James M. Redwine

America

Redemption

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Photo by Peg Redwine

America was born from the hope for a world where every person was of equal worth. In 1776 we had already realized this ideal was not reality. Our Founders sought freedom of choice for themselves while being fully aware they had long denied such equality to countless others. But the dream, and the struggle for it, has always been equal rights for all. Our nation’s recognition that Indigenous Peoples, slaves, women, minors, minorities and the poor struggled without freedom in the Land of the Free, never extinguished our country’s core values upon which we were anchored.

As all sinners, we have backslid and faltered on our 250-year crusade to enhance freedom and welfare for all. However, in the annals of human history no nation has ever held forth the torch of life and liberty for all the earth’s peoples as America has. Might only for right, generosity, humanitarian concern and a faith based upon the equal worth of all peoples, was the mantra of good versus evil that has always been America’s Holy Grail. And just as the Holy Grail, our nation’s ideals have often been more myth than substance. Yet, as a people, we have incrementally struggled through genocidal actions towards Native American equality, from slavery of Negroes to a Black president, from second-class citizenship of women to female astronauts, and from young men as military fodder to eighteen-year-old citizenship, among many other faltering steps up the ladder toward the rights set forth as the foundation of our Constitution.

It took America about our first 170 years to truly achieve a significant part of the core of our true national aspirations. We finally began to realize our Founder’s dreams after World War II with the Marshall Plan of 1948 when we elevated benevolence over vengeance and helped the world recover from the horrors of the earth’s conflagration.

We gradually turned from isolationism to a country generous in spirit and filled with dreams of a new world order. America became a beacon of hope to Europe and then expanded our mission to a peaceful and healthy planet. The United States led the United Nations to quell conflicts and save downtrodden peoples everywhere. And, America finally began to live the reality of that greatest of creeds, “All people are created equal”. From 1948 until we forgot the wisdom of our Founders, we truly were the hope for mankind and seen as such by most of the nations of the earth. What happened?

America had sacrificed greatly to earn its role of a nation of hope, generosity and peace. Sadly, we are no longer seen by much of the planet as a great benefactor because, frankly, we are not. What has brought our country from a guiding light of salvation to just another oppressor of peoples? Israel was created to help Jewish immigrants, but has slowly become an occupier and oppressor of Palestinians and numerous others with America’s enablement. Israel’s genocidal and illegal actions in Palestine have, with strong United States support, bound us in the eyes of the world to the pariah nation status richly earned by Zionist Israel. Are these actions supported by all Americans, including Jewish Americans? No. A majority of Americans and even many Israeli Jews, are opposed to Zionist Israel’s genocidal/hegemonic military actions.

Most countries declare Israel’s actions wrong and illegal. However, most countries also see America as the force allowing Israel’s evil. America has, as it did for many years with slavery, women’s rights and Indigenous Peoples rights, lost its path toward liberty and freedom for all. We have, also, lost our long-held and dearly won position of the paragon of nations. To return to our ideals we must cease enabling Israel’s aggression and occupation of foreign lands. Israel does not need our military or financial support and should not receive it.

Just as we have with numerous other sins of omission and commission during our 250-year struggle to attain the goals of our Charter, now we must make the hard, but right, choice and free ourselves from Israel’s irrational dreams of Middle Eastern dominance. Let us cease from helping Israel’s pursuit of the same dreams we stopped Nazi Germany from achieving.

We should return to our ideals and our true mission as a nation. Just as President George Washington warned us of the dangers of special fondness for any nation, we must sever our myopic and self-defeating entanglement with Israel. We, also, might want to refer to Thomas Paine’s profound calling, “These are the times that try ‘our nation’s’ soul” (1776). Let us return to our country’s purpose for creation and re-claim our rightful place among the nations of the earth that oppose tyranny and support liberty for all. We should begin by atoning for our self-destructive aggression against Iran which was instigated by Israel in furtherance of its own selfish aims. Because, just as blessed are the peacemakers, also, are damned to perdition those who foment or enable tyranny and the unjustified deaths of innocents.

You can also follow us on Facebook at “Jim Peg Redwine” or Substack “@gavelgamut”

Photo by Peg Redwine

Sour Grapes

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A plethora of professional football, a cornucopia of college football and, most importantly, the hallowed echoes of high school football. Thanksgiving brings out the America our Founders dreamed of, “A more perfect union”. One where the battles almost never involve fatal blows but where due process on the field requires impartial officials, the Judiciary (?), involved and spirited fans, citizens (?), teams with different positions, players and coaches who are leaders and standard bearers for the hopes of countless constituencies, fans (?).

