Let's find common ground for the Fourth

There is a timeless quality about July 4 celebrations, although I wonder about the quality of patriotism in the year 2010. The incisive quality of political arguments today makes me wonder how bonded we truly can feel as Americans.
Most of us have no trouble exhibiting the proper spirit. July 4 should be a time to put aside divisions and feel thankful for our united, bountiful nation. The vast majority of Americans will take a break from political bickering and assert pride in the USA.
The reactionary political right threatens that ability to come together. The "tea party" along with charismatic personalities like Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin threaten to pull the rug out. There is nothing new about abrasive voices like these. The John Birch Society had a notorious but short history. One of the reasons for its demise was the rejection it received from more temperate and reasonable political conservatives, led by William F. Buckley.
There is always an element out there inclined toward Bircher-type rhetoric. These people have learned how to seize the media. The likes of Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity try tripping up our democratically elected administration on a daily basis.
The problem is that the criticism isn't in the spirit of a loyal opposition. In the case of Hannity it's a nit-picking and relentless partisan assault. Sean, why not do a cooking show sometime just to take a break?
In the case of Beck, the tone is mocking, maniacal and sensational.
Why should we care so much about Hannity and Beck? Because they have a platform on Fox News. Fox puts progressives (or liberals, or whatever you want to call them) on the defensive in ways they don't deserve. It makes one wax nostalgic for the days of Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill, when the fur could definitely fly politically (at the proper times) but there was no prevailing air of all-out combat.
Political differences could be compartmentalized. Call it civility. Today you have to wonder if the far right wants to pull the rug out from under America itself.
We have here in Minnesota a Republican-endorsed candidate for governor, Tom Emmer, who appears to be a "Tenther" - a movement asserting the 10th Amendment as grounds for states to not follow Federal legislation. States rights has historically been a movement associated with the Deep South. But the far right is percolating everywhere now.
The state that produced Paul Wellstone and the "Minnesota Miracle" has also produced Bachmann and Governor Tim Pawlenty. The "Miracle" brought little controversy and actually much praise, even though it was redistributionist in nature. The likes of Bachmann and Emmer would pillory such ideas now. And that's really the problem - the tone of the rhetoric and the us-against-them attitude.
"Caribou Barbie" Palin drones on about the "lamestream media" but I'm thankful for a media that doesn't wear ideological blinders from the right.
As July 4 approaches I wonder if patriotism can really be transcendent again, for one day anyway. It's a cliche that "America has always pulled through." How wonderful if we could make that assumption. But there is a first time for everything, like America losing a war (Viet Nam). And there's an old saying: "Afghanistan is where empires go to die."
Should we not be concerned about the potential for truth in that saying? Should we maybe heed it? Shouldn't we maybe just put aside our weapons of war and try to improve the well-being of people in that ravaged part of the world, so they aren't so inclined toward hatred and conflict - traits that are so often borne of ignorance?
My thoughts reflect the "Code Pink" organization.
Wasn't this approach a big part of attacking racism in the Deep South? Isn't this readily grasped when watching the movie "Mississippi Burning?" We worked to lift people up primarily with education and then broadened economic opportunity. We saw tragedy and bumps in the road, but inroads have been significant.
Surely we cannot create a perfect world. We cannot even create a perfect America. Progressives at least realize that government must be an active instrument helping people at the margins of society have some stability.
Progressives also realize we cannot just stomp out all our enemies, that we live in a messy world where harmony is often elusive. The U.S. couldn't "rub out" Communism in the Viet Nam War. In its aftermath we found that the sky didn't fall. Communism began imploding on its own.
Mikhail Gorbachev once expressed puzzlement at the term Communism itself. Perhaps it was a term largely manufactured in the West. "Gorby" shrugged and said the term, in his mind, was little more than the equivalent of organized crime.
All the fear mongering that the Birchers once peddled seemed so shallow and ignorant.
A glance at the calendar shows that July 4 is nearly here. I can't ponder the holiday without having these political thoughts. How nice if the old Reagan/O'Neill model for civil disagreement could prevail again.
Few among us, even progressives, look back with any regret over the election of Reagan in 1980. I remember attending the Glenwood Waterama parade one year and seeing a character with a Reagan mask step out of a limousine and wave. Everyone smiled and applauded. He was conservative but he was fundamentally gentle and caring. Those attributes always came through. He would never pounce on Barack Obama, only express polite (but articulate) disagreement.
I think Reagan would feel befuddled watching someone like Sean Hannity every night on Fox News, as Hannity labors to portray every twitch by the president as something profoundly wrong.
And Glenn Beck? Reagan would want to switch to the Weather Channel.
July 4 in Stevens County means going to Hancock. I miss greatly the media role I once played in sharing the day with that community. I miss the hamburger and soft drink I'd get at the 4-H tent at the tractor pull. By then I'd feel dehydrated after taking in the parade under the midday July sun.
I was always greatly impressed by how well the Hancock band marched and played, considering this was their only "gig" of the summer.
Often I would tell people that it would be great if the Hancock band could perform for Morris' Prairie Pioneer Days. I was told that too many of the kids would be gone. It might also be embarrassing if Hancock had a marching band in the Morris parade and the Morris school couldn't produce one. (Well, here's my little violin.)
There was a time when Morris High had a thriving marching band program. There was a director named Schaefer and then a guy named Woell who I played under. We traveled pretty far and wide like to Winnipeg, Canada.
Musically I don't think the experience enriched us that much. We would just play one tune (or "chart"). But the discipline of performing as a unit on the move was the real benefit along with the sheer camaraderie.
Eventually marching band became a tougher "sell" because kids developed other interests. Athletes (or their coaches) decided that sports camps were a must.
The sudden growth of girls sports put girls in the same position of using summer for that purpose. I recall summer marching band having a brief comeback for Morris (Area) in the mid or late 1980s, when a guy named Schmidt directed. But it seemed uphill, as if the school and parents were doing this just to prove it could still be done.
It's back to being dormant now. Is that a good thing? Well, there are other learning experiences in summer that have more substance than blaring out the same marching band tune over and over.
So we can live without the brass.
A few schools have fought to survive with marching band, like Litchfield. Nothing wrong with that. The parades where they appear surely appreciate it.
The Hancock band greatly enhances July 4 there.
Hancock July 4 has all the elements for a successful celebration. Beyond the band, parade floats and baseball, though, is the togetherness among families as they gather in backyards on lawn chairs. I fondly remember walking across town and seeing so much of this, and exuberantly exchanging waves with some of the people as they spotted me.
Through all those years I never stuck around for the fireworks.
Once July 4 is done, we can contemplate the home stretch of summer and how the county fair isn't far off. And after the fair the new school year beckons.
Hopefully we can feel harmony as a nation as "the routine" plods forward. Hopefully the more strident political voices can recede and we can embrace more of a Reaganesque, temperate conversation on our national issues.
Maybe 20 years from now we can look in the rear view mirror and say "remember Glenn Beck? That guy was nuts. Whatever became of him?"
-Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com