Is It 1948?

1948 Revisited?
Notes: I recommend a long life, but it has its drawbacks. Perhaps the worst is that when history repeats itself because it isn‘t heeded, it must be lived over again, with the knowledge that you are powerless to stop it.
When I see a new book by a favorite author, it brings a quickening of joy akin to finding that the biggest present under the tree has your name on it.
There are only one or two authors who bring this euphoria: one is Barbara Kingsolver. End of notes.

Rereading a book after several months or years reveals ideas that had not been inspired by a first reading.
Barbara Kingsolver understands context. Though the book “The Lacuna” begins in the late 1920s the period that brought about this reflection began in 1948: The year Zelda Fitzgerald died in a mental hospital in Asheville, NC, when a fire from the first floor swept up the dumb waiter chute and strangely only entered only her room. That year was also notable for the campaign of Harry Truman and the activities of the Dies Committee in the House which looked into the lives and associations of U.S. Citizens whom they alleged had earlier associations with Communists or allegedly Communist Front organizations.

“Conspiracy trials, deportation hearings. Do you know how many New Yorkers are from someplace?” Words from the “cool” friend/lover of the protagonist of the book after a liaison in an almost empty hotel in Asheville, NC…empty because the city is quarantined by the polio epidemic. Fear of the dreaded illness that strikes mostly children is another fear in this time of many fears. And the fears are magnified by the press, and sensationalist radio commentators. The Dies Committee has used the FBI to investigate their “targets”……the author character in “The Lacuna", a homosexual male, that has written two blockbuster books on the fallen civilizations of the Aztec and Mayan people, has had numerous inquiries directed to him that are fielded and answered by his stalwart secretary Mrs. Violet Brown. She is an interesting character in her own right: a middle-aged woman who grew up in the rhododendren "hells" of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and retains much of the Shakesperean language patterns that still remain in the area. She is self-taught, widowed at 20 and lives in a boarding house. She is fiercely protective of her young employer. During the investigative process the author has signed several “loyalty oaths” a common demand in those bad old days which in itself is a form of entrapment.

"members during the 1947 Hollywood Ten hearings were Parnell (NJ), Nixon (CA), Vail (IL), John McDowell (PA), and John S Wood (GA).[25] Robert E Stripling was the Chief Investigator[26] and appears on many recordings and transcripts of those hearings.
In the fifties, the most effective sanction was terror. Almost any publicity from HUAC meant the 'blacklist.' Without a chance to clear his name, a witness would suddenly find himself without friends and without a job. But it is not easy to see how in 1969 a HUAC blacklist could terrorize an SDS activist. Witnesses like Jerry Rubin have openly boasted of their contempt for American institutions. A subpoena from HUAC would be unlikely to scandalize Abbie Hoffman or his friends"
[24] From Wikipedia

1948 was the year that Truman ran for another term against Dewey. This was the first year I was old enough to vote, 21. Truman had been maligned by the Chairman of the Republican National Committee Hugh Scott, who told voters in Massachusetts that Harry Truman had been endorsed in his 1944 run by the Communist Party and, “now shows indifference to Communist penetration at home” calling the Hearings “red herrings“…he went on to say that when Dewey and Warren, were elected the “greatest housecleaning since St. Patrick cleaned the snakes out of Ireland” would result. When the Republican platform was approved it made “no mention of controversial state referenda on birth control and labor unions” Kingsolver wrote.

What resulted was a victory by Truman that left the right-wing press gasping as the newspaper headlines declaring “Dewey Defeats Truman appeared in the morning Chicago Tribune, and was repeated by the other papers. Truman had gone to bed early not knowing who the winner was. With a three way race on the ballot: Truman, Henry Wallace from the left and Strom Thurmond as a Dixiecrat, the Democrats voted for Harry Truman. The Republican poisonous attacks trumpeted by the right-wing press accusing him of being a Communist sympathizer had not prevailed. By the end of 1949 the House Committee on Unamerican Activities had spread a wide net and convicted Alger Hiss of spying for the Communists. A breath of icy cold fear settled over the country but by 1950 the fear was of the Committee. The FBI under J. Edgar Hoover had let its shadow fall over too many in its relentless pursuit of “Communists and Fellow Travelers”….notoriously Robert Taylor and Ronald Reagan testified against their colleagues in Hollywood. Reagan’s then wife Jane Wyman divorced him because of this activity. Much of the testimony against those charged was by people who were paid to inform on neighbors, and based on the outright lies of the sensationalist newspapers that were used as evidence, or those who testified against associates to save themselves. Almost all of it was lies, perpetuated by a dishonest press and radio. By 1950 the Junior Senator from Wisconsin had taken up the attack in the Senate and the House Committee was no longer the point of the spear. At the end of 1954 the Senate voted to censure McCarthy, but together with Representative Dies he had managed to ruin the lives of thousand of people before this was ended.