Peg and I almost surfeited on football last week but our stomachs have about recovered from gastronomical excess and our eyes and seats are ready for more football. Unfortunately, we are already ruing the long, dark journey from February until the fall of 2026. Ah well, we do have a few other things to attend to. And the memories of this season and seasons past will sustain us until then. For example, my favorite Thanksgiving Day football game occurred during my senior year of high school in 1960. I have carefully and constantly rearranged that game, especially the role of my favorite seventeen-year-old player in the outcome.

Photo by Peg Redwine

I was a linebacker who was not particularly gifted in the speed department. All right, I was on defense because my time in the forty was not clocked, but calendared. On the other hand, as I was a catcher on the baseball team, I was fairly adroit at retrieving fumbles; I just did not usually advance them.

Anyway, as I relive that glorious Thursday afternoon in November of 1960, I see myself clutching a blocked punt from our opponent. Only an uncharitable observer would have pointed out that my teammate actually blocked the punt. Regardless, when the football bounced into my arms, I took off like a lightning bolt for the goal line fifty-one yards away, my player number on the team. Mercury could not have caught me.

The next day the newspaper showed why people dislike the media. My heroic touchdown was described thusly, “Jim Redwine, reputedly the slowest player on the team, lugged the ball over the goal line”. That is why my football career ended in high school.

However, Peg and I still plan to cheer on Indiana and Oklahoma University teams as they conquer the playoffs, cheer on Army in the Army Navy game, watch every single college bowl game late into the nights of January then end the season with the Super Bowl in February. Who knows, with coaches making more money than Croesus, maybe some school will hire me to coach linebackers on how not to run.

Photo by Peg Redwine

The Best Celebration

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The Church at 9th and Prudom with side balconies. Picture taken by Peg Redwine

The Fourth of July has slowly gained prominence in my pantheon of special commemorations. Once all seasons paled next to Christmas with the memories of the autumnal aromas of oyster dressing and pumpkin pie fading away to electric trains and baseball mitts. Easter was okay because school would soon be out and girls in pink dresses with blue satin sashes would dash about exposing their laughter and crinoline. But the Fourth of July brought ice cold pop, firecrackers and roman candle battles. However, as a commemoration it seemed to mean a great deal to my elders, but for me it just presaged a return to a regimen of school that broke into my summer freedom.

I am not sure when the trappings of the Fourth began the metamorphosis into my imperceptible awareness that America and I had already struggled through numerous radical stages and, alarmingly and expectantly, might face many more as a man and a country. I think the true reasons the Fourth deserves its place at the head of commemorations began to seep into my consciousness the first time my large and gentle father took me with him to collect a Metropolitan Life Insurance Company policy monthly premium from a Colored family who lived across Bird Creek in a two-room clapboard house with a front porch held up by blackjack oak saplings.

We drove across the Bird Creek bridge in our family’s 1954 Ford sedan. On the way we stopped at Henry’s Bar-B-Q to buy what Dad called heaven’s own ribs. Dad was called “Mister Metropolitan” by Henry and Dad made sure I called the old Colored man “Mister” too. The two sections of two ribs and two Grapette pops cost about a dollar. Dad had bad heart trouble and Mom would not let him eat those beloved fatback pork ribs unless he sneaked over to Henry’s. They were worth any old heart attack as far as Dad was concerned.

After we savored that hickory smoked ambrosia, we drove about another quarter mile up the dirt road of Colored town to Dad’s customer’s house. He told me to stay in the car but I was already out and on the porch before he got the words out. A skinny Colored woman wearing a yellow flour-bag gingham dress and a denim wash rag as an apron opened the screen door and said, “Lord’a mercy, Mr. Metropolitan, is it premium time again already?” Her eyes were downcast.

Dad said, “Son, run back to the car and get my debit book. I must have made a mistake”. I hustled to the front seat to get Dad’s account book and returned just in time to see him taking his hand from his hip pocket.

Then he gently said, “Alright, boy, we better get back before your mother figures out where we went”. We left and I realized somehow the premium had been paid. I think that was my earliest understanding of what possibilities America afforded. Our family was about like all white families in our little town yet Mom and Dad knew from their own Great Depression Days that in America there is always hope if we all help one another. I like to think that that Black family paid forward some of the money that came from that life insurance policy to help someone else.

It took several more years of living with a slowly changing society of segregated schools, restaurants and churches, but I finally learned what the Fourth of July truly meant in 1964 when I returned from where I was stationed in the United States Air Force to attend Dad’s funeral. Our church had a large sanctuary surrounded on three sides with a balcony. When I walked into the church with Mom and looked up, the balcony was filled with Black people who stood in respect for Mom and Mr. Metropolitan.

