Category Archives: Americana

Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and the American male archetype with a gratuitous jab at Fox and a guest appearance by Mad Men’s Roger Stirling

Americana, What's a man?

In their own ways, Jon Steward and Stephen Colbert represent two main American archetypes:  the humble man and the braggart. When I was growing up, the humble man was the ideal we all aspired to (would you be happier with "to which we all aspired"?). The shy, reticent Gary Cooper playing Sgt. York or the sheriff in High Noon was the ideal American hero. The French with their fancy clothes and braggadocio manner were one thing, but real Americans were quiet, even taciturn. Think John Wayne. Think the great Baltimore Colt quarterback Johnny Unitas.

While not taciturn, Jon Stewart is in this tradition. Often his humor is based on him being wrong, the reasonable but humble everyman.   

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In my memory, the first of the braggarts was Mohammad Ali but, really, the braggart archetype is older. George Washington went to the Continental Congress hoping to be appointed Commander in Chief of the American revolutionary forces and to accomplish that end, he had a natty powder blue General's uniform made so he would look very generalish. Nothing reticent there. All the Civil War generals before Grant enjoyed their displays of splendor (when Grant first arrived at General Meade's Headquarters, he snarkingly said that this must be Caesar's Army with all the flags and pomp). Now, it is pretty much universally considered manly to put on a display: think almost any NFL football player after making a touchdown. And nobody does it better than Stephen Colbert.


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General U. S. Grant, Mathew Brady, and the new American Hero

Americana, General U.S. Grant, Politics, War, What's a man?

 

Lee

 

In case you weren’t paying attention during your Civil War history class, the picture above in not Grant, it is Confederate General Robert E. Lee. It was take in 1863 and was pretty typical of a portrait of a Civil War general. He stands tall in his battle uniform, with resolute eyes, beautiful shinny boots (you can be sure he didn’t shine them), and a sword. Every inch the patrician. He was the son of Major General Henry Lee III “light Horse Harry” who later became the governor of Virgina.       

Grant, like Lincoln, was a mid-westerner. A common man. At West Point, Lee was Captain of Cadets  while Grant muddled along near the bottom of his class. Grant was quiet, shy, self-effacing. When Grant met Lee during the Mexican-American War, he was thrilled; Lee later said he didn’t remember the meeting. The next time they met was at Appomattox – after Grant’s army had pounded the shit out of Lee. Lee was still resplendent in his beautiful uniform, Grant was wearing a muddy privates uniform with his three stars pined on the shoulders.

Grant had come to do a job and he did it. The picture below shows just that.

Ulysses-grant

 

It is a new kind of portrait. It was probably taken during the Overland Campaign just after the battle of Cold Harbor. Grant is not the patrician hero: he looks tired, his eyes are sad, his boots are muddy. Unlike Lee, war is not a great adventure for Grant. It is a dirty job to be done.

Grant was the new American hero. The quiet man just doing his job. John Wayne. Gary Cooper in High Noon.  No braggadocio flourishes, just quietly getting the job done.

 

This is probably Mathew Bradley’s most famous photo. Not only because of it’s informality, but because it is so penetrating. I have read that a good portrait is a artifact of a relationship. This is a portrait of a man, the picture of Lee, in contrast, is generic. The pictures, together, are emblematic of the Civil War. Up until then, portraits were formal affairs but this portrait was informal.  Lee is shown as the patrician, and by extension, the south as feudal. They are formal portraits reflecting a formal society: ridged, stratified, looking back. This portrait of Grant, the dynamic new kind of American from the West, and by extension, the new and dynamic North: the new America.

An America that is open to the common man. Open to change, at ease with its new frenzy and energy and looking forward. In about a hundred years, from 1800 to 1900, we went from being the equivalent of a third world country to being the world’s industrial powerhouse. And the cleavage point was the Civil War: before it, we were mostly an agrarian society; after it we (the North, at least) were an industrial, urban society.

A State Dinner

Americana, Obama

I am blown away that today Barrack Obama and Michele Obama, or as it said on the official program – The President & First Lady Michelle Obama – had a State Dinner. It brings tears to my eyes.

Years ago I heard a speech given by Pat Schroeder, then the US Representative from Colorado’s First District. In the speech, she talked about taking some sort of government trip to India aboard an Air Force plane. The Air Force, sort as a RF according to Schroeder, sent along a ground crew composed of women and racial minorities. Schroeder talked about how the diversified and hard working (no George Bushes at Yale there) crew impressed the Indians.

