Tag: Vladimir Putin

An Historical & Current Look at “America First”

It is sad that many Americans do not know history. I blame the results of the 2024 US Presidential election on that along with today’s popular mindset that is only concerned with how something affects “me” instead of being concerned with “the common good.”

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

A policy of isolationism has never turned out well for the United States, and I doubt it will as we find ourselves in a true global economy in which no country can thrive in isolation.

Donald Trump campaigned for President on an America First agenda. That apparently sounded good to half the population. The picture he painted of America First did not include alienating the allies we’ve had for our entire 248-year history. It did not include turning our backs on Ukraine and embracing Vladimir Putin. Trump so successfully sold half the voters a bill of goods that they find themselves unable to admit they were hoodwinked. They cannot admit they made a grave mistake in the voting booth.

They interpreted “America First” as an idyllic country in which we would literally build walls instead of bridges, we would have cheap eggs and cheap gasoline, we would not be bothered by having under-paid migrants picking our fruits and vegetables, we would not be bothered with immigrants cleaning our hotel rooms or cutting our grass, and we would not have to compete with highly-qualified foreigners for jobs we have not prepared ourselves to assume.

It is a fact that Americans already have cheap gasoline compared to such places as Great Britain. As the “Bird Flu” continues to spread, we already look back on $4.00-a-dozen eggs as “the good old days.” And how many of us are lining up to make the beds and clean the toilets in hotels for $7.25-an-hour?

Much of America finds itself in an “us versus them” mentality. It is a mindset based in a belief that anyone who doesn’t look and talk like I do doesn’t have the right to live… not a right to live in the United States, at least. When I voiced my political views on social media in January, one commenter told me I should find another country to live in.

I was fortunate to have been born in the United States. I did nothing to deserve that. My immigrant ancestors came here in the 1700s and — fortunately for me — were not deported by the Native Americans who had been living here for thousands of years.

By merely being born in the United States I am the recipient of blessings and opportunities about which the majority of people in the world can only dream.

Photo of the Statue of Liberty with the New York City skyline in the background
Photo by Priyanka Puvvada on Unsplash

Don’t get me wrong… illegal immigration into the United States needs to be addressed, but the mistakes of the past have turned Americans into an “us versus them” mentality in which the “us” no longer view “them” as human beings. The dehumanization of people leads to hate and violence.

It is tragic that we now have a President who repeatedly tells us that we are victims, suckers, and losers being taken advantage of by other countries.

“What’s the history of “America First?” you may ask.

Former Secretary of State, the late Madeleine Korbel Albright, explained it well in her book, Fascism: A Warning, in 2018, so I will quote some of what she wrote:

“America First is a slogan with a past. Founded in 1940, the America First Committee (AFC) brought together pacifists, isolationists, and Nazi sympathizers to fight against the country’s prospective entry into World War II. The AFC opposed creation of the Selective Service and also a Roosevelt initiative known as Lend-Lease, to keep the British in food and arms as they struggled to survive the German onslaught. Within twelve months of its founding, the committee had built a membership of more than 800,000 and attracted support from across the political spectrum – corporate tycoons and Socialists alike.”

Photo of a barbed wire fence at a Nazi concentration camp during World War II
Fence at a Nazi concentration camp. (Photo by Darshan Gajara on Unsplash.)

Albright also wrote, “Four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hitler declared war on the United States. The AFC soon disbanded and, in the intervening decades, its name has carried a stigma of naivete and moral blindness. Now ‘America First’ is back – but what does it mean?”

Donald Trump stated at an assembly of the United Nations that every country should put its interests first. But Albright maintains, “What the assertion ignores is the stake that all countries have in the fates of others.”

My thoughts

I started Janet’s Writing Blog more than a decade ago. Until recently, I planned to basically blog about my journey as a writer and my journey as a reader. As time passed and I wanted to establish my credibility as a writer of history and historical fiction, I began to blog about historical events and documents, usually on anniversary dates.

I did not plan, intend, or want to turn my blog into a political platform. I still do not want to do that, but I find myself in a situation in which I cannot avoid it. I must live with myself. I cannot have this public platform and pretend that everything in our country and world are going well.

Writers are cautioned against being too political, but aren’t writers, teachers, and scientists the first groups and individuals fascist governments go after? I don’t want to turn my blog into nothing but a political sounding board; however, I will not sit idly by while our government is dismantled.