My original point in writing this is that the book brings to mind the vitriolic lies and the fear being generated by Fox News and the Republican Party. The Tea Party candidates who have won with nothing to recommend them except that they are anti-Obama, or anti-Democratic, against capable candidates with experience and integrity, is trying to revive this hateful patriotic fervor that began in 1948. They have attacked and discredited such stalwart Republicans as Bob Bennett of Utah, Mike Castle of Delaware and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Only Murkowski hung on by running as a write-in candidate. This is for me a frightening time, as the ghosts of these right-wing patriots rise again with the intent of taking the “country back”; back to where? Well of course, back to the Fifties.

LOOKING BACK AND FORWARD: A DISCUSSION OF AN EDITORIAL BY CHARLES PETERS;

In a long article in Washington Monthly by Charles Peters titled "Tilting At Windmills" there is a lengthy discussion of just about everything. It was written just before the mid-term elections and in today's reckoning of time relevant information it may seem passe, but there is so much to consider here, in hindsight, that I feel that many would be interested in reading it. So many facts that were unknown to me are revealed. The actual reason for the deficit that is not because of Democratic spending, but of the policies and values of preceding administrations. These discrepancies must be undone if we are to recover from the damage done previous to 2008,
In discussing the cost of the Pentagon and the percentage of the budget spent on the military Peters makes a telling comparison to World War II:

"A veteran Pentagon critic, Winslow Wheeler, notes that during World War II, we had one general for every 6,382 enlisted men. Now we have one for every 1,519 soldiers. Even more dramatic is the contrast between today’s American forces and the most effective armies of history—the Israeli force that won the spectacular victory in the 1967 war, which had a ratio of one general to 6,916 enlisted men, and the Roman army of 52 AD, which had a ratio of one to 8,711."

And then there is this. While the Pentagon and the military grew the number of people in the regulatory agencies whose function is to keep us safe has shrunk.

"On the other hand, at one regulatory agency after another, we see the need for more, not less enforcement personnel. The SEC, the FDA, and the Consumer Products Safety Commission are examples. More recently, the pipeline explosion in San Bruno, California, exposed a need throughout the country either for more inspection or for more rigorous requirements that defective pipes discovered by inspection are repaired or replaced."

We have been exposed to e coli and salmonella, basically old fashioned food poisoning not only because of the lack of inspectors but because of the failure of inspectors to report and share obvious violations of food safety standards. There has been a "hands off" approach of anything that will disrupt business in the FDA, for the past thirty years. This is the big govrnment that we need. Children died from eating raw spinach grown in a California field that was below a feed-lot operation whose run-off ran into the field during a heavy rain. Should the farmer (corporate farmer) be allowed to grow a crop that can be eaten uncooked in such fields? Obviously not. Did not the Department of Agriculture have jurisdiction over this? If we are going to be a third-world country this is one of the first indications. Those of us who live in Arizona know not to eat melons, strawberries or green onions grown in Mexico and imported into our state. Why? Because they irrigate with polluted water. Hmmm.

"Of course, sometimes when there is an adequate number of inspectors, they are conditioned not to make trouble for the inspected. When the Department of Agriculture inspected Wright County Egg in Iowa, later found to be a major source of salmonella, they discovered, according to the Wall Street Journal, “[d]rain clogged, full of shells,” “bugs everywhere,” “cooler floor was dirty, lots of trash,” and “the dry storage area had lots of trash, cartons on the floor everywhere.” These reports came from inspections that occurred from April 1 through August 17 of this year. But the DOA failed to tell the FDA, which is responsible for egg safety, about these problems. The salmonella outbreak occurred a few weeks later. Why didn’t the DOA say anything? “The conditions at the egg plant packing facility were routine.
In other words, the plant has always been a mess, so why speak up now?"

This is only some of the content in the Charles Peters editorial. There is much more about the current war inherited by Obama, who promised in his capaign to make decisions after talking to the "military leaders". That is perhaps the worst kind of error. It cost LBJ a second term. The Military Leadership is intent on ongoing war. In conclusion, let's see what General Petraeus has to tell us about the Afghan War.

“You have to recognize also that I don’t think you win this war. I think you keep fighting. It’s a little like Iraq, actually … Yes, there’s been enormous progress in Iraq. But there are still horrific attacks in Iraq, and you have to stay vigilant. You have to stay after it. This is the kind of fight we’re in for the rest of our lives.”

