Me, Seventy-five ?

                                       Me, Seventy-five ?

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 6/16/19

            In 1984 during a presidential debate Ronald Reagan said of his opponent Walter Mondale, “If my opponent will not hold my age against me, I’ll not hold his youth and inexperience against him.”  Mondale asked for it.  He had just brought up the issue of Reagan’s age.

            Mondale took it like a man, however.  He laughed as much as the audience did.  Like his fellow Minnesotan, the Happy Warrior Hubert Humphrey, Mondale laughed much anyhow.  That was back when our politics was far less acrimonious.

            Reagan went on to begin his second term one month before turning 74.  The man gave old age a good name.  His cheerfulness put to scorn the claim of columnist George Will who, upon turning 50 wrote, “Looking forward from 50 is no bowl of blueberries.”

            50?  Old?  Sounds young to me.  Will turned 78 this past May.  Let’s hope he didn’t go into depression. 

            Looking forward from age 75 - if I live for two more weeks – shouldn’t be too difficult to do.  Nine and soon to be ten grandchildren will remind me that life goes on.  Our republic is far stronger than the constancy of cable television news leads us to think, and everywhere I go I see teenagers and twenty-somethings working their heads off.  I know there’s more to the picture than this, but I’ll still take hope wherever I see it.

            My first memory is from age three, but from the fabric of the last 72 years I have plucked three others, all of which have been sources of joy and/or learning.  These particular memories also remind me of the debt I owe to so many who have rendered me a rich man for three quarters of a century.

            I remember the dirt, the soil I mean.  Oh, the dirt, the fields, the gigantic gardens that my father and other farmers up and down Old U.S. 80 Highway cared for.  Their dirt was a precious possession, almost their second self.  I wish that children today understood that groceries don’t come from grocery stores.  School teaches them where groceries come from, but only at the intellectual level.  How I wish children and teens could experience real dirt for themselves and get outside their houses more.

  My professional life has required me to haunt libraries and bookstores, but even the printed word has not erased the memory of the smell, the feel, and the mystery of dirt.  Directly or indirectly, food comes from dirt.  “From dust to dust” is a phrase too many children and teens have never even heard. 

            Antonia (“Pupi,” we called her) was the Italian woman brought to America by one of my much older brothers after World War II.  What a memory.  What an education this tough, resilient woman brought to a poor Southern family.  Her broken English and knowledge of Europe made her not just an exciting oddity, but the interesting centerpiece of our lives for the rest of her life. Antonia left her family and a significant job for an American soldier boy.

            A more recent memory is the year 1971 when I moved to the county I now live in.  From Day 1 this county has been forward-looking and even more inviting than a bowl of blueberries, or peaches either for that matter.  While some counties around us falter educationally, economically, and socially, ours thrives.  I say it’s not because we are an educated county.  It’s because many good people have landed here, most of whom treat others well.  We fuss when necessary, but because of visionary political, community, and religious leaders, we still have something special.

            Oh, for the space to name names.  Suffice it to say that my two mayors (I live in one town but have the address of another), commissioner, state representative, state senator,  Congressman, governor, and my two U.S. Senators are good people and effective leaders. My last three former governors, the only former ones I was ever around (one Democrat and two Republicans) are all men of good will.  They are also givers.  That’s something to remember when I start thinking the nation is going to the dogs.

            Men of faith, pastors particularly, have shaped my county also.  Two pastors helped me raise my children.  Two others have helped me to look steadily forward in faith as I grow older.  Another, a retired Methodist minister, has become a great friend to this aging Baptist.  He knows I believe John Wesley was actually a Baptist.

            My county’s leaders and citizens obviously seek civil peace – order.  Just call it being a good neighbor and loving your neighbor as yourself.  Whatever it’s called it can surely produce good memories for a guy who is not getting younger.

