DECEMBER 7, 2020 – If you’re a Boomer, just try getting your head wrapped around this: the youngest American WW II veteran is 93. If you’re younger than a Boomer, you probably consign WW II to ancient history, right back there with the Civil War or . . . the Peloponnesian War. By the time of Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the war had been raging officially for more two years; unofficially, for at least five years, if you date the beginning from Germany’s occupation of the Rhineland, and 10 years, if you count from Japan’s conquest of Manchuria. But for the sleeping, isolationist giant that was America, the war started when Japanese naval pilots bombed Pearl Harbor on this day 79 years ago.
Most older Americans living today know the story. Late to the reality that had set Europe and Asia afire, we pulled ourselves together, and in a manner that would be excoriated as “radical-socialist-communism” by today’s Republican Party, we defeated the Axis Powers—with lots of help from our friends, mainly the Brits and . . . the Communists.
Look at us now. Seventy-four million have done gone looney tunes with crazy talk: science is a hoax, an election their guy lost is (therefore) fraudulent, and Americans should get to do whatever they damn please whenever they please, including owning 15 semi-automatic rifles, and flying twin flags (the Stars and Bars and “Don’t Tread on Me!”) off the back of a pick-up.
But don’t try to drive any of that past Minnesota’s former version of the non-politician politician, Jesse “the Body” Ventura.
Jesse was elected governor in much the same fashion that America’s leading con artist won the presidency. Both leveraged entertainment celebrity. Both boasted outsider status. Both knew how to “tell it like it is.” But there the resemblance ends.
Jesse Ventura believes—strongly—that everyone should wear a mask to help stop the pandemic. In a recent video that’s gone viral, Jesse in classic Ventura fashion, expresses outrage over American’s unwillingness to sacrifice for the common good—as the Great Generation did when facing a mortal threat.
Jesse’s right. We’re spoiled; spoiled and selfish. We’ve become so intoxicated on the fumes of individualism we’ve endangered everything on which our individual survival depends: the environment, public health, truth and decency.
As Ventura puts it, “With [Trump and his followers] Hitler [w]’da won.” His point was that when society faces a common threat, people should be willing to sacrifice something to combat the threat. When compared with the sacrifice Americans made to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, the “sacrifice” associated with wearing a mask is nothing. Jesse is right to be disgusted with Americans who to this day refuse to wear a mask.
I wonder how many of the 74 million who voted for the Con Man will ponder Pearl Harbor Day and what it revealed: a common threat requires collective action. But I’m not getting my hopes up. “Collective” is a dirty word, right down there with “sacrifice.”
(Remember to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.)
© 2020 by Eric Nilsson
