James M. Redwine

election

To Those Who Dare And Care

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As with much of our philosophy we can thank the ancient Greeks for the concept of the Phoenix, something (or someone) who rises from the ashes of defeat to be even better than before. Or as we all remember our parents attempting to convince us, we learn more from defeat than victory. This provides scant solace at the time of a loss or an embarrassment but most of us eventually see the validity of wisdom born of hardship and the shallowness of temporary acclaim.

It is likely you are already aware that Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) and Teddy Roosevelt (1858-1919) among many others have already written about these concepts and certainly more presciently than I. Kipling in his poem If advised his son and the rest of us:

“If you can dream and not make dreams your master,
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and
Treat those two imposters just the same, ….
Then you will be a man my son.”

Teddy Roosevelt in his thesis, The Man in the Arena, wrote of greatness born of failure:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Naturally, winners of elections are justly elated and losers are hurt and depressed. I have lost an election and have won some. What I discovered was my loss and my victories had less to do with me than with the vicissitudes of a fickle electorate. Most voters had no idea who I was and both the victories and the loss were mostly happenstance.

On the other hand, for our democracy to endure someone has to be willing to suffer the slings, arrows, and expense of running for office. So, to all those who cared enough and dared enough to seek to serve the rest of us, both winners and others, I say, Thank You!

Some Relief

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November 6th cannot get here fast enough for those of us accosted by the national media about the acclaimed virtues of their favorite candidates and the attributed evils of those they dislike. But there is another group of citizens who will be even more grateful when the election is over, that is the candidates themselves. Having been a candidate myself I feel their pain. And the winners will have suffered as much as the losers; although victory may somewhat assuage the pain of the campaign. However, the elation from an election night win may soon crash on the reality of actually filling a public office and the nagging dread that another campaign may soon be required.

Political campaigns remind me of Jerry Clowers’ most famous story. You may recall Clowers who was a standup comedian known as the “Mouth of the South”. Clowers was born in Liberty, Mississippi in 1926 and died in Jackson, Mississippi in 1998. He told many humorous stories of southern culture, some of which might fall through the cracks of today’s political correctness. His Coon Hunting routine brings up the feelings many political candidates experience. You may know the story which involves a Mississippi coon hunter who climbs a tree to confront what he thinks is a raccoon and finds himself in a battle with an unamused lynx.

As the hunter is suffering claws and teeth he calls for his fellow coon hunter to shoot up in the tree. His friend yells back he is afraid to fire his gun as he might hit the treed hunter. The hunter in the tree yells back, “Fire anyway, one of us has to have some relief!”

When it comes to political races often candidates are so amazed and chagrined by the experience they get the same feeling. “Just get it over, I’ll worry about who wins later.” On the other hand, those of us on the ground, as it were, can receive the benefits of the effort of those who seek to serve us without any sacrifice on our part.

So, on behalf of those of us on the sidelines allow me to say thank you to the candidates and as another famous candidate said, “We feel your pain”, but it will soon be mercifully over for all of us.

Signs

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October is a wonderful month, cool, warm, wet, dry, crisp and colorful. I was enjoying this marvelous gift of nature while I traveled home from work last Friday. As I passed Larry Williams’ McKim’s IGA grocery store in Mt. Vernon, Indiana I was reminded of another reason October is special. All along the Main Street edge of the store were signs of candidates for public office.

Large signs, small signs, red signs, blue signs red-white and blue signs. Off color signs, professionally produced signs and some that looked as if they were produced by a committee. They reminded me of that marvelous protest song from the Sixties, “Signs”, that was written by Les Emmerson and performed by the one-hit wonder group named The Five Man Electrical Band.

You may recall the lyrics: “Signs, signs everywhere a sign, blockin’ out the scenery, breakin’ my mind; Do this (vote for me), don’t do that (vote ‘wrong’)”. I love the ecumenicism of McKim’s policy on political signs. All shapes, colors and candidates are welcome. No office seeker nor any party is preferred or ostracized. This is democracy as it was intended.

Each election cycle I am cheered by seeing signs appear slowly but increasingly from about Labor Day to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The profusion of signs gives me the same good feelings Easter eggs and Christmas presents do. They restoreth my faith in our self-government.

Having put up political signs myself and having to take them down after a loss (not fun) or after a victory (no problem), I truly appreciate the spirit of public service that encourages anyone to run for a political office. People who have not done so may cynically believe others seek office for private gain or public acclaim. My experience is that most public offices pay not much more than minimum wage and require maximum ability to absorb unwanted and usually unwarranted criticism.

So, sign wavers and candidates, Thank You!, for being willing to serve in our citizen-controlled government. That’s the only way it will remain so.

Intelligence Farm

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♪ Does (everybody) really know what time it is? ♪

Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton accused Russia of attempting to influence the election via hacking into unflattering emails. She, John McCain, CNN and virtually everyone on the planet but former presidential candidate Donald Trump cited the conclusions of seventeen intelligence agencies to support the accusations.

Seventeen! They are: Air Force Intelligence Agency, Army Intelligence Agency, Navy Intelligence Agency, Marine Corps Intelligence Agency, Coast Guard Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security, Department of State, Department of the Treasury, Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, and my personal favorite, The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. These sixteen all fall under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The Air Force Intelligence Agency alone deploys 50,000 military and civilian intelligence personnel. I was one of those at one time when I served in Air Force Intelligence. You who know me can make your own judgments or trite jokes.

Each of these agencies has subdivisions. For example, the Army Intelligence Agency contains five more “major” military disciplines within its overall functions: Imagery Intelligence; Signal Intelligence; Human Intelligence (yeah, I wondered too); Measurement and Signature Intelligence; and Counterintelligence and Security.

I will leave it up to you, Gentle Reader, to analyze the meaning behind President-Elect Trump’s rejection of the “intelligence” of the groups that gave us “Weapons of Mass Destruction”. As for me, I am transfixed by the notion that America has all these agencies containing hundreds of thousands of people whose job it is to spy on someone. My concern is who? There are only a few folks such as Russia, China and, an assortment of enemies our intelligence agencies created for us by surreptitiously toppling their governments, who might actually need watching.

What about the other 5 billion people on the planet, especially the 330 million Americans? All those thousands of spies have to either spy on somebody or get jobs, judging maybe. I fear our firewall against foreign enemies might turn inward out of boredom or partisanship. But after years of having our country insert itself in places such as Cuba, Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc., etc., my real fear is eventually our intelligence manipulators will get us into a hole even the most powerful country in history cannot claw its way out of.

Usually Peg is the only one who reads these articles. However, I feel as if someone will be peering over her shoulder this time. Oh well, it will probably be some of the same disingenuous spooks who have tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully (so far) to get us to bomb Iran; so there is probably no need for us to worry.