Copyright © 2023-2024. All rights reserved by Suzanne Sunshower.
I planned to ring in the 2023 New Year with this project, but time got away from me. (Jeez, how did my dad write all those weekly pieces, year after year?!) However, I’m still kicking off PUSH! with my dad’s Dec. 12, 1968 editorial, because I totally love the opening line about all we need in 1969 is LOVE. Yeah, that’s okay, I laughed too. And yes, I believe he was intentionally referencing the Beatles even at his then ‘advanced’ age of 53.
In 2023, we may think it lame to mention Love as being a fix to our national problems. But how scary is it that his first paragraph, from 1968 mind you, is just as true now fifty-five years later! Power grabs and hatred divide Democrats and Republicans; Mississippi is still the poorest state in our union. (However, the Biden administration designated $113 million to fix Mississippi’s water system, which will help even the keel.) Oh and, everyone still hates the Russians.
I’ve written before how this country has a habit of taking one step forward only to shy back two steps more. While a good portion of Americans came to some degree of enlightenment over the last fifty-plus years, for many others the dark ages remain. So, can we really count this last half-century as being a “win” for Love? Well, yes, of course we can… and no.
Forget the average hateful citizen for a moment. The average public official who caters to even one hate-filled vote, tends to deny funding to programs and resources that show support and Love for all Americans. Whether it be cuts to Medicaid and SNAP benefits, or threats to Social Security. Even the military has been held hostage to the current Culture War. And lest we forget, no Republicans voted to approve the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021 – even with the word “Rescue” right in the title! So nope, there was no desire to help even fellow haters; and certainly, no Love there, either.
This is no longer the better-fed simply practicing benign neglect, we are experiencing systemic willful abandonment of institutional duty. Half the elected officials operating within the current American political system, by design now choose to define themselves by their opposition to anything that nurtures or sustains their own citizenry, simply because those things are supported by a majority of their colleagues across the aisle. This would be unbelievable in 1968. As nasty and misguided as many officials were back then, they were not all on the same hateful and destructive page or we couldn’t have gotten that earlier win for Love called the Voting Rights Act (1965), which was kept buoyed for years through extensions… until its Supreme unraveling.
So, what of the average citizen? It was largely felt that an attitudinal shift would be accomplished with generational decline – also known as the “when the bigots die out” wish, which did indeed account for the slow melt that brought us more Love since 1968. However, not everyone within the newer generations hopped aboard the Love boat. A sizable group still needed someone other than themselves to blame for their personal feelings of insignificance (dare I say low self-esteem).
And thus, we have this large group of Americans (mostly Caucasian) cycling within their own self-fulfilling prophecy of doom: Their dissatisfaction with personal status that leads to hating others (remember Dad’s mention of racial hatred), which produces self-destructive voting patterns, that leads to vacuous officials echoing hate, which eventually leads to less Love for all.
Is there anything we could have done to prevent such an amalgamation of dysfunction? Probably not. No patient hand-holding or positive reinforcement, or economic uplift could change those minds or historical facts. A hate-fueled group-think has always burned in this country, never fading so much that it’s flames could not be relit with very little fanning. Waiting for every self-delusional hater to die off would and will not rid us of them.
However, for the first time in history Lovers are now in the slender majority, and we are the ones who embody this country’s long-held outward face of positivism and rallying can-do spirit. It may well be that the best we can ever do in the U.S. is to incrementally increase Love over long periods of time. Like marriages that grow stronger or families who grow more bonded, over time. So, how do we keep doing that?
Unlike in my dad’s day, what we have now are not so much “problems” to solve as heads to adjust. It took the last half-century (or more) to get on the footpaths leading us to some long-term solutions for our social problems, so we don’t want to stall-out on those pathways now. Shadowing the 60th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was a racial hatred shooting. How many people need to be killed before everyone within the Love side grasps the murderous malignancy that is white supremacy? If the haters win in our 2024 election cycle (either by direct vote or by splitting Lovers), it will be too late for a shrug and a promise to do the right thing “next election.” Now is the only time that matters for all of us.
