'Thank you for your service,' Veterans!

The Thunderbird atop the monument outside the 4th Division Museum

"Thank you for your service, sir," said my veteran, M/Sgt Vance Clark, USAF, last week as we toured the 45th Infantry Thunderbird Division museum in Oklahoma City.

At the base is the roll of combat

He'd been talking to a Korean War vet who was one of the staff.
That veteran replied to him the same way, "Thank you for your service."
They are a unique band of brothers, especially those who have been in combat.
If you haven't been to the museum on NE 36th street, don't be fooled by all the military vehicles outside. That's impressive, along with the monuments  and comments.
Inside is an amazing museum of more than just a division that fought and died in WWII and Korea. There are Bill Mauldin originals, a history of military firearms throughout American history, a room dedicated to WWI, relics from the divisions  WWII battles across Nazi Europe, including Nazi flags and gear, relics that belonged to Hitler. Most moving to me is the room commemorating the concentration camp at Dachau, which the division liberated.
On this Veterans' Day, or on any other, you come out of there, and you know the value of the words,

"Thank you for your service."

Snap a salute, and be thankful.

Hatred on the phone, gnashing of teeth

It's been a week since I was called a Nazi and coward on the phone.

Other than that, it was a good evening, but I've been postponing, avoiding writing about it, because it was so, so violent a verbal attack, so filled with rage.

Several ironies of the incident were apparent to me immediately, especially since I'd been meeting with a group of Christians the day before, discussing nonviolence as modeled by Jesus, Gandhi, King. I'm not sure I really want to write about it still, but think I must, not to get even, but as part of a personal solution.

Here's the background.

I was recently voted into membership with the Oklahoma City Gridiron club, which is an honor. They've raised hundreds of thousands of dollars since 1929 for scholarships for journalism students. They raise money by putting on a once-a-year political satire show, filled with songs and scripts poking fun at politicians and more, from the state to the national level. See a post about last year's show here, for an example. Members of the club are journalists of all sorts, and former journalists. I think I'm one of few professors to have been a member.

At any rate, the club holds some meetings at the OETA facilities, and in trade for that, members run the phones for three hours one night during the OETA August  fund drive. That was last Monday night. It's all highly computer-operated, and in spite of training, it takes you a little to figure out all the intricacies of taking a call and filling out information on the computer.

It was the first phone call. I picked up the phone, said "Good evening, thanks for calling OETA. May I take your pledge?"

He started immediately, saying he was a member of the Tea Party and why should he support a tax-supported station that labeled the Tea Party "racist."

At first, I thought he was joking, but the venom in his voice changed that. I knew better than to try to argue or answer him, and just remained silent. He kept going, implying I worked for the station. I told him I was a volunteer, and he kept a barrage of questions coming all along the same line. 

I know OETA has never referred to the Tea Party as racist, but it wouldn't have mattered to him. I tried to tell him he was welcome to his opinion as an American, but that infuriated him more. He then said that being a volunteer for OETA was like being a volunteer for Hitler, and when I refused to answer any more questions, getting ready to hang up, he called me a coward for not answering his questions and slammed the phone down.

Yes, I caught the ironies of someone in the right-wing Tea Party calling someone a Nazi, and hiding behind a phone, calling someone a coward.

He called a couple of others during the evening and I guess, being satisfied, shut up.

The volunteers sitting next to me joked about it and that helped. And from then on, the phone calls were from friendly people all over Oklahoma, saying how much they appreciated the programming on OETA and pledging money to qualify for 1950s and '60s music CDs andDVDs.

Afterward, I wished I'd asked him if he were a Christian, since many Tea Partiers are, and if so, how he could be so full of hate and condemnation when Jesus preached love and forgiveness. But I wasn't that quick. It was a shock.

What disturbs me most  was the black-and-white, ignoring the facts attitude of this person, and wondering how representative he is of the Tea Party membership? Where does that hatred come from? It it typical of propaganda techniques--using labels, being unable to think, unreasoning action fueled by a mob mentality, an lack of being able to consider other peoples'  views--totally anti-government, anti-education, anti-science, mixed with complete lack of concern for others. 

For me, I came face to face with crackpot extremism and hatred that endangers our freedoms and our government which is based on working together. And with my personal restraint. I thought about Scripture saying  a soft answer turns away wrath, but it didn't work here. 

Then I thought about scripture telling how the Pharisees "gnashed their teeth," at some of Jesus' teaching. This guy went to bed that night, and probably every night since, very unhappy, grinding his teeth.  Really sad.

But he made me much more thankful for the other callers like the  lady (probably about my age), from Salina, Oklahoma, who called to pledge. We proceeded to have an intelligent conversation about the history of her town, and how thankful she was for OETA, supported by tax dollars, providing good in her life. 

I won't forget the angry crackpot. He actually enriched my life, because I value even more  the good people who called.

The second caller of the night said he'd already pledged, but he just wanted to call back and say how much OETA meant to him. I wrote down his name and passed the message on to the people in charge.

Singing, and a flag of finally free in the Baltics

One of the readers of today's blog lives in a country whose peoples have been invaded, subjected, abused and massacred for centuries it seems. I have no idea why someone from Latvia clicks on this blog, but I'm glad they do. One of the joys, strengths and plusses of the Internet is that it brings together people who treasure freedom and John Milton's free marketplace of ideas.
One of the hazards of being a people and a country in a strategic location is that other countries don't ask permission and simply overrun you for their advantage.
The flag of this Baltic state goes back to perhaps the 13th century. The red symbolizes the blood of their citizens lost in defending their liberty. One legend is that a leader wounded in battle was wrapped in a white sheet--thus the center white stripe. It's similar to a legend in Austria.
But the Latvians have been subjugated by the many, including the Polish and Swedish, and then the Germans, the Nazis and Soviet Union. More than half their population has been wiped out in various wars.

