Looking For Ourselves 66 Years Later

Sunday, December 7, 1941, a dozen of us 18-19 year olds at the start of our lives, were rehearsing a freshman production of a relatively silly play, Uncle Stanley Slept Here, on the Esplanade behind Emerson College at 130 Beacon Street, Boston, under the direction of a large-hatted, soprano-voiced, Noel Coward character of a woman, aptly named Gertrude Binley Kay, when someone came charging downstairs with the news, fresh off the radio, that the Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbor.

"A day that shall live in infamy," said FDR a few days later, and America was at war. Those of us who were there have been labeled by Tom Brokaw, "The Greatest Generation". I'm not at all sure we earn that appellation, but I can attest to the fact that our love of country was nothing we had to wear a lapel pin to prove. Our individual religions were far more a private and personal matter, but we did display a kind of civil religion in the amount of parades we held --Memorial Day, Armistice day, the 4th. of July, Lincoln's Birthday, Washington's Birthday-- and the reverence in which we held America's founding documents, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

We were closer to our feelings for America in 1941 and beyond. I suspect that's because our generation had far less doubts about America's direction. But we did have doubts -- and we dared to voice them -- and that resulted over the years in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Minimum Wage Act, the Fair Housing Act and a host of other laws in our nation's pursuit of equal opportunity and equal justice for all. No doubt, we feel better about ourselves when we speak up. As citizens we feel better about our country when we do the same.

The FDR I quote above also said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." He wasn't talking about the fear of being labeled unpatriotic if you dared to criticize the direction of your government. It didn't apply. It never applies. The cowards who cower behind the flag because they can't bear the heat of democracy, will always be there, hurling their epithets.

So, and it was ever thus, we must dare to swallow our fears -- and declare ourselves!

DeclareYourself.com

Comments

[cbm17]

let's not get too carried away with nostalgia. WWI brought Japanese internment camps; hiroshima and nagaski; firebombing of multiple Japanese cities resulting in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths; the firebombing of dresden which also brought many thousands of civilian deaths.

I'm the first one to stand up and say that this country is going in the wrong direction (and probably has been for about thirty years), but this good old days BS gets old. let's also remember that during WWII there was a draft- therefore not everyone was willingly part of the "greatest generation". and as long as we are keeping track...I might have to give either the revolutionary or civil war generation that award since those were wars for survival. I hate to break it to you but WWII was not.

Lear is right to point out advances made after WWII, thanks largely to LBJ (although he too was a war criminal, truth be told). the period between 1945 and 1975 may have been the closest that the US has come to economic equality. nevertheless, today minorities and women are closer to the white male counterparts than they were thirty years ago in earning potential and even earnings; at the same there is more economic disparity than in 1975 (and everybody works more). two steps forward, two steps back.

the American experiment will continue; people should definitely continue to voice dissent....it's too bad most Americans haven't a clue, as shown by the continuing popularity of the Republican party etc. etc.

[miamirat]

seriously ask yourself the following question: should you be expending your efforts to trying to roll back the events that seem to be leading us to someplace bad. Is it possible that process is just dragging to downward drift into slow motion? Maybe you should be helping it accelerate into full speed ahead.

A lot of corporations went out of business with the good intentions of those loyalist that slowed down the process by doing the right thing ! We slowed it down in the 60's with all our equal rights and such. Laws that took more from others in the same class than it gave to those it reluctantly extended justice towards but not to.

let's get on with the total collapse ... while there's something left to salvage. these people think they're reaping the final harvest of the american people. Let's make sure they're right. they've already raped all they can think of on this planet.

[MmeFlutterbye]

I'm almost 80 and I remember those days of 1941. I got to thinking that, ironically, although we were required to say the Lord's Prayer and read a Bible verse in the public schools before our day began, despite there being non-christian students who must surely have been uncomfortable through it all, the idea of religious belief was very private and none of us tried to sway anyone into our way of thinking. There was no in-your-face belief that tried to dominate the conversation. There has been a deterioration of our life partly due to religious fanaticism whose adherents want complete control, not just of out spiritual lives, but of our whole beings. Why have we allowed this to happen?

[leftLibertarian]

Neo cons,esp of the chicken hawk variety, love to compare WW II to the war on 'terror.' But they grow testy when calls are made to restore the military draft. If America faces a foe as fierce as then, why not? That way, young neo-cons over at the Meekly Standard can go fight in this war they compare to WW II

[Joeseo]

At 66 yrs of age, I know and full-well know that
America of parades and people unafraid to voice an opinion.

When our combat troops in Iraq were ordered to conceal our Flag, I was furious. I was also ignored by Conservatives for my dismay. Muted and
avoidance was the response from members and officers of the American Legion. All seemed to stay in locked-step buying the crap about appearing as Invaders. I say Bush/Cheney are worse than any flag-burner, for that directive.

I think we all behaved like cowards, allowing these two draft dodgers to stipulate such shameful behavior on troops active in combat.

I just go crazy thinking of the marines of Mt.
Suribachi and then that marine punished for showing the flag at that toppling statue of Saddam.

[opines]

Perhaps the main difference between 1941 and now is that we were not the World's only Super Power then.