Every single being on the Love side must take the hatred threat as seriously and as palpably as the rest of us who have always lived with it daily. You must respond cohesively with us. Besides, haters don’t just hate people of color – others are targeted as well. Eventually, the peril will reach your home too. All Lovers need to use more Tough Love. To quote a democratic U.S. Rep, when asked how she deals with Republicans, “I keep one hand out in friendship, and one fist up in defense of our democracy and democratic rights.”
Further, in the spirit of my dad’s reference to American Can-Do-ism, we must tend to this country’s future like American capitalists tend to any promising venture or new invention – that is to say, with laser focus. Haters rant the same centuries-old negativities, while we Lovers are known for innovation and creativity. Lovers envision The Future, and warm up the people that the haters turn cold. But we need to be doing it with a hand out and a fist up – all of us. This time, the mind-change must be on the side of the Lovers. Let’s PUSH on!
In My Father's Light
I could hear his cough…
sometimes late into the night. I'd see him
with sharpened pencil over paper,
highball nearby; brass ashtray filled
with thin white butts.
He had a home office – with built-in bookcases
and a heavy, mahogany desk
handcrafted by his admiring father-in-law,
but he chose to labor
beneath a simple sofa lamp,
at a weathered '50s card table near his bed.
Gracefully, one soft lead pencil would flick
and skitter across a yellow legal pad page,
until its point blunted to a blur
and was quickly replaced by another.
While switching tools,
he'd savor a swallow of bourbon (or scotch)
and retrace his thoughts, reading aloud
a passage or two from the page
to find his place again.
For twenty years, editorials spilled
from his disciplined fingers; he chronicled
society, life, and the politics of the day.
More than a job, his was a passion
to make sense for others
an increasingly complicated world;
reducing it all to 1,000-word bites
to be gobbled in mouthfuls, he would say,
at a third grade level
so as to be well understood by all.
I was mesmerized by the seeming magic of his work,
and awed by his ability
to move to tears or infuriate complete strangers
with a few carefully chosen words.
So much so, that I wished to be a smithy too,
fashioning surprise and delight for others – as if from air.
I hoped one day to know
the same wizardry as he.
I planned to ring in the 2023 New Year with this project, but time got away from me. (Jeez, how did my dad write all those weekly pieces, year after year?!) However, I’m still kicking off PUSH! with my dad’s Dec. 12, 1968 editorial, because I totally love the opening line about all we need in 1969 is LOVE. Yeah, that’s okay, I laughed too. And yes, I believe he was intentionally referencing the Beatles even at his then ‘advanced’ age of 53.
In 2023, we may think it lame to mention Love as being a fix to our national problems. But how scary is it that his first paragraph, from 1968 mind you, is just as true now fifty-five years later! Power grabs and hatred divide Democrats and Republicans; Mississippi is still the poorest state in our union. (However, the Biden administration designated $113 million to fix Mississippi’s water system, which will help even the keel.) Oh and, everyone still hates the Russians.
I’ve written before how this country has a habit of taking one step forward only to shy back two steps more. While a good portion of Americans came to some degree of enlightenment over the last fifty-plus years, for many others the dark ages remain. So, can we really count this last half-century as being a “win” for Love? Well, yes, of course we can… and no.
Forget the average hateful citizen for a moment. The average public official who caters to even one hate-filled vote, tends to deny funding to programs and resources that show support and Love for all Americans. Whether it be cuts to Medicaid and SNAP benefits, or threats to Social Security. Even the military has been held hostage to the current Culture War. And lest we forget, no Republicans voted to approve the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021 – even with the word “Rescue” right in the title! So nope, there was no desire to help even fellow haters; and certainly, no Love there, either.
This is no longer the better-fed simply practicing benign neglect, we are experiencing systemic willful abandonment of institutional duty. Half the elected officials operating within the current American political system, by design now choose to define themselves by their opposition to anything that nurtures or sustains their own citizenry, simply because those things are supported by a majority of their colleagues across the aisle. This would be unbelievable in 1968. As nasty and misguided as many officials were back then, they were not all on the same hateful and destructive page or we couldn’t have gotten that earlier win for Love called the Voting Rights Act (1965), which was kept buoyed for years through extensions… until its Supreme unraveling.