Black people had never been allowed in our church, but the woman I saw that day years before with Dad was there with her family as were numerous other Black people from across Bird Creek. Later my sister told me that Black lady had come by our house and asked Mom if Colored folks could attend Mr. Metropolitan’s funeral. Mom had to get Church Board permission which was granted only after Mom threatened to leave the church. Coloreds would be allowed that one time if they sat in the balcony, but that was a sea change many years in the making.

That day was when I knew America had the capacity to atone for past sins, and that was when the Fourth of July became my favorite holiday.

The Aft Balcony.
Picture taken by Peg Redwine.

 

The Crusade Charade

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The Crusades were the outgrowth of many factors but they are generally categorized as a series of wars between European Christians and Middle Eastern Muslims occurring from 1096 to 1291 AD involving competing claims over the Holy Land, especially Jerusalem. The catalyst for the first Crusade was a call to Christians made by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in France in November 1095. Urban declared that God had willed Christians to oust Muslims from the sacred sites. Urban promised remission of sins for any Christian who died in this vital service of Christ. Thousands of English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and others “took up the cross.”

Later in the New World, priests, clerics and politicians and plain Americans have spent from the 15th century to 2024 spreading the gospel at home and continuing to attempt to control the beliefs and behaviors of Middle Easterners. Manifest Destiny was based on the premise that the god of Christians had ordained that America must eliminate paganism and not commit the sin of omitting to develop the land. Such “crusades” as the Trail of Tears were the outgrowth of European immigrants and their descendants’ beliefs that their god had ordained that America was the Promised Land for Caucasian Christians and that Native Americans had to be evicted, killed or converted to Christianity. This ingrained racial memory from 1492 until today may influence the justification for our invasions into the Muslim Middle East. Just as Native Americans had to be destroyed to save them, Muslims are still the enemies of Christ who must be saved from their misguided faith.

Most recently the United States has continued the tradition of the Crusades by invading Iraq twice and belligerently engaging Iran and such groups as ISIS, Hamas, Taliban, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda and others. America designates these groups as terrorists but they claim to be part of a resistance movement. These organizations are generally Islamic in their religion as were the native Arabs and Persians during the original Crusades. There were Jewish populations in the Holy Land during the time Christian Europeans were seeking to take over the Middle East, but they were a small minority and could not mount an effective resistance to the Crusades.

Today, due to the world’s post-holocaust revulsion of the Nazi atrocities and the beliefs of many American fundamentalist Christians, such as dreamers in the Rapture, the United States is defending Israel’s aggression and is allied with the Zionists against Muslims, especially Iranians. Many of our politicians and much of the national media are on a crusade to support the hegemony of Israel under the guise of its self-defense. Israel has nuclear weapons it developed by spying on the United States and has an extremely modern and powerful military. It has nothing to fear from the rag-tag Muslim militias even if they are backed by countries such as Iran, China and Russia. Israel does not need our military support. And its current aggression in Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Gaza and elsewhere, to say nothing, as most media does, about Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians, clearly proves Israel does not deserve our support.

Israel is conducting its own crusade against Muslim countries in the Holy Land. If the United States cannot find the moral courage to confront this decades long injustice, we should, at least, not supply it with weapons and diplomatic immunity. It is long past the time America atoned for its own sins against our native population and that we not repeat those sins in the Middle East. To do so, all we need is to be guided by those principles of our Constitution and the philosophy of that Christian faith many Americans profess. Perhaps, if we make a good faith effort to act in the Middle East as the country we claim to be, we will not be misled by the Zionists among the Israelis into the same type of disaster those holier than thou European Crusaders had to endure a thousand years ago.

 

Independence Day Jeopardy

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Photo by Peg Redwine.

John Adams, our second president, and Thomas Jefferson, our third president, were great friends who became estranged for years but reconciled before they both died on July 4, 1826. Each was an attorney who championed individual liberty and civil rights. Adams believed the date of America’s birth was July 2, 1776, the date the Continental Congress voted for independence. Jefferson thought our birthday was July 4, 1776, the date the Declaration of Independence was signed. Both Founding Fathers declared we should celebrate our founding with special activities.

Jefferson was the first president to host a July 4 commemoration at the White House. Jefferson wrote about Independence Day, “For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.”

Adams sent a letter to his wife Abigail on July 3, 1776 in which he declaimed:

“I am apt to believe that it (July 2, 1776) will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival.

…

It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews (shows), Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illumination from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

My family, and most likely yours too Gentle Reader, have carried out these patriotic demands for as long as we have been fortunate enough to do so. For more than the past twenty years my family has gathered around July 4 and reveled in the wonder of the United States of America by engaging in a hotly contested Independence Jeopardy game.

