Cheney, and so on. Bacevich writes about Kennedy’s team, "With the certainty of men unacquainted with the actual use of power, they did not doubt their ability to compel war to do their bidding." This could apply to just about every inner circle since.
Bacevich sees U.S. leaders having a credo backed up by a “sacred trinity”.
Credo: “The United States—and the United States alone—to lead, save, liberate, and ultimately transform the world.”
Sacred trinity: "an abiding conviction that the minimum essentials of international peace and order require the United States to maintain a global military presence, to configure its forces for global power projection, and to counter existing or anticipated threats by relying on a policy of global interventionism”.
Bacevich suggests an alternate credo: “America's purpose is to be America, striving to fulfill the aspirations expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as reinterpreted with the passage of time and in light of hard-earned experience.”
He proposes a new trinity:
“First, the purpose of the U.S. military is not to combat evil or remake the world, but to defend the United States and its most vital interests.”
“Second, the primary duty station of the American soldier is in America.”
“Third, consistent with the Just War tradition, the United States should employ force only as a last resort and only in self-defense.”
Bacevich quotes Reinhold Niebuhr frequently:
“[H]e warned that what he called ‘our dreams of managing history’–born of a peculiar combination of arrogance and narcissism–posed a potentially mortal threat to the United States.” “The Irony of American History”, 1952
Niebuhr predates Pete Seeger who said it more simply, “When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn.”
Idealism is a set of goals; ideology is a set of rules. Idealism is a guide to how you act; ideology is a set of rules on how you and everybody else must act. Idealism takes into account reality; ideology creates its own “reality”. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” This is attributed to Karl Rove or Dick Cheney. They ignore to our detriment Newton's third law of motion: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." If you create your own reality, then others will create their own reality. Overwhelming force meets roadside bomb.
The Alworth Center for the Study of Peace and Justice had two recent speakers who addressed these issues. Robert J. Art, author of “A Grand Strategy for America”, cautiously leaned toward ideology. Andrew J. Bacevich, author of “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism” and “Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War”, is fed up with the “Imperial Presidency” and the “Wise Men” who are getting us deeper and deeper into problems, thus creating even more problems.
Art states that we must strike a balance between isolationism and being the world’s policeman. Isolationism often means withdrawing from most of the world’s affairs. This is rather difficult given how intertwined the world economy has become. We have already seen how often being the world’s policeman causes more problems than it solves.
Art says we have six important interests:
1) Protect the homeland and prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction
2) Keep deep peace among Eurasian great powers
3) Assure assets (oil) for market
4) International economic openness
5) Democracy’s spread and observance of human rights
6) Avert severe climate change
To support these interests, Art gives eight grand strategies, including dominion, isolationism, and selective engagement. Dominion just won’t work; it will get us into deeper and deeper military involvement. The U.S. has tried it on various scales for over a century, and our politicians still haven’t learned. Isolationism has many aspects, but if the U.S. isolates itself from the rest of the world, will the rest of the world help if the U.S. needs help?
Art prefers selective engagement. Selective engagement is based on fundamental goals, it concentrates on those “regions of most consequence to the United States”, “it maintains a forward-based defense posture”, “it prescribes a set of judicious rules for when to wage wars”, and “it calls for American leadership.”
But the devil is in the details. It seems to me that this selective engagement has been going on for decades. President after president, Republican or Democrat, has had a set of fundamental goals, has thought that region after region was consequential, has had “defensive” forces all over the world, has thought his rules for war were correct, and of course, has insisted on being first among “equals”.
In both “The Limits of Power” and “Washington Rules”, Bacevich examines the consequences of strategies like Art proposes. We have moved to an imperial presidency where the President not only does his best to ignore Congress in “power projection” but ignores the military and diplomatic departments and huddles with his “Wise Men”. Kennedy did it in the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Bush did it with Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama is doing it with drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And often the President doesn’t understand that he, the unelected “leader of the free world” is being manipulated by his “Wise Men”–McNamara, Cheney, and so on. Bacevich writes about Kennedy’s team, "With the certainty of men unacquainted with the actual use of power, they did not doubt their ability to compel war to do their bidding." This could apply to just about every inner circle since.
Bacevich sees U.S. leaders having a credo backed up by a “sacred trinity”.