Roger Hines

             

           

             

                 

                                

Around the World, Populism is Popping

                    Around the World, Populism is Popping

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 6/1/19

            Populist, patriot, and nationalist have become put-down words.  Making the illogical and unfair error of judging an idea by its misrepresentation, critics of populism, patriotism, and nationalism display their bigotry, not to mention their misunderstanding of words.

            Judging Christians by the KKK that attempts to shroud its evil with the Christian cross is both wrong and ignorant.  Judging churches by the actions of Westboro Baptist Church is just as wrong.  Yet such misrepresentation has gone on for decades.  Most Southerners are not bigots, most Jews are not rich, most millennials are not lazy, and most citizens north of the Mason-Dixon Line are not unfriendly.

            But reading the New Your Times or a handful of other nationally known newspapers, one would think that any American who won’t disavow the labels populist, patriot, and nationalist is illiterate and bigoted.  Why this myopic view of fellow citizens?  Why the disdain for simple love for one’s country?  We used to call this disdain prejudice, a word that is falling away, but it means pre-judging or judging others as you lump them with a group and then cast aspersions on the entire group.

            In the Marietta Daily Journal several days ago columnist Pat Buchanan wrote, “The nation is the largest entity to which one can give loyalty and love.”  Buchanan extols France’s great general Charles De Gaulle who believed in and pressed for “nation-states from the Atlantic to the Urals.”  And what does Buchanan get for his love of his nation and the belief that American civilization is in great danger of early death?  He is tagged as a “nationalist,” one who despises all other nations and views them with condescension.

            But alas, it’s not just America’s deplorables who subscribe to love of one’s nation as per President Trump’s America First theme.  European nations are also fed up with globalization, multiculturalism, and all other such efforts to pull us into what amounts to world union.  Enough of “We are the world, we are the people.”  We are nations.

            Across Europe and in India Trump-like sentiments are spreading.  28 countries recently held elections for representatives to the European Union.  751 seats in the EU parliament in Brussels were up for grabs.  At least 3 European nations come to mind where the winds that swept Trump into office are touching down in Europe as well.  As it turns out, populist/nationalist coalitions are reshaping both American and European politics.  In India the pro-America Nationalist Party just won an overwhelming victory.

            In England the Pro-Brexit Party which favors Britain’s departure from the EU and a return to national sovereignty surged to victory.  The established parties, Conservatives and Labour, faltered.  In France the National Front party led by Marine Le Pen won the national election for EU representatives, thereby moving Le Pen’s party into first place over current president Emmanuel Macron.  Le Pen claimed Macron has “displayed extreme arrogance and spite for common people and the French people in general.”  She asserted that French politics can no longer best be described by the terms “left” and “right,” but by nationalist and globalist.  How applicable to American politics is that?

            Le Pen stated, “Globalism breeds a post-national spirit which carries the notion that borders must disappear.”  In Italy the League Party of Matteo Salvini also won big.  Like Le Pen, Salvini has preached national sovereignty and independence from the EU.

            These victories don’t mean that the EU will soon be upended.  They do, however, spell trouble.  Given that Hungary and Poland also have nationalist parties that are on the rise and that Germany’s leader, Merkel, was soundly defeated in the EU vote, change is definitely happening.

            What is all of this but the desire for local rule?  How was Donald Trump able to smash both political parties, embarrass the experts, and tame a previously impenetrable news media?  Why, even in Scotland, are coalitions forming to bring about a total break from Britain?  Why, if “union” is so good, did the Soviet Union last barely 70 years?     

            Europe’s Old Guard is faltering.  So is the political party system in America.  Trump’s rallies are nothing more or less than a great revolt of the middle class.  His supporters are based in work and driven by faith.  They apparently like a billionaire who, though he cusses, doesn’t drink or smoke, and definitely connects with them.

            Populism means “of the people.”  As it turns out, people around the world are tired of having pseudo-“diversity” crammed down their throats.  The Brits want to be Brits, the French want to be French, and India wants to be Indian.  What’s wrong with that?

Roger Hines

5/28/19