Tossing Pebbles in the Stream: 11/01/2013

Friday, November 22, 2013

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

35th President of the United States

We fondly remember

In Canada President Kennedy was seen as our President too. We followed him, his family and Presidency with great fascination and admiration. We too, answered the idealistic call and came to believe that life can be better and we can and should try to make a difference. I say this because I do not think American's appreciate how much Canadians know about and share in what goes on in the United States. We only wish Americans gave Canada a thought once in a while and knew more about our great Nation, which is quite distinct in many ways culturally from the United States. This week we were amused as some Harvard Students stopped in Harvard Yard could not name the capital city of Canada. Finally, one student knew and she turned out to be a Canadian studying at Harvard. So much for the best and the brightest.

The idealism of the Kennedy years saw Canada elect it own political hero in Pierre Elliot Trudeau as Trudeaumania swept the country.

Canadians alongside Americans were shocked and heart broken by the death of President Kennedy. I remember the day well. I was alone driving from Waterloo, where I went to University, to home in Mississauga, where I grew up. I listened on the radio and then spent the weekend watching the events on TV. For me and a lot of my friends in Canada and the United States this was the beginning of a long line of violent deaths of our political and social heroes: Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr, Ché Guevara, Malcolm X. It has been enough to make one cynical.

It is so appropriate that Norman Rockwell painted him. His short Presidency was not unlike a Rockwell painting. It was idealized, delightful and inspiring as to what we thought it should be. Flaws were overlooked.

President Kennedy was an inspiration for a generation, my generation which was just becoming politically aware.. He asked that we be the best we can be. He asked us all to get involved in shaping civil society. It was in his short Presidency that the vision of the Space Program was offered as a challenge to the Nation. Also, the Peace Corp was born and saw a generation of young people trying to serves people around the World and in so doing learning of life beyond the boundaries of the United States.He did lay to rest the notion that the United States is a Protestant country although he continues to be the only non-protestant President after all these years. Reluctantly, but decisively, he made contributions to the civil rights struggle, which was left for Johnson to realize.And, or course, we vicariously shared in his personal life of privilege, family and public service.

His short Presidency and his personal life was flawed but we overlooked or forgave that at the time. During his presidency there was the failure of the Bay of Pigs and the near disastrous Cuban Missile Crisis. He being an ardent anti-communist resulted in the wrong headed blockade of Cuba that persists today. If a Russian officer on a submarine had not disobey an order to fire nuclear weapons, history and the US would have had a different outcome. Kennedy can take little credit for avoiding a nuclear war. He misused the idealism of youth to get the United States deeply involved in the failed Vietnam War. If Kennedy had survived for a second term, we might very well have come to be more critical of him and his policies in the same way that Barack Obama has become somewhat of a disappointment. His inspirational legacy survives.

We need more than ever a Kennedy like leader of the World who can inspire us and rally us to act our of idealism to save the planet from the blight of human activity. The World still looks to America to supply such a leader.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Gettysburg Address

Four score and seventy years ago, (150 years) Lincoln delivered his brief but iconic address to a crowd at the Gettysburg battle field just a few months after the famous battle. The dead were still being buried on the new cemetery there.

It is interesting the Lincoln was invited, almost as a second thought, to give a brief address. The major speaker was the outstanding Boston intellectual The Reverend Edward Everett. He was a Unitarian Minister, (the Unitarians were the religious liberals of the day dominant in Eastern Massachusetts during this period of the New England Enlightenment, He was a politician, professor, public intellectual and one of the outstanding orators of his day. He spoke for 2 hours, (not an unusually long for a sermon in those days, public lectures were a form of entertainment in those days. Lincoln spoke briefly for 2 minutes, his address is remembered and revered as the most memorable.

Lincoln preparing to speak holding a copy of his address on a single page.

Lincoln in this speech reset the vision of the United States. While in the midst of a absolutely dreadful war, thinks back on the origins of the American experiment at Statehood. He minds those present that they can only honour those who died and fought by continuing to live out the mission of the Nation. He reset the focus. The civil war for him was not just an issue of succession but an affirmation of a Nation with a focus of Freedom and Liberty. He ends his address thus;
" we highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain,--that this Nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth."
I love it that he largely lifted from the Unitarian minister and abolitionist Theodore Parker, part of this sentence. Parker wrote, in a tract Lincoln had read, "Democracy is direct self-government over all the people, for all the people, by all the people.." As a person who found a religious home as a teenager in the Unitarian church, becoming a Unitarian minister to the surprise of my family and friends, I have long steeped myself in American history, particularly since the beginning of the 19th Century in New England. This rich intellectual history gave birth not only to my denomination but also literature and public debate of a high order. Theodore Parker was one of my religious heroes along with William Ellery Channing and Ralph Waldo Emerson, the three great thinkers that shaped my religious denomination's thought. They continue to stimulate me religiously. One can only imagine how much they inspired the intellectual community of Eastern Massachusetts in their day.