We were still segregated in the South and were coming out of a devastating Depression.

In the 66 years since Pearl Harbor we have attained a position of paramount world power. We have developed arrogant, hubristic, imperialist dreams, dreams of an American century.

We were educated sufficiently to know Lord Acton,s axiom that 'Power corrupted ... and absolute power corrupted absolutely", but we thought we were immune.

Now, a hot-house flower addicted to unsustainable comforts and luxuries, corrupted absolutely, to whom shall we protest our condition and to what end?

[Purple Girl]

Truely this Admin has been the most outlandish Sit Com ever written. Shakespear could not have designed the intricacies of this charade. Nor the sinister undercurrents.
Perhaps Cheney should be given the Pulizter for most intriguing epic saga spanning over 3 decades.

[BlackWidowPilot]

Lest I forget, Mr. Lear, you are a God in my country!

You are a real patriot; your efforts including People For The American Way and the very life you have led, makes me wish that you may see many a year yet on this troubled world of ours, to share your wisdom and wit with the benighted rest of us!

America -and the world- needs all of her patriotic sons and daughters to keep fighting the good fight against the corporatist nightmare that the Busheviks would impose upon us all.

Thank you for everything, Sir!

Leland R. Erickson
Citizen

[jeskiley]

You and Sean Penn posting today, two more Iconoclasts I've enjoyed watching on the Sundance Channel. I like your website, Declare Yourself, very informative and accurately aimed at youthful voters. Just wanted to bring up the fact that your voice is rarely heard, the one of "elder" or "father" connecting a couple of generations before with those coming of age today. It feels like an important bridge missing, "we did have doubts, and we dared to voice them"...that's comforting material.

Keeping individual religion discrete, but sharing a civil religion, I feel that these displays of allegience need to spread fiercely. We have far more doubts about America's direction, because we lack an understanding of national symbols. We fear that individuality is lost when we align and give up that freedom to be separate, only finding common ground when the fight is against "the other".

HuffPo is full of raging voices, I suppose that's useful in some sense. Or it may be mere distraction.

[TooLooze]

Mr. Lear, you have not only looked FOR ourselves but AT ourselves. And your Archie Bunker forced America to look at itself as well. Thanks.

[Dap]

Eloquently expressed Mr. Lear, eloquently expressed indeed. Made my eyes well-up.

[loril]

I would also like to put in a plug for my parent's generation...the Silent Generation born just after your own, Mr. Lear. They were children during the war, growing up in times of rationing, turmoil and often had fathers or older brothers off at war. They were the well mannered generation who never sought the limelight. They rarely receive credit for anything because they were too young to save America from facism (the first time, at least) and too old after the Boomers came along and took over the spotlight completely. (Never trust anyone over 30 was the slogan that wrote my parents and their peers off so quickly and while still so young.)

My parents raised their kids, worked hard, expected little and contributed greatly. Their generation still believed in good government and good government programs because they were aided by these programs in their often difficult childhoods. Many joined in with the Civil Rights movement and the War on Poverty in the 1960s (at least here in my region) and were, unlike Archie Bunker, able to overcome much of the prejudice and classism in which they were raised. The openness of mind and the flexibility they showed in dealing with the younger generations (from the hippies to the hip hoppers) is more admirable to me now that I am entering my own cranky middle age.

They benefited greatly from the post war boom and many attended college themselves or else worked their butts off to send my generation. I am glad that their standard of living rose to the level that it did because I feel they deserved it. I am sorry that they are so worried about their kids and their grandkids. We are the first to not do as well as our parents did and, whether that is "our fault" or more to do with the times is not a matter to discuss in this post. I'd like to see my parents close out their lives, led so well, knowing that America was still alive and well.

Can we accomplish this for them?

[waiguoren]

FDR said, "Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a DATE which will live in infamy..."

And it has been misquoted as "DAY" everywhere, ever since.

[January]

I was only 7 years old at the time, so I grew up under the barrage of patriotic propaganda from Hollywood. And, yes, I still get tears when I see a parade. But it is an error to let America be defined by our wars. I do not disrespect warriors. I just don't want to be dominated by them.

I assume that somewhere in Lear's long career he dealt with the failure of "the war to end wars." Unfortunately, Hollywood continues to crank out patriotic propaganda; killing as a spectator sport substitutes for genuine drama.

We face today a threat as great or greater than the Axis powers. We burn up our planet slowly by over-population and over-consumption while the fast fires lie waiting in our ICBM silos.

So missing from his Pearl Harbor Day recollections is that we seem never to learn. Consequently we have reached the point where time is no longer on our side. We remain just as unprepared for our future today as we were in 1941. Let's just shamelessly pass all the burden on down to our children and get lost in nostalgia.

[EdwardUlyssesCate]

In 1941, people had no idea just how much their government was lying, stealing and killing in their name. It took the Internet age for people to be able to do extensive research into what was really taking place in the government we were supposed to be able to trust.

In 1941, the Feds had only stolen roughly 28% of the value of US money, and had made it illegal to protect oneself by owning some gold.

Now that they've taken around 95%, and owning gold has become legal again (so far), folks are catching on. There's always been sociopaths in government, but they have never affected 330 million people at one same time until now.