20th Century History: Veteran's Day

20th Century History: Veteran's Day

When I was a child November 11th was called Armistice Day to memorialize the signing of the Armistice with Germany at the end of WWI.....my hometown always had a parade down Main Street with the veterans marching and carrying the flag of their branch of service. As a Spanish-American War Veteran, and someone who was active in the VFW, my father rode in an open car. We were very proud of him. The parade ended at a smaill cemetery at Five Points, where there would be a short Memorial Service with a couple of speakers, and Honor Guard of active service men who walked in to a drum beat and placed the flags in their supports. We would be restless but quiet as my father would give us a look that went to the heart, and none of us wanted to get that look. We knew we were there to remember the men who died in that war and were respectful no matter how cold, hot or windy, until Taps was blown by a bugler and the flags retired by the Honor Guard. When Taps was played and the folded flag given to me at my husband's Memorial Service it brought back those memories. When this was over, all of us, six kids, would get in the family car and my father would drive to the Presidio In San Francisco where he was stationed before shipping out to Manila Bay in 1900. At the Presidio he would walk among the headstones and stop at various places to look out over the Golden Gate, while we were released to lounge on the lawn area across the road.
Holidays were sacred to my father, and this one and Independence Day were the most sacred of all. He was fifty when I was born, and seemed very old, as my classmates had much younger fathers, but my father instilled in me a love of country and an interest in history that is still a part of my life
My husband and I were married the day after Armistice Day in 1944: he was 21 and still in the Navy and had recently returned from New Guinea on a Navy hospital ship; my father was 68 and was working as a Night Watchman at Fort Mason under the Golden Gate Bridge. He had returned to work from his retirement to do this, and drove to San Francisco every night throughout the War, driving home in the early morning and picking up hitch-hiking servicemen along El Camino Real on his way to Redwood City. My mother would be prepared to cook breakfast for anyone he brought home, and with Food Ration Coupons that was not easy. My parents had a generosity of spirit that has largely disappeared in the U.S. and has brought us to a shameful state of greed and selfishness, the worst in remembered history.

The Story of the Japanese Internments On The Pacific Coast: Paranoia in Action

I had just finished reading “Hotel On The Corner of Bitter and Sweet” by Jamie Ford and this is one of the books I will review here. The other is “Tallgrass” by Sandra Dallas which I read after browsing through saved Book Club emails and found. I review them together as they are related in one important way; both are novels about aspects of the very sad time which is history to most of you but memory to me: the relocation of the Japanese families that lived on the coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington.
The first book “Hotel……:” is the story of a Chinese family in Seattle, a father and mother and their second generation son. The father is very traditional and has in fact been sent to China by his parents to be educated so that he will know his heritage and traditions, a thing he plans to do for his son when he reaches high school age. Meanwhile, he arranges a scholarship for him to an exclusive all white middle school, where part of the scholarship is earned by the boy working in the cafeteria and after school doing janitorial work. There is another scholarship student he works with: a Japanese girl. Both are bullied and rejected by the white students and join together to be friends. When the round-up of Japanese begins the Chinese boy is devastated and actually travels to the internment center to see his friend. The hotel is a boarded up building where the Japanese families have stored their belongings in the belief that they will be able to return later to retrieve them….This is a story that is mostly about the Chinese family and the boy, but gives insight into the cultures of both Chinatown and Japantown, and the families that live there. The devastating scene when the Japanese families are standing in line to board trains that will take them to a center in Idaho reveals the injustice of this policy and the sadness of the families and children. There is much more to this, as the boy is befriended by a black man who is a jazz saxaphone player who sets up on street corner to play and support himself with donations. It is still the Depression. There is a subplot concerning the sax player and the great jazz musicians of Seattle.
When I read Kathryn’s review of “Tallgrass” I knew it should be read consecutively with the first book, as it was the story of what amounted to a concentration camp in Colorado where the Japanese were interred, and the community that was adjacent to the camp. It is a story of bigotry, courage and kindness. If you haven’t read “Tallgrass“, do. And if possible read “Hotel….” first.

BOOK CLUB REVIEWS

My friend Barbara Carvallos asked me about an online Book Club made up of 15 relatives and friends...my sister manages it so she limits it to that number, but i think we could share our reading here not in a formal book club but just sharing randomly things we read. I am always interested to see what people read. I'm going to post the same review I emailed to the Book Club members...if anyone reads this, I will post once a month. I read maybe six books a month so some are bound to interest others.