Credo: “The United States—and the United States alone—to lead, save, liberate, and ultimately transform the world.”
Sacred trinity: "an abiding conviction that the minimum essentials of international peace and order require the United States to maintain a global military presence, to configure its forces for global power projection, and to counter existing or anticipated threats by relying on a policy of global interventionism”.
Bacevich suggests an alternate credo: “America's purpose is to be America, striving to fulfill the aspirations expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as reinterpreted with the passage of time and in light of hard-earned experience.”
He proposes a new trinity:
“First, the purpose of the U.S. military is not to combat evil or remake the world, but to defend the United States and its most vital interests.”
“Second, the primary duty station of the American soldier is in America.”
“Third, consistent with the Just War tradition, the United States should employ force only as a last resort and only in self-defense.”
Bacevich quotes Reinhold Niebuhr frequently:
“[H]e warned that what he called ‘our dreams of managing history’–born of a peculiar combination of arrogance and narcissism–posed a potentially mortal threat to the United States.” “The Irony of American History”, 1952
Niebuhr predates Pete Seeger who said it more simply, “When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn.”
Friday, July 12, 2013
U.S. oligarchy, history repeats itself
"The Penguin democracy was not ruled by itself: it obeyed a financial oligarchy that put its opinions in the newspapers, and held in its hand the deputies, ministers and the president. It was the final power in the finances of the republic and directed the foreign policy of the country."
Anatole France, L'Ile des Pingouines (The Isle of Penguins), 1908
My translation based on Google Translate
"La démocratie pingouine ne se gouvernait point par elle-même; elle obéissait à une oligarchie financière qui faisait l'opinion par les journaux, et tenait dans sa main les députés, les ministres et le président. Elle ordonnait souverainement des finances de la république et dirigeait la politique extérieure du pays."
Or as Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote in 1849:
"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/plus_%C3%A7a_change,_plus_c%27est_la_m%C3%AAme_chose
Anatole France, L'Ile des Pingouines (The Isle of Penguins), 1908
My translation based on Google Translate
"La démocratie pingouine ne se gouvernait point par elle-même; elle obéissait à une oligarchie financière qui faisait l'opinion par les journaux, et tenait dans sa main les députés, les ministres et le président. Elle ordonnait souverainement des finances de la république et dirigeait la politique extérieure du pays."
Or as Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote in 1849:
"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/plus_%C3%A7a_change,_plus_c%27est_la_m%C3%AAme_chose
Sunday, January 06, 2013
If the United States were a Christian nation…
…it would follow the "second greatest commandment", "do unto others as you would have them do to you."
We do not want other countries invading us.
We do not want other countries assassinating our leaders.
We do not want other countries stationing troops in our country.
We do not want other countries dictating our choice of leaders.
We do not want other countries to have nuclear weapons.
We do not want other countries having bigger or more powerful militaries than we do.
And then there is, "for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword".
We can only be considered a peace-loving nation when the State Department has a bigger budget than the War Department.
We do not want other countries invading us.
We do not want other countries assassinating our leaders.
We do not want other countries stationing troops in our country.
We do not want other countries dictating our choice of leaders.
We do not want other countries to have nuclear weapons.
We do not want other countries having bigger or more powerful militaries than we do.
And then there is, "for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword".
We can only be considered a peace-loving nation when the State Department has a bigger budget than the War Department.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
O ye of little faith!
Someone in the U.S. posted a video uncomplimentary of Mohammed. Some Muslims in Libya attacked the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, resulting in the deaths of the U.S. Ambassador and three other U.S. diplomats. Now demonstrations and attacks by some Muslims on American interests are happening all around the world where there are a large number of Muslims. Is this the way to promote Islam as a religion of peace?
The idea of Islam as a religion of peace is something that many American Muslims believe and need in order to be part of their communities. Unfortunately, attacks like those above work against American Muslims. Why? Because there are too many non-Muslim Americans who believe that ALL Muslims are terrorists. Consider the uproar being made by Rep. Michele Bachmann about U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton having a Muslim aide, Huma Abedin.
When I was a kid a counter to those who called others by derogatory names was "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names cannot hurt me!" Some Muslims are letting derogatory names hurt them and are breaking other people's bones.