Photo by Peg Redwine

This year our son Jim portrayed Benjamin Franklin, my nephews Dennis and David Redwine, donned the colonial frocks of Uncle Sam and George Washington and teams of relatives vied to earn the Independence Day Jeopardy championship. The competition was fierce and only barbeque and copious desserts could assuage those who came in out of first.

It is always good to get our large and close-knit family together, especially over a hotly contested game of colonial history. It is of special meaning in our current atmosphere of political upheaval to remind ourselves what truly matters. So, happy birthday to all of us whether you agree with Adams or Jefferson or choose some other special time around our founding in the first week of July, 1776.

Other Countries Heard From

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Photo by Peg Redwine

President Kennedy gave his inaugural address January 20, 1961 when I was a senior in high school. He was concerned about the Soviet Union’s 1957 Sputnik achievement and challenged American youth to respond. That September I entered Oklahoma State University and boldly majored in physics. By June 1962 I had learned how to smoke but not learned anything that would raise concerns in Russia. I changed my major to English and then in June 1963 decided to “ask what I could do for my country” without the headaches of college level studies. I became a 1960’s Okie and headed for California. On the way I took my first foray out of the United States to Nogales, Mexico.

My friend and fellow OSU dropout, Ed Kelso, and I drove his 1954 Mercury down to the Mexican border and were waved through without so much as a question, much less a visa. We stopped at the first bar we came to and ran into my old high school classmate Jim Reed and a few other guys from Pawhuska, Oklahoma who were there on a similar journey of cultural discovery. What I noted from my brief sojourn was my high school Spanish was sufficient as long as we had U.S. Dollars. I also received my first faint awareness of how lucky I was to have been born north of the border.

Another foreign country experience was when as a member of the National Judicial College faculty I was sent for two weeks (December 1999-January 2000) to Ukraine to teach Ukrainian judges. I liked the Ukrainian people but found their lives to be quite difficult. The judges told me they frequently did not receive their small monthly salaries and the Ukrainian government often failed to provide them and their families with promised individual family housing. Also, police corruption was in full view on the streets of Kiev and workers who were supposed to help repair such public assets as the fountain in “Freedom Square” did about as much work as I did at Oklahoma State. As the old Soviet saying went, “The government pretended to pay them and they pretended to work.” I left Ukraine with a greater appreciation of what our Founders sacrificed for us.

Then in 2003 the National Judicial College sent me to Russia for a week to teach Russian judges about jury trials. The old Soviet Union abolished jury trials after the 1917 Revolution and Russia was just reinstituting them into their legal system. Peg was able to be with me on that trip and we, once again, found the Russian judges to be friendly and gracious but the Russian culture caused us great chagrin. A good cup of coffee was truly a foreign concept, but the consumption of alcohol was quite prevalent. The idea of innocent unless proven guilty was belied by the defendants being housed in metal and plastic cages in the courtroom. And when a defendant on trial for murder was marched into the courtroom by four AK47 carrying uniformed guards right in front of the jury, my American sense of justice was assaulted. It was good to get back to my Indiana courtroom with its guarantees of equal justice. Russia was interesting, but the United States was good to come home to.

Most recently (June 2022-February 2023) Peg and I completed a six-month judicial teaching mission sponsored by the American Bar Association, the East-West Management Institute and the United States Agency for International Development. I was sent to the country of Georgia that until 1991 had been part of the old Soviet Union. My duties were to make friends, observe, work with and give suggestions to Georgian judges based upon my more than forty years of experience as an American judge.

We had a wonderful experience with the Georgian judges and our newly-made Georgian friends. They could not have treated us any better. Everyone we met was positive about our involvement and open to suggestions. We would gladly return to Georgia whenever invited. Of course, we did note substantial differences between the Georgian culture and America’s. Georgia is bordered on the north by Russia and on the south by Turkey. Twenty percent of Georgia is militarily occupied by Russia; that is a constant worry for the Georgian people. Peg and I thought how different our lives in America are. Our northern border is Canada which we visited in 2018 and is about as good a neighbor as any country could have. And our southern border is Mexico that appears to want to join us.

What this 2023 Fourth of July birthday party has helped us to reflect upon is, no matter how much CNN, MSNBC, FOX News and many in government service complain about America and malign it, many of the alternatives are pretty scary. After seeing how some of the rest of the world has to live, I find the ’ole USA absolutely marvelous. America has faults and foibles, but as Francis Scott Key wrote, it is really wonderful, “That our flag is still there.”

Photo by Peg Redwine