Questions
Dear Editor: Now that “Make America Great Again” – President-Elect Trump’s revival of a Reagan-era catchy campaign slogan – is morphing into a national mantra and fashion statement (see www.greatagain.gov, for example), has anybody ever honestly answered, let alone seriously asked, or even thought about the following simple, paradigmatic questions?
1. What, exactly, do all you folks actually, really mean by “Great?”
2. When, exactly, did America become “Great?”
3. Exactly how and why did it become “Great?”
4. When, exactly, did America stop being “Great?”
5. Exactly how and why did it stop being “Great?”
6. How, exactly, will the American people and the world know that America is “Great Again?”
7. What, exactly, will a “Great Again America” actually, really be, for Americans; and for the world?
These seven questions are not directed just at triumphant Trumpatistas. They (particularly numbers 3 and 5) are equally important for despondent Clintonistas, and other progressives, liberals and Democrats; and for skeptical, mainstream conservatives and Republicans, frustrated Greens and Libertarians, and the whole range of fed up “none-of-the-abovers,” as well. And, these are questions for the silents, for baby-boomers and gen Xers, and millennials, alike.
Within these broader categories of Americans, these critical questions also merit the attention of globalists and populists; internationalists and überultra-nationalists; free traders and protectionists; American exceptionalists and isolationists; climate change actionists, and their deniers; reproductive, sexual preference, and gun rights advocates, and their defilers; workers’ rights and right-to-work champions, and their defiers; immigrants (legal and otherwise) and their despisers; those demanding freedom of religion, on the one hand, and those demanding freedom from religion, on the other; folks from the Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, White and Blue Lives Matter movements; the alt-right and what’s left of the American Left after OCCUPY; and everybody else in between.
Thinking and talking about these seven questions over the upcoming long holiday weekend, and beyond, all the way to Jan. 20, 2017, would be a very good way for America to begin to think and talk about how to most effectively deal with the challenges of living with what happens next in the “post-truth” world that dawned on 11/9. The Oxford Dictionary’s “Word of the Year 2016,” post-truth is an adjective defined as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Sort of what like happened after 9/11, as well.
While Sinclair Lewis was once purported to have put it that, “when fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross,” he didn’t specify whether its team color would be Red or Blue; or some combination thereof. It is still far too soon to determine exactly what’s coming to America next. Too many buttons have been pushed, switches thrown, and fuses blown for this nation – and planet – to ever go back to what it at least thought it was on the morning of Nov. 8.
But this nation goes back a lot longer than 11/9; just like it goes back a lot further than 9/11. The questions that are raised by these seven questions (and the task confronting the incoming Trump administration, if that’s what it ends up being), are: just exactly what does this nation actually go all the way back to; what was it then, and, if it is to survive, let alone be “Great Again,” what will it continue to be built upon; and, ultimately, what is it to, and in fact, must become, if it is to be suitably bequeathed at all to all those kids just starting pre-school this fall.
JG Moebus, Sitka
Protest
Dear Editor: This country is a giant heart that beats with the blood of its people. When you riot, burn, loot in dissension you reverse that flow. It will have dire results to this country. Are you being paid for this? What’s your goal? That’s what the polls are for. Did you even vote, or did your concerns just sleep for when the opportunity arose?
I am a decorated Korean combat veteran and proud. I cast a vote for South Korea when they needed our help. I have fired rifles with V.F.W. funerals numerous times.
When I see the military crosses by the thousands at cemeteries I know these men cast a vote for freedom with their last breath. They died defending the right for you to live here. I am ashamed of you, and you vote to allow the enemies of our country to come here like a cancer to America’s soul.
Here’s your coat, here’s your hat. What’s your hurry?
Sgt. Myron P. Kinsey, Sitka
Memories
Dear Editor: Thank you for printing the letter from Matt Elerding. That was a treasure of memories for many of us.
Shirley S. Anderson, Sitka
