Back-tracking on the "wrong" track for 45 years

Neruda: "Is there anything sadder than a train in the rain?"

Americans apparently like being in the dumps, or blue, as my small watercolor from Pablo Neruda's poem suggests.
We think the country has been "on the wrong track" for almost a half century, apparently, including now.
Let's "backtrack" some.
That dissatisfaction fueled the Democrat's mid-term election "whuppings" of George Bush and the Republicans' of Obama.
Warning...I spent almost as much time searching my photos for appropriate train photos as I did writing. Hey, I like trains.

This "old one" is rusting  and abandoned on an old track at Skagway, Alaska, but perhaps that is the right track for old ones like me.

So what is the history of the country being on the "wrong track"?
Since 1972, polls have found most Americans have thought the country is on the "wrong track." Some pollster reported asked in 1971: " “Do you feel that things in this country are generally going in the right direction today, or do you feel that things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track?”
Keep in mind that was in the middle of the Vietnam War, inflation was climbing, unemployment was up. Source, the Daily Beast: Wrong track. 

In fact, polls show that Americans have rarely thought we're on the right track. When did we derail and hit the ditch?--Eight years ago, in the fall of 2008, when the economy imploded. Per Gallup, between September through about November 2008, only 7 to 9 percent of the country thought the country was in the right direction. 

What were the highest points in the past 45 years? Three times--(Gallup polls)
In Reagan's second term it bounded to  60 percent on the right track. It soon dropped  to under 50 percent; during Clinton's impeachment, the economy was great and 71 percent thought the country was on the right track; and after 9/11, it soared, but seven  months later it dropped to 60 percent thinking we were on the "wrong track."
My conclusion, (opinion), Americans are fickle, short-sighted, spoiled, and whiners.
 

Canada in the background as the locomotives switch ends on the right track.

Getting on the right track politically is a matter of many opinions. But not in railroads. At the White Pass and Yukon railroad between Alaska and Canada, they take you up to the pass made famous in the Gold Rush, and the locomotives park you just inside Yukon Territory, Canada on a siding. They then move around and attach to the other end of the train for the trip back to Skagway. There's always a "right" track. So simple, in railroad operation if not democracy. 

Next--more tracks.

 

111 countries, and a record July

Panama became the 111th country to have had a reader click on this blog, and total number of hits for the month of July is reaching a record, well over 4,300. Earlier in the month two other new country-clickers were Uruguay and Togo.

Panama has a long history intertwined with the U.S. It was originally colonized by Spain, after Balboa crossed the isthmus to be the first European to see, and  name the Pacific Ocean, in 1513. It gained independence in 1821 and was part of Colombia until 1903.
That's when the U.S., wanting to build the Panama Canal, managed to get it to secede from Colombia. The 48-mile canal was completed in 1914 by the US Army Corps of Engineers, and remained under American control until 1999. That happened because of a 1977 agreement, and there's an Oklahoma connection. Senator Henry Bellmon was one of those backers and he was criticized heavily in his home state and  on the editorial pages of The Oklahoman. I remember seeing a billboard saying "Benedict Bellmon."
But American intervention has also been tawdry. The country was largely democratic until the military took over in 1968, and the US and CIA supported it, including a military strongman, Manuel Noriega, tho took over in 1983, even though he was involved in drug deals and assassinations. 
President Reagan  supported him, using secret funds to back Contra rebels in Nicaragua. Congress learned of it, and blocked the funds, but Reagan and his CIA subordinate Marine Oliver North used secret money from arms sales to Iran to work with Noriega and illegally keep the funds going. It's called the Iran-Contra affair. Eventually though Reagan invoked sanctions on Noriega, and President Bush(the first), invaded in late 1989 to capture him, based on threats to Americans, drug charges, and protecting the canal. Noriega was captured in five days, and was in prison until 2007. He was extradited to France on murder charges and sentenced to seven years in 2010. But the French released him to Panama, to serve 30 years in prison.  Oliver North now works for Fox news.

Since then, the country has had four successful democratic exchanges of power. The country is economically strong. A 2012 poll found that its capital Panama City has the happiest people in the world. Revenue from the canal is a huge portion of the country's income.
Its flag, dating from independence, has two stars and four squares, representing the different political parties. The blue is traditional for the conservative views, and the red for the liberal. America has it backwards, referring to blue and red states. Until that division in very recent years, calling someone in America a "Red," amounted to calling them a Communist. 

'To the shores of Tripoli'...a flag and country

Why are Americans surprised that news from Libya involves our country?
Consider the Marine hymn referring to the First Barbary War in 1801-06. Consider Reagan's bombing of Libya 20 some years ago. Consider our support of the recent revolution. Consider the tragedy at Benghazi and continuing political controversy.
But consider the fact that the people of Libya have a longer history than Americans.
So it is with pleasure that I found  a citizen of Libya became a reader of this blog this week. That's the ninth African country to have readers of this blog, and the 93rd country in the world.
Libya has a long history of turmoil, reflected in today's flag, of occupation and exploitation, going back to the Romans, whose ruins can still be found in the desert state. At the end of the Italian-Turkish war,  Italy occupied the country in 1911-12, and began colonization. As Italy turned fascist, local tribes revolted, and estimates of the number of Bedouins killed range from a few thousand to half of the population. Occupied by the Allies after WWII, the country gained independence in 1951 as the Kingdom of Libya, and adopted today's flag.

The black center with Islamic crescent and star was the banner the rebels carried fighting against the Italians, and as resistance in WWII against the Germans and Italians. The red symbolizes the blood of the Libyan people who died under Italian rule, and the green represents independence, hope, peace and prosperity or the future.
But the discovery of oil in 1959 changed the country's history. As is usual in history, monarchs sometimes don't share the wealth, and that led to a the "First of September Revolution" in 1969 when a military officer named Muammar Gaddafi took power. He changed Libya's flag to a solid green color, the only flag in the world without a symbol and of one color. And as is usual in history, those who overthrow strong leaders, often repeat their behavior.

Proud rebels and their flag, AFP photo

Following the civil war, with the rebels fighting under the original flag,  and NATO intervention in 2011, he was overthrown 42 years later.  Today's government is in transition, but has an elected assembly with a referendum planned.
Americans' memories are indeed short, or ignorant. Our media christened the revolution, and other uprisings across the area as "the Arab spring," but these people have been fighting for freedom a lot longer than that.  We also forget that when a power vacuum is created, whether in the USSR, Iraq, or in this case Libya, unintended results also affect us. The current turmoil in Mali and Algeria, and the attack on Benghazi, are just the latest examples. For the record, Libya is the 17th largest country in the world, one of the most arid--on the north edge of the Sahara, has some of the largest oil reserves in the world, and is home to about 20 tribal groups. 
On a personal note, my late uncle Mike taught in Tripoli in the early 1960s, teaching English for the Department of State. I have many of his slides of that area, including Roman ruins. 
And oh yes, check your history for the Barbary War, where the captured frigate USS Philadelphia was scuttled in Tripoli harbor by US Marines. The mast of that ship today can be seen in Tripoli, rising above a square.
 **
PS: Other African readers of this blog come from Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt, Algeria, Gabon, South Africa, Mali, Morocco