I grew up in Venezuela under the dictatorship of Marcos Perez Jimenez. He came to power through a military coup and authoritarian force. He was a member of the military junta that ruled Venezuela after a 1948 coup, and became interim president in 1952. Elections were held that year, but when early results showed that the opposition was winning, the junta annulled the election results and declared Pérez Jiménez. president. When my family arrived in 1953, his allies controlled the Constituent Assembly, in which he was formally elected to a five-year term and cemented his rule as a legal dictatorship. I made it a thing.
Trains ran on time, crime was low, church attendance and (social) morality were high, abortion was not discussed, homosexuals were silenced, and business flourished. Unless you were poor or dissident, everything was pretty much fine. As an American active in the Boy Scouts of Venezuela, I've seen the dictator's poster (“Justice and Fairness”—Just y just!). Meanwhile, America, which captured 90% of its oil profits through Mobil, Esso, and Gulf (as it was called then), hailed the dictator as an anti-communist hero and welcomed him to his Florida mansion. Being American was popular. We even had an enclave, our neighborhood, Las Mercedes (“The Mercies”).
When I was young, I was particularly excited about Venezuela's Independence Day, July 5, which the capital, Caracas, celebrates. Blacked out. Fighter planes flew overhead and anti-aircraft batteries on all sides of the valley continued to fire tracer shells for several hours. “We”, all of us who live in this city, are well protected and proud, unless we are part of the poor 75% who were locked up in Balilio or imprisoned for protesting against government corruption. I felt that I was.
Liberal democracy has recently come under attack at home and abroad. There is a lot of blame. Unless conservatives (“fascists”) are to blame, liberal tolerance (“decadence”) is to blame. We are all supposed to be something we are not. We should not be too full of ourselves, learn what others have to say and become better listeners.
This is backwards. Instead, I think we should learn to speak better, definitely know our native language, and be more full of ourselves. I mean, I think we should just be ourselves. teeth. Inspector Ray Holt played the role of the NYPD's first black gay police officer in the hit sitcom. Brooklyn Nine-Nine. One night he said: “Every time someone comes forward and says who they are, the world becomes a better and more interesting place.”
In other words, it is a liberal democracy. For all the chaos and mayhem caused by us decadent liberals, fascist conservatives, and righteous independents, we teeth exceptional. How much do we know our own story, going back to our Founding Fathers, who knew the hardships and horrors of what we will never know, and who knew that democracy would bring hardship and division? How well can I “speak our native language”? Perhaps we should stop being so anxious and defensive and say to those who think we are lost sometimes, I have to say. “Get a life!”
Ironically, I began to understand Captain Holt's point in Venezuela—Among Americans. As associate pastor of a small, ultradenominational church in the Venezuelan oil fields, I preached to a congregation of roughneck Hillary Clinton's so-called “deplorables” in Texas and Louisiana. Fresh out of Oberlin and Yale theology, immersed in the best theology of the day, and wanting to be thoughtful, I gave a sermon that said something along the lines of, “Accept it.” (Paul Tillich) The men, impressed by my words but perplexed by my message, then approached me and asked: “Pastor, what the hell are you talking about?” “Accept yourself.” what should we do? ”
Actually, as it turns out, I had a valid point. At this stage, I couldn't imagine being anything other than myself, except in a self-protective sense. The men in my congregation, all men, never doubted their acceptance. Fortunately, neither of us had much of a choice in the matter, but it didn't change much on either side. They also paid me a good salary. Each of us had our own way of speaking and expressing ourselves in our “native language”. Somehow, simply being ourselves, me as myself, them as themselves, not negative but undeniably harsh, brought us closer together. In the end we ended up sharing a lot of beers with breakfast. There is no question who they voted for in the last election.
Captain Holt was right. His clichés rival those of a theologian. “Every time someone comes forward and says who they are, the world becomes a better and more interesting place.” And no one is saying that's how it should be. Thank God we live in this country.
It's Thanksgiving.
Captain Raymond Holt (Andre Brauer)
Snitch #160 – Tough Love – 2
Approximately 2 + 2 = 5: https://williamgreen.substack.com/about
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