Questionable, but reversible.
Macy’s Parade, November, 1981.
Pentax ME Super, 28mm Takumar, Kodachrome 64.
Oscar Wilde once opined that foxunters were the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable. Adapting his saying to modern times one can only conclude that American voters are the deplorable in support of the unconscionable. Were I to tell the proverbial visitor from Mars that a majority of the voters of this nation just again elected a traitor/felon/rapist/grifter/multiple bankrupt/moral and ethical degenerate then that little green man would vamoose back to Mars real pronto. Well, looking on the bright side, I suppose that makes us immune to a Martian invasion.
Yet this, my 48th Thanksgiving in The United States, finds me as optimistic as ever, largely based in the belief that this too shall pass.
Yes, there are many things to dislike in addition to the recent election results.
There’s the one trillion dollars we spend annually on a military which has drawn or lost every conflict it has foolishly entered in the past 79 years. There’s increasing moral degeneracy where gender at birth is denied so that a handful of perverts can use the little girls’ restroom. There’s an electorate most of whom define “low information”. Our public schools are a disaster. There is a fading work ethic. Americans are becoming lazy, like Europeans. There is a level of inequality comparable to that found in the Gilded Age. And there is a massive obesity and health crisis caused by the addictive nature of ultra processed foods backed by the fast food industrial complex. And the cretinous – there is no other word for it if you passed Econ 101 – ideas of mass deportation and punitive tariffs will inflict great damage on the American economy, if they come to pass.
None of this is good.
Yet consider. America leads the world in every field of technology, has the best medical care on earth (if you can afford it), remains the most philanthropic nation on earth, is home to most of the greatest institutions of higher learning, has the best managed economy on the planet, in the jewel that is New York City lays claim to being the cultural center of the earth and the nation continues to offer the near certain chance of economic success to any one – native or immigrant – willing to work hard. No genius level brains required. I should know.
I continue to take inspiration from Milton Friedman whom I was privileged to meet on his 90th birthday in 2002, still as sharp as ever, who reminds us that “A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.” I passionately believe that, once they come to their senses, Americans will live up to Friedman’s dictum. And as that great half-American reminds us: “Americans will always do the right thing, having first tried all the alternatives.” Winston Churchill.
Happy Thanksgiving.