In September I read several books, a couple of them were mysteries writeen by women. I enjoy taking a break from more serious reading to indulge in the intricate suspense, and plot twists in mystery books. Anne Perry has been a favorite of mine for several year. Most of her mysteries are set in the mid 19th century in London and her protagonists are a former police inspector who after an accident which leaves him with only a sketchy memory of his past, named Thomas Monk. He has met and married a woman who was a battlefield nurse in Turkey during the Crimean War working with Florence Nightingale and is a determined activist for making nursing a profession with schools to train them instead of the practice of hospitals in those years using nurses as scrub women.The nurse's name is Hester, and she has appeared in previous novels as a single woman who is a private nurse; since her marriage she volunteers at a charity hospital to supervise the nursing staff. The latest book I read in this series was The Twisted Root. The plot, a young woman is engaged to the scion of a prominent family and is accused of murdering the coachman as she fled the scene of a garden party at her fiancees home. Monk is hired by this family to find her and clear her of the charges, and the sub-plots include a nurse who steals morphine and quinine from the hospital where Hester works, to give to elderly veterans of the war with France who have no pensions and no money to seek medical care and buy the drugs they need. Perry's descriptions of the physical and historical context of the time she writes of is poetic. This is a read-all-night book.

The media join in on Rand Paul's hissy fit over Conway's 'Aqua Buddha' ad | Crooks and Liars

The media join in on Rand Paul's hissy fit over Conway's 'Aqua Buddha' ad | Crooks and Liars

HARD TIMES

It has been sometime since I have composed a blog here or on Multiply. It is easy on Facebook, to share what someone else has written, with only my comment to introduce it: I can no longer take the easy way out. A blogger named Ramona has inspired me to speak again of my experience and knowledge of the 20th century, having lived through 73 of it as child, wife, mother, student and finally worker. Early on, perhaps as early as ten, I knew my father was wrong for hating FDR..regardless of his hate, we had three radios in 1937 and I listened to the Fireside Chats each Sunday night after a pot-roast dinner. The radio was our link to the world, and we all listened. I knew that we had come to California from Indiana, though I did not remember the trip: in 1930 I was three years old. I knew that we had lived with my father's brother and his family and that my father had sold his Masonic ring to help with expenses, and I remember when he got his first job in California with the San Francisco Police Department as a patrolman at the Tanforan Race Track on the edge of San Bruno.
These are just vague memories but apparently when some happening was important to my family it left an impression.
Perhaps because my father had joined the Army in 1898 during the Spanish American war and spent more or less the next nineteen years in one or another branch of the U.S. Services, and when he married and left the Army had worked eleven years as a policeman in Indianapolis, he was a died-in-the-wool conservative, and remained that way for the rest of his life. Of his six children five were Democrats: all of the girls. Our only brother became a Republican.
That is the background in which I was nurtured in my early years, and despite the views of my parents I adored Franklin D. Roosevelt and hear his voice in my memory to this day. A patrician in the old sense, descendant of the Dutch settlers, he nevertheless understood the trials and needs of the working class, and like the Rockefellers and Carnegies he believed in the European concept of noblesse oblige. What an idea! That those who had succeeded and become wealthy either by activity or inheritance, owed a debt to the working people whose work had contributed to their success. FDR grew up on an estate in New York with all of the things money could buy to make his life easier. After leaving Harvard and attending Columbia Law School, he left before completing his studies there and passed the New York Bar. Under Woodrow Wilson he was Secretary of the Navy having chosen public service as his career. He was a two term Governor of New York He did not need money so could not be bought..like his uncle, Teddy Roosevelt who inspired him, he knew that life should be better for the working classes in a rich country. He was a Liberal Democrat and the legislation that he pushed through the Congress has changed the lives of Americans for the 75 years since they were enacted. Let us not forget what was signed into law during his thirteen years in office.

1. Social Security, which gave people who worked hard but were too poor to save for retirement security in their old age.
2. Unemployment insurance paid for with the contributions of the employer which gave a small stipend to a worker who had lost a job through no fault of his or her own.
These are the two programs that have had the most important and lasting benefit to the working class. There were many other programs that he enacted in his first hundred days that kept the people who had lost jobs because of the severe market and banking class including the Works Progress Administration that used Federal funds to emply workers in infrastructure projects and other fields that made life better for Americans. We had a neighbor, a widow, who worked iMn San Francisco in a garment factory being paid by the WPA sewing clothing for children.
My personal knowledge of the WPA was when my father was laid off by the San Francisco Police Department (he was 60 years old, but had not worked long enough to retire) and went to work in the construction of the San Francisco Airport, which is built on a land fill, setting dynamite charges in a rock quarry in the hills above Millbrae. Though my family had increasingly benefited from the policies of FDR, he never acknowledged that fact. I did and still am a FDR Liberal intending to remind people of what the real intent of Conservative leaders and contributors is: to roll back all of the programs and legislation still in place from the New Deal.