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Cause for optimism, even on birthdays [1]

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Date: 2024-06-06  

Birthdays seem designed to prompt thinking both backwards and forward. For my birthday today, it’s been tilted a bit more backward than usual. So I thought it perhaps useful to share some of that thinking with the Daily Kos gang.

Those thoughts clustered around the question of how a look backward 83 years might be a way to see the path forward in a helpful way. Sounds a bit paradoxical, I know, but bear with me. The thoughts started with some attention to how this 83 year old would see the world of June 6, 1941. It’s a question of what that infant getting into.

Turns out it was not a happy place at all in terms of the overall social and political situation. The little guy’s country was just six months away from the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Nazis were in control of much of Europe and moving into North Africa and the Middle East. The UK was battling for its existence. The country was ramping up defense production, but mostly to aid allies. The America First movement was growing, with the help of celebrities like Charles Lindbergh. The German American Bund, the American Communist Party, and Italian fascist sympathizers were all politically active. The country and the world generally had not yet fully recovered from the Great Depression. And labor strife was growing, with a nationwide coal strike possible and unrest in defense industries.

To fill in some details, I looked up the 6/6/1941 edition of the NY Times and found some eye opening bits and pieces in these stories:

Hitler ridicules US fear of Nazis

Hull [US Secretary of State] warns Vichy [occupied France], Hints at Break

Nazis Streaming into Syria by Air

A pair of women's dress shoes advertised for $8.95, men's suits for $28

Manhattan apartments for less than $100/month

[Charles] Lindbergh Group Gets A Challenge, for America First speeches

Seven NY City teachers [admitted Communist] cited for Contempt

Nationwide coal strike pending

Articles discussing the benefits of shifting post-war production to domestic use.

That last one gives a good insight into how naive many were about how long the war would go on and how the US would stay neutral.

Consider all this history in light of the NY Times reporting of President Biden’s statement today at the D Day commemoration in Normandy: “Biden Links Fight for Ukraine With Allied Effort on D-Day.”

So where does that leave me? Actually very optimistic. Look at all the crazy, awful things that happened in the little guy’s life, yet here he sits feeling lucky and happy to see what’s next.

Hope you all feel the same way.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/6/2245184/-Cause-for-optimism-even-on-birthdays?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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