"Allah akbar! God is great!" shout those demonstrating against the uncomplimentary video. Do you think a great God would worry about the callous remarks of a petty criminal? If a great God were concerned with such remarks, wouldn't He do something about it? If God is not doing anything about some stupid remarks, should you? There is an old Greek word for the sin of knowing better than the gods - hubris, a form of misplaced pride and conceit.
Before some non-Muslims have their own bit of hubris and conceit about their own religion's tolerance, consider some Christian history. Early Christian leaders had some really heated debates about what Christianity should be, and many of them branded those who disagreed with them as heretics. For too many years, the Roman Church with the blessing of monarchs tortured and executed those who they suspected of not being devout Christians. The Puritans in Massachusetts hung Quakers for preaching in public. The Ku Klux Klan used the symbols of Christianity and terrorized and murdered blacks for a long list of crimes real and imagined.
The world is getting smaller and more crowded. If we can't learn to have some tolerance for each other, no god is going to save us from destroying ourselves.
For a good analysis of the larger picture of the long-standing conflict, see "A Dangerous Misperception and Cultural Divide", Alon Ben-Meir, Huffington Post, 2012-09-17.
The idea of Islam as a religion of peace is something that many American Muslims believe and need in order to be part of their communities. Unfortunately, attacks like those above work against American Muslims. Why? Because there are too many non-Muslim Americans who believe that ALL Muslims are terrorists. Consider the uproar being made by Rep. Michele Bachmann about U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton having a Muslim aide, Huma Abedin.
When I was a kid a counter to those who called others by derogatory names was "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names cannot hurt me!" Some Muslims are letting derogatory names hurt them and are breaking other people's bones.
"Allah akbar! God is great!" shout those demonstrating against the uncomplimentary video. Do you think a great God would worry about the callous remarks of a petty criminal? If a great God were concerned with such remarks, wouldn't He do something about it? If God is not doing anything about some stupid remarks, should you? There is an old Greek word for the sin of knowing better than the gods - hubris, a form of misplaced pride and conceit.
Before some non-Muslims have their own bit of hubris and conceit about their own religion's tolerance, consider some Christian history. Early Christian leaders had some really heated debates about what Christianity should be, and many of them branded those who disagreed with them as heretics. For too many years, the Roman Church with the blessing of monarchs tortured and executed those who they suspected of not being devout Christians. The Puritans in Massachusetts hung Quakers for preaching in public. The Ku Klux Klan used the symbols of Christianity and terrorized and murdered blacks for a long list of crimes real and imagined.
The world is getting smaller and more crowded. If we can't learn to have some tolerance for each other, no god is going to save us from destroying ourselves.
For a good analysis of the larger picture of the long-standing conflict, see "A Dangerous Misperception and Cultural Divide", Alon Ben-Meir, Huffington Post, 2012-09-17.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Why does being an American have to be special?
The newspapers are filled with testimonials on why people are proud to be American. They give many reasons including a list of freedoms. But underlying many of these is a notion that being an American is preferable to being anything else. Nowhere else in the world could be as good as living in America.
I have lived in and visited other countries and people there are quite happy to stay there. Sure it may be nice to visit or live in America, but they would just as soon live in their native land. In fact, I have many friends who lived in the U.S. for several years and chose to return to their home countries.
Being proud of one's country is a good thing, but it becomes a bad thing when one thinks one's country is superior to anything else.
I find this very strange. After all, my house is not necessarily the best house, but it is my house. My city is not necessarily the best city, but it is my city. My state is not necessarily the best state, but it is my state. Why do we have to have the best country, not just our country. See "I live in the best house in the world".
As the song says, "This is my home, the country where my heart is; here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine". Hymn 159, "This is My Song", Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association
I have lived in and visited other countries and people there are quite happy to stay there. Sure it may be nice to visit or live in America, but they would just as soon live in their native land. In fact, I have many friends who lived in the U.S. for several years and chose to return to their home countries.
Being proud of one's country is a good thing, but it becomes a bad thing when one thinks one's country is superior to anything else.
I find this very strange. After all, my house is not necessarily the best house, but it is my house. My city is not necessarily the best city, but it is my city. My state is not necessarily the best state, but it is my state. Why do we have to have the best country, not just our country. See "I live in the best house in the world".
As the song says, "This is my home, the country where my heart is; here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine". Hymn 159, "This is My Song", Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association
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