After the devastating WWI, the Republic of Latvia was founded in 1918 and the flag adopted. It was occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, till the Nazis invaded, and after WWII, it was subjugated again by the USSR. During all that time, the flag was banned.
A peaceful "Singing Revolution" between 1987 and 1991 led to independence of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in 1991. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singing_Revolutionn
With independence and the fall of the Soviet Union, the flag few again over this country. Complicating the picture is that a large minority of the population are native Russians. Here's a salute to a county and citizens who really value independence.

Betrayed and divided, a free country and flag

Among the readers of this blog are citizens of another country that has been invaded, betrayed, repeatedly occupied, and divided over the centuries, only fairly recently obtaining independence, and it also has an Oklahoma connection going back before statehood.

The Czech Republic, formerly known as Bohemia, goes back to the Ninth Century from a small duchy around Prague in the Moravian  Empire. In 1806 it became part of the Austrian empire, and became the core of the Republic of Czechoslovakia at the end of WWI. After 1933 it was the only democracy remaining in Europe, but the country was handed to Hitler by the 1938 Munich Agreement. 

After WWII, with distrust of the west and gratitude to the Red Army the communists won rule and became a Communist ruled state in 1948. Trying to rebel in the Prague Spring of 1968, Warsaw Pact countries invaded and occupied it until the 1989 Velvet Revolution. In 1993 Czechoslovakia dissolved into two republics, the Czech and Slovak. 

The Republic uses the same flag as the former Czechoslovakia, even though that was prohibited by the  in the 1993 separation. I think the Czechs are thumbing their noses at outsiders telling them what to do.

The first flag of Czechoslovakia was almost identical to Poland's, so the blue wedge was added in 1920. The Nazis banned it in 1939, but it was restored in 1945. The white comes from the coat of arms of Bohemia. It was used during the Prague Spring and Velvet Revolution as a symbol of unity. These are independent people.

Oklahoma's Czech population dates from 1889 to about 1910, and many were "Sooners" from other states, arriving before the land run. In the 1910 Census Oklahoma counted more than 5,000 Czechs, including more than 1,500 foreign born. They ranked fourth among non-endlish speaking people in Oklahoma, after German, Hispanic and Italian groups. Unlike other Czech settlements in America,  however, most of Oklahoma's Czechs came from other states seeking free land, rather than from overseas. One of the main colonies was Yukon, which still has festival, as the Czech capital of Oklahoma.

facebook Fascists

 

Book burners--watercolor

7 1/2 x 11 300# Fabriano Artistico paper

How dare intolerant Nazis cut off my right of dissent, my ability to read, to think, to speak, and then not even have the ethics and guts to take responsibility for such totalitarian acts?

They did. American book burners are back in business.

It happened last week when I posted a link to a NY Times story on the Tea Party movement on this blog and  facebook. Within two days, facebook blocked the link  because some people found the article "offensive." No one had to take blame for that viewpoint--which is allowed under the First Amendment--but there was no recourse against facebook. From now on, it's facebook, lower case--or caste--for me. I understand the need to police pornography, child pornography and other legal items. That's far different than squelching freedom.

But to forbid political discussion because some right-wing wackos don't want another viewpoint published? This smacks of the Inquisition, The Nazis, the Soviet purges, the Red Scare of the 1950s, the oppression and violence of the Civil Rights movement, the legalized terrorism in present day China  and Iran when books were burned, people blacklisted, or simply hauled off in the middle of the night because someone had reported they were Jewish, or people who dared question or oppose authority.

These extreme right-wingers are no different if they can't tolerate differing views and work to silence them

In fact, this anonymous auhoritarianism shows its "true colors," and they're not red, white and blue. Their colors are the colors of tyranny of thought, of conformity, of shouting, of bigotry, of religious intolerance--refusing to e to compromise, to listen, to consider other ideas, even if disagreeing.

These tea partiers are trying to destroy the very freedoms they enjoy--for those who don't agree with them. This action proves they would repeal the First Amendment that gives me the right to think, to speak, to write this blog, to worship when and where and if I want, to gather like they do.

I don't mind argument and dissent...it makes us who we are. John Stuart Mill, in On Liberty summed up the basis of our freedoms. Dissent and disagreement, and free publication of all ideas, is essential for freedom. He believed that we were rational beings and truth would rise to the top, like cream, echoing John Milton's "free marketplace of ideas." Those who try to stifle dissent and refuse to consider other ideas are not, alas, rational. They're fearful, insecure, bigots. They're  the same fearful, narrow-minded bigots that stole my campaign yard sign.  These people are not conservatives--they give conservatives a bad name. Real conservatives want to conserve individual freedoms, not destroy them.

These are the people who have driven Sen. Evan Bayh from the Senate. These are the people who are trying to unseat Sen. John McCain, and Sen. Kay Baily Hutchison of Texas. These are the people who have brought Congress to a standstill. Perhaps the last time there was so little compromise in national politics was right before the American Civil War. Will the country come apart again? I think it already has.

I'll post a link to this scree on facebook. Wonder how long before the facebook fascists disagree, report me as "offensive, and prohibit you from reading it?