Just in case you were wondering, No I did not name my son Parker after Theodore Parker, He is named after my maternal grandfather, Charles Parker Beeston.

Pennsylvania Memorial at Gettysburg today There are just over 31,000 names of those that died in the Gettysburg Battle

This memorial reminds me of the Menin Gate in Ypres where there are 55,000 names of the unidentified soldiers who died in the battles for the salient battles outside the city of Ypres in the Great War.

Such memorials I find so very troublesome and emotionally moving. Such a waste and such pain and suffering for those left behind.

Americans can feel blessed that the Civil War was in fact the war to end all wars on American soil. Europe has not been so fortunate.

Monday, November 11, 2013

11/11/1918, Eleventh Hour

Today is Remembrance Day, a day when all Canadians remember those in our military who have served, some dying and many living with injuries, physical and mental, who answered the call of the government to go to war on behalf of our Nation. I like to continue to focus of the Great War, this day being the anniversary of the date and time of the Armistice of that war. It was to be the war to end all wars, or as Margaret Macmillan called her latest book, The War that Ended the Peace. Europe before the First World War has a long period of peace. Progress was celebrated in the spirit of Emile Coué, "Every Day in every way I am getting better and better." How mistaken that was. It only took a generation before WWII broke out and then only a few years after that the Korean War was fought. It seems wars have been coming regularly ever since. How badly this reflects on the WWI veterans clarion call, "Never Again!" There are reasons to be cynical of those who seem to so casually want to drag Nations into war again and again.

Lest We Forget!

The Great War for soldiers was the most devastating . The military casualties were almost incomprehensible.

While the Second World War was devastating for civilians and destruction of who countries and cities, soldiers did less of the dying. And, there was of course the added horror of the Holocaust.

In the First World War, the Battle of the Somme, had staggering casualties of one million men. A small snapshot of this is well remembered in Newfoundland. The Newfoundland Regiment was decimated in a matter of minutes as they tried to move forward out of their trenches. Within 15 to 20 minutes all 22 officers were dead with 80% casualties among the rest of the 780 strong regiment. For the small country of Newfoundland, not yet part of Canada, this was a dreadful loss of the young men of a generation. Almost every small community lost sons. To this day, Newfoundland remembers this on the day the rest of Canada celebrations our nationhood, July 1. For their sacrifice the Newfoundland Regiment was designated the Royal Newfoundland Regiment.

Beaumont-Hamel Memorial

The monument at the Canadian memorial at Beaumont-Hamel in Northern France. I wanted very much to visit this place when I was visiting Vimy Ridge a few years ago. I tried in my polite way to persuade my friend Lynne and her brother to travel the short distance to here but they were eager to go and find a place for a drink. I wish to this day I had been more insistent.

Canada has always distinquished itself in war. We downplay our military history and always seek the peace dividend when the conflict is over. In the First World War we were part of the British Army but managed to fight under the command of Canadian Generals as the Canadian Corp. Canada is best remembered for the victory at Vimy Ridge, after the British and French had failed to dislodge the Germans from their dug in position. With a plan well worked out and some unique battle techniques the Canadians won the day with less casualties than expected in those day. Wars are often fought with the techniques of the previous war. The First World War was certainly that, where soldiers were send out time and again against modern weapons to be slaughtered. It seems the ordinary soldiers duty was to fight and die for God and Country more so that to fight and win.

It is worth remembering this day General Arthur Currie, the famous Canadian leader of the First World War. Canadians, in characteristic modesty, tend not to elevate their great leaders. If he were American, French, British or German we would know more about him and his accomplishments. He may have been the best General in that war. I see in this mornings paper that a new book is being written about his contribution successfully leading the Canadians in the battle of A Hundred Days. I look forward to reading it.

One could go on and on about Canada's military contribution in other wars. I watched on TV this week two shows about Canada's military victories in the Second World War and Korea. The first was the driving the elite German soldiers out of Ortona, Italy a battle of attrition, a small version of the battle of Stalingrad and the second was the turning back of the Chinese at Kapyong such that they could not overrun the city of Seoul. Both of these were remarkable decisive battles in which Canadians did themselves proud in battle.

While I am fascinated with military accomplishments of Canadians in war I am most proud of Canada's contribution to peace keeping. Sadly, for now, Canada's role as peacekeepers, under the command of the United Nations has been minimized. Our current government prefers that the Canadian military be more warriors that peacekeepers. I reject the idea that Canada is a warrior Nation. I trust that some day Canada may do itself proud as peacekeepers once again.

If you have not done so today. Find something inspirational about the accomplishment of those who answered the call.

Must go the commemoration in Ottawa is about to begin on the radio.