The Indians saw the diversity as a strength that only the United States had. It was what, in their eyes (and mine), made this a great country. And now, years later, the Obama Administration’s first State Dinner is to honor India and it was a showcase of diversity. Starting at the top!

And, Wow!, did the Obama look like they were having fun.

The Obamas

Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India and his wife Ms. Gursharan Kaur were there, of course; along with expected guests such as Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Deepak Chopra and his wife Rita Chopra, and Secretary of the Department of Energy Steven Chu and his wife.

Guests1

Steven Spielberg should be expected, I guess, but Alfre Woodard (I’ve been in love with Alfre ever since Passion Fish) with a black guy named Blair Underwood is a surprise, and I had to Google Jhumpa Lahiri and Alberto Vourvoulias to find out she is an American Indian author and he, her husband, is the editor of the nation’s oldest Spanish language newspaper. Of course, Colin Powell and his wife, Alma Powell were there. And Katie Couric and Obama’s sister, Dr. Maya Soetoro-Ng with her husband, and Mrs. Marian Robinson. Think about that, a white woman who probably helped Obama get elected just by doing her job; a half Indonesian woman teacher; and a black woman from Chicago’s south-side. These were people who were invisible when I was growing up.

Maybe the important things aren’t the bogged down Healthcare Bill, or Afghanistan, but the fact that Obama is changing what it means to be an American. No wonder the birthers are going nuts.

 


 

 

 

It is our country.

Americana, What's a man?

Sarah Palin is still talking about the real American and the goofy birthers
are still saying Obama is not a real American. Now Pat Buchanan is complaining that
"Old heroes like Columbus, Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee are
replaced by Dr. King and Cesar Chavez." – For God's sake, Pat,  Robert
E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were traitors, is that the best you can
do?  Listening to them, I have starting thinking about what does make a real American?

Maybe a real American is like pornography: hard to define, but you know it when you see it. One real American is Hung Ba Le, a native of Hue, Vietnam, who left that country
as a five-year-old refugee and was picked up at sea by a U.S. Navy ship. This this month, he became the commander of the USS Lassen, a guided missile
destroyer.

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There is so much that I like about this (and this picture). The delicious irony that Le was saved by a US Navy ship and is now the commander of US Navy ship. The Navy is the most conservative of all the US armed services – by far. Just look at the picture, Le is wearing a sword… a SWORD! and they still use a pipe whistle as part of the boarding ceremony. Sixty years ago, the Navy was all white except for black mess stewards and Filipino cooks, now three of the six people in this picture are minorities and the new commander is a Vietnamese American.

The new America, the real America is not Sarah Palin's America.   

” The people of Afghanistan represent many things in this conflit – an audience, an actor, and a source of leverage – but above all, they are the objective.”

Americana, Current Affairs, Politics, Psychological Musings

What a great sentence. It is from the Commander's Initial Assessment  by Lieut. General Stan McChrystal, and it says almost everything about the war in Afghanistan – except why we are there and how long, whatever we are doing, will take. Obama ran on Afghanistan being the good war, the just war, the war we have to win to make the world safe. I think that the sub-text was that we abandoned Afghanistan once with disastrous results, and we can't – shouldn't – do it again.

And now Obama is president, and the war seems much harder and more complicated than it did a year ago from the campaign trail. The new commander, seems to actually understand the situation; unfortunately, he wants more troops. In his report, he writes about the five different players in the war, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, the International Security Assistance Force, the insurgency, the external players, and the people of Afghanistan. And each of the players, it seems to me (and I think, McChrystal) is a problem.

The Government of the Islamic Republic Of Afghanistan (or GIRoA as it is referred to in the report) has legitimacy problems and has problems with the people supporting it. Without a legitimate government, who are we fighting for. 

The  report sez that the International Security  Assistance Force (that's us – good ol'  ISAF) has completely mishandled their role.  Until now, the ISAF has had almost no idea of Afghan culture, have tried fighting the war with drones rather than people on the ground, and we have alienated more people than we have converted. 

The insurgency, on the other hand, does seem to know what it is doing. 

The major two external players, Pakistan and Iran, are completely out of our control. And they each have an agenda which is different than ours.