Until the day that I am silenced, I will continue to voice my opinions and speak out against injustices. I will come down on the side of the United States Constitution, and I will come down on the side of the downtrodden. My Presbyterian faith instructs me to do so.

The growing mindset in the United States is “us” versus “them.” I think the 2024 Presidential Election bears that out. In the words of Secretary Albright, “To reduce the sum of our existence to a competitive struggle for advantage among more than two hundred nations is not clear-eyed but myopic. People and nations compete, but that is not all that they do.”

Photo of a painting of the western hemisphere.
Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash

We have just experienced a week of whiplash caused by the policies, pronouncements, Executive Orders, and constantly changing mind of Donald Trump. One day we have tariffs, the next day we don’t, but the next day we do, and no one knows – apparently, not even Trump – whether they’re on or off later today, much less tomorrow.

The words of Trump supporters that “we need a businessman in the White House” echo in my head. Being a student of government and political science, I bristled at that mindset when it was first voiced and I continue to bristle and cringe at it today.

If this is the way businesses operate, I don’t think our democracy (or any democracy) can afford it. I know a democracy cannot afford this in a constitutional way – in a “this is what we stand for” way.

When facing excessive debt, do businesses fire all their employees only to try to locate and rehire the good ones later? Do businesses issue blanket lies in writing about the performance of the employees they fire or layoff in mass reorganizations in order to make it more difficult for them to find new jobs?

Oops! We didn’t mean to fire the air traffic controllers. We didn’t mean to fire the people who safeguard our nuclear stockpiles. We just meant to fire the scientists working on cures for cancer, the people who are trained to fight wildfires, the people who work at the Veterans Administration and the VA hospitals, and the people who make sure we have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and safe food to eat.

We just meant to cancel classes at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Maryland, the premier fire academy in the US where firefighters from all over the nation come for special training. (Too bad for the firefighters who had already bought their plane tickets, etc. for the new round of classes that were scheduled to begin this week.)

We just meant to traumatize the millions of disabled and elderly citizens who rely on Social Security. After all, we must find the money somewhere to give the millionaires and billionaires more tax breaks.

To me, that’s a sign of insanity, but I did not major in business administration in college. I majored in political science and my graduate degree is in public administration.

The government is not supposed to be a profit-making entity. It is service oriented. The government does not manufacture things. It contracts with private companies (and billionaires like Elon Musk) for those things. If the federal government is “getting ripped off” as Trump says, perhaps someone needs to take a look at federal contracts with private companies and see where the waste is.

Photo of a contract marked with a "sign here" sticky note
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

When I worked in government, I was required to recommend to the elected governing body that a contract be given to the lowest bidder unless the lowest bidder was deemed unable to fulfill the contract and accomplish the work as specified. If we think the federal government is paying too much for water faucets or whatever, perhaps the fault likes with the private company selling us those faucets.

If contracts are being issued to the highest bidder because an elected official has a personal relationship or a financial relationship with that bidder, perhaps the elected official needs to be impeached. And the bidder attempting to defraud the government (i.e., the American people) needs to be exposed.

In the Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln reminded us that in the United States of America we have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. It is time for we, the people, to remind all three branches of the federal government of that.

Photo of the tops of three heads: a blonde, a brown, and a black haired and skinned group of people
Photo by Clarissa Watson on Unsplash

We are the government. We, the people, are not the enemy of the government. A free press is not the enemy of the people.

Until my next blog post

It is tempting during these uncertain and chaotic times to withdraw and stop listening to or reading the news; however, it is more important than ever that we pay attention. We need to stay as informed as possible about what is happening in and to our government. We need to get our information from a wide range of reliable sources.

I deleted my weekly western North Carolina Hurricane Helene Update today due to the length of my blog post. It should return next week.

I hope you have a good book to read. I have several going now, as usual. Regardless of your political leanings, I encourage you to read Fascism: A Warning, by Madeleine Korbel Albright.

Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.

Janet

Three Books Read in February 2022

If you’ve been following my blog lately, you know February was not an easy month for me. Various events cut into my reading time, but today I’m writing about the books I read during that short month of 28 days. They represent three different genres. That’s appropriate because my reading interests are all over the place.

Violeta, by Isabel Allende

Violeta, by Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende is becoming one of my favorite novelists. I listened to her latest novels, Violeta, on CD and thoroughly enjoyed it. I listened to the English translation of the Spanish original.