So, what of the average citizen? It was largely felt that an attitudinal shift would be accomplished with generational decline – also known as the “when the bigots die out” wish, which did indeed account for the slow melt that brought us more Love since 1968. However, not everyone within the newer generations hopped aboard the Love boat. A sizable group still needed someone other than themselves to blame for their personal feelings of insignificance (dare I say low self-esteem).
And thus, we have this large group of Americans (mostly Caucasian) cycling within their own self-fulfilling prophecy of doom: Their dissatisfaction with personal status that leads to hating others (remember Dad’s mention of racial hatred), which produces self-destructive voting patterns, that leads to vacuous officials echoing hate, which eventually leads to less Love for all.
Is there anything we could have done to prevent such an amalgamation of dysfunction? Probably not. No patient hand-holding or positive reinforcement, or economic uplift could change those minds or historical facts. A hate-fueled group-think has always burned in this country, never fading so much that it’s flames could not be relit with very little fanning. Waiting for every self-delusional hater to die off would and will not rid us of them.
However, for the first time in history Lovers are now in the slender majority, and we are the ones who embody this country’s long-held outward face of positivism and rallying can-do spirit. It may well be that the best we can ever do in the U.S. is to incrementally increase Love over long periods of time. Like marriages that grow stronger or families who grow more bonded, over time. So, how do we keep doing that?
Unlike in my dad’s day, what we have now are not so much “problems” to solve as heads to adjust. It took the last half-century (or more) to get on the footpaths leading us to some long-term solutions for our social problems, so we don’t want to stall-out on those pathways now. Shadowing the 60th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was a racial hatred shooting. How many people need to be killed before everyone within the Love side grasps the murderous malignancy that is white supremacy? If the haters win in our 2024 election cycle (either by direct vote or by splitting Lovers), it will be too late for a shrug and a promise to do the right thing “next election.” Now is the only time that matters for all of us.
Every single being on the Love side must take the hatred threat as seriously and as palpably as the rest of us who have always lived with it daily. You must respond cohesively with us. Besides, haters don’t just hate people of color – others are targeted as well. Eventually, the peril will reach your home too. All Lovers need to use more Tough Love. To quote a democratic U.S. Rep, when asked how she deals with Republicans, “I keep one hand out in friendship, and one fist up in defense of our democracy and democratic rights.”
Further, in the spirit of my dad’s reference to American Can-Do-ism, we must tend to this country’s future like American capitalists tend to any promising venture or new invention – that is to say, with laser focus. Haters rant the same centuries-old negativities, while we Lovers are known for innovation and creativity. Lovers envision The Future, and warm up the people that the haters turn cold. But we need to be doing it with a hand out and a fist up – all of us. This time, the mind-change must be on the side of the Lovers. Let’s PUSH on!
In My Father's Light
I could hear his cough…
sometimes late into the night. I'd see him
with sharpened pencil over paper,
highball nearby; brass ashtray filled
with thin white butts.
He had a home office – with built-in bookcases
and a heavy, mahogany desk
handcrafted by his admiring father-in-law,
but he chose to labor
beneath a simple sofa lamp,
at a weathered '50s card table near his bed.
Gracefully, one soft lead pencil would flick
and skitter across a yellow legal pad page,
until its point blunted to a blur
and was quickly replaced by another.
While switching tools,
he'd savor a swallow of bourbon (or scotch)
and retrace his thoughts, reading aloud
a passage or two from the page
to find his place again.
For twenty years, editorials spilled
from his disciplined fingers; he chronicled
society, life, and the politics of the day.
More than a job, his was a passion
to make sense for others
an increasingly complicated world;
reducing it all to 1,000-word bites
to be gobbled in mouthfuls, he would say,
at a third grade level
so as to be well understood by all.
I was mesmerized by the seeming magic of his work,
and awed by his ability
to move to tears or infuriate complete strangers
with a few carefully chosen words.
So much so, that I wished to be a smithy too,
fashioning surprise and delight for others – as if from air.
I hoped one day to know
the same wizardry as he.