By Charles Andrews
I DIDN’T START OUT THIS WAY
I was a good kid. Stayed away from trouble. But I was a lousy student, despite scoring high on aptitude tests, was a National Merit Scholar, and tested into Mensa my freshman year at UNM. But, a C student. Still waiting for my therapist to figure that one out.
Wound up with a 1.0 GPA that freshman year, academic suspension, drafted into the Army at the height of the Vietnam War. Shipped out across the other ocean, to Germany, survived.
Some in my position fled to Canada or claimed imaginary medical conditions. If you were a fortunate son, your daddy could get you passed over, or at least a safe stateside gig in the National Guard.
I DIDN‘T THINK IT WOULD BE RIGHT
to skip my place in line and have someone else take it, who might get their legs blown off, or come back to their family in a box. The war was horrible, the last real foxhole, M-1s and grenades, hand-to-hand, look your enemy in the eye; war, who gets to live, or die?
Oh, sorry, getting off point a bit, but while I’m here, let’s be reminded that war is not politics, not an excursion; it is the most dehumanizing, barbaric thing people can do to each other. We should be way past that, and we can be; it is not our human fate. Go sing “The Universal Soldier” a couple of times, with feeling.
I did hate every second of the 22 months I spent in uniform, but for personal, not philosophical, moral, or political reasons. I believed, like so many other young American men (boys really, I was 19), that this was a war we had to have, to stem the rising red tide across the globe. The Domino Theory. That may seem terribly naive now, but the Commies at the top really were bad guys who murdered and enslaved millions, and they were aiming for world domination.
AT THE SAME TIME
Most of us had no idea what our government had been up to. American kids were taught in school that we were always the white hats (not white hoods), compassionate toward defeated enemies, feeding the world’s hungry, curing diseases. But I soon had my brainwashed mind adjusted, my hawkish wings clipped, when I returned to college and started hanging with a different crowd. It’s not so easy to learn that what you were taught, your understanding of yourself and your nation, was so wrong, historically, factually, and it doesn’t happen all at once.
In fact, my re-education has never been more intense and disturbing than in the last few years, the orange MAGA years. And I am grateful, yes.
Though I only stuck around school long enough for a Bachelor’s, I know learning never ends, and I have been a world news and politics junkie since early teens. Sure, we all knew about slavery, that the native peoples were pushed aside, nearly to extinction, for Manifest Destiny, and that money has always controlled voting. But I‘m telling you, from my own experience, that we may be fooling ourselves about our factual knowledge in many areas, and our understanding of what it all means.
IT TOOK ME A LONG TIME
to figure out how, how in the world, this sick, disgusting man could have been voted into the Oval Office by tens of millions of Americans. (And if you think that opinion and language are too strong, not appropriate, I believe you are part of the problem.) It’s too long to go into here, but the shorthand is, they see themselves in him, and he hates who they hate. We used to elect people based on their qualifications. And now look at another reality TV star we have running for Mayor of Los Angeles. And a guntotin’ proud Oathkeeper running for governor. Politics have become entertainment, ratings rule, and our people suffer and die. At the same time, I am becoming more educated about how we got here, our nation reads at a 6th-grade level, except they do not read at all; they absorb the images the corporate media feeds them, and that becomes reality for them.
If it sounds like I think we are screwed, we are, for now, but there are so many people working to bring back sanity that I am completely hopeful. Things would be so much worse if certain DC Democrats hadn’t worked hard to plug the dam, if so many activist groups across the country hadn’t filed lawsuits, if so many communities like the brave people of Minneapolis hadn’t come together for each other, fighting armed thugs with plastic whistles and the spirit of 1776. I cringe when certain politicians gush about American exceptionalism, but we are indeed an exceptional nation, in our states and cities, farms and homes, churches and schools. And never forget: we outnumber the bad guys by millions to one. It won’t be easy, but we will prevail, starting with the election this fall.
I HAVE HAD LOSING ARGUMENTS
with friends who insist the only thing we must focus on is a sweeping Democratic victory, this year and in 2028. But if you are painfully aware of how things work in our system, how things are, you know, going back to that is jumping from the frying pan into the fire. The thing about having chaos and things destroyed is that there is the opportunity to build it back right. We have never gotten it right in America. Our intentions were good, our words inspiring, our new system of government a blueprint for a magnificent building that is unfinished. In fact, there remain some serious structural problems.
So, now is the time. Not next time. There were several teenage survivors of the Parkland massacre who swore they would devote the rest of their lives to controlling guns and righting other wrongs. At least one of them has carried through, David Hogg, who now runs a group whose name is self-explanatory, “Leaders We Deserve,” and I urge you to look into their agenda. And support their work. Now is the time.
COLBERT BLEW IT
After 11 years of courageously satirizing the political evil we are facing, he has chosen to waste his final four shows this week by presenting bits that failed to make the cut for broadcast to an audience of his staffers. Not only really boring TV, at least Monday’s show, but such a missed opportunity. Maybe some of his other guests will acknowledge the huge audience to say something of importance. And yes, seeing him perform with David Byrne will be a treat. But Stephen, after all you’ve been through, having your career and reputation trashed by a would-be king, you are going out with a whimper. Very disappointing. Sorry, I recommended that everyone tune in in my NOTEWORTHY column Wed.
Charles Andrews has lived in Santa Monica for 40 years and wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world. Really. Send love and/or rebuke to him at therealmrmusic@gmail.com.