Violeta is written in the form of a letter to Violeta’s adult grandson and follows Violeta from her birth in 1920 during the Influenza Pandemic to the end of her life during the Covid-19 Pandemic. Born into a wealthy family, her father loses everything in the Great Depression which hits South America a little later than in the United States and Europe. The family loses their house and must move out into the hinterlands where they must adapt to life without luxuries such as electricity.

Woven into this story is a character who comes into Violeta’s life at an early age to serve as her English governess; however, it turns out the woman isn’t from England and isn’t at all what Violeta’s parents are expecting.

This is a delightful novel. Violeta would be a good Isabel Allende book for you to start with, if you’ve never read one of her novels. If you’ve read her other books, you know what a treat this one will be.

Our North Carolina Heritage, compiled by Charlotte Ivey Hastings, 1960

This book is well off the beaten path and one you probably can’t find. Just by happenstance, I purchased a copy dirt cheap at a public library used book sale several years ago. I added it to my to-be-read shelves and forgot about it.

I saw it on my bookshelf in February and decided to read it. It isn’t a history book that one can totally rely on for accuracy because it is a compilation of oral history stories. Many of them were written by junior high students.

However… (and that’s a huge HOWEVER), I found lots of little gems of North Carolina history in it that I’ve never seen or heard elsewhere. They are the bits of history that never made it into the history books but offer someone like me a jumping off point to do additional research.

One thing I was particularly glad to find was that the book gave information about a number of women and their bravery and contributions to the patriot cause in the American Revolution. Women have generally been omitted from the history books.

Here’s an example of something I don’t recall hearing or reading elsewhere: By the end of the 18th century, Jewish peddlers in North Carolina traded for eggs since they couldn’t easily come by Kosher meat.

The book reminds me of the series of local history books compiled in the 1960s by Mrs. Mabel Rumple Blume’s North Carolina history students at Harrisburg School in Harrisburg, NC. Every year for five or so years, Mrs. Blume’s students were sent out into the then rural Cabarrus County to interview the oldest residents to capture local history. The students won statewide first-place honors year after year for their books which covered general history, mail delivery and post offices, and grist mills. Much of that history would have been lost forever if not for Mrs. Blume and her students.

With that work in mind, I very much appreciated the contents of Our North Carolina Heritage. It made me sad that the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Library system had made the decision several years ago to weed the book from its collection and sell it for pennies. Sometimes people are put in positions of decision-making who don’t appreciate the true value of what they have.

The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, by Steven Pressfield

This nonfiction book was recommended by Jane Friedman in her January 11, 2022 article, “To Everyone Who Wants Me to Read Their Writing and Tell Them What to Do.” Here’s the link: (To Everyone Who Wants Me to Read Their Writing and Tell Them What to Do | Jane Friedman Ms. Friedman has never steered me wrong, so I checked it out of the public library.

The book is divided into the following three parts: “Resistance ~ Defining the Enemy;” “Combating Resistance ~ Turning Pro;” and “Beyond Resistance ~ The Higher Realm.”

Part One explains that, “Resistance is the enemy within” when we attempt to do something worthwhile. Mr. Pressfield wrote that the rule of thumb for resistance is, “The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.” We fear that inner resistance, but once we “Master that fear… we conquer resistance.”

Mr. Pressfield wrote that resistance is often manifested in the form of procrastination, which can become a habit.

In Part Two, Mr. Pressfield wrote that an artist must stop thinking of himself as an amateur and start seeing himself as a professional. He wrote, “A professional does not take failure (or success) personally.”

He also wrote, “A professional recognizes her limitations. She gets an agent, she gets a lawyer, she gets an accountant. She knows she can only be a professional at one thing.”

In Part Three, Mr. Pressfield wrote that we just do it. We do it every day. It’s work, and we do it. He also cautions artists from thinking of themselves in a hierarchy. In other words, art of all types is not a competition.

Since my last blog post

Every day has brought horrifying images of the suffering and destruction in Ukraine.

I’m disappointed that I didn’t receive an acknowledgement for some research advice I sought for the writing of my novel, but I won’t let that slow me down any longer. That’s life.

I got back to work on a project that relates to my church. I started it 20 years ago and it’s been on the back burner now for 15 years. I’ve been inventorying my unfinished projects lately. It’s overwhelming. I need to complete some, even if doing so cuts into my writing and reading time.

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read. I’m reading an interesting book about 1816 – known as “The Year Without a Summer.”

May the world continue to condemn Vladimir Putin for his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog.

Janet