Chris Jepson: Fits and starts

I am of two minds when it comes to America. One is detached, analytical and historical-based. I see America as part of a “continuum” that stretches back 2,500 years to Greece. We are part of a Western European tradition and trajectory that — through fits and starts — pushed the “individual” to assert his rights (“life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”) and to emancipate himself from the tyranny of either church or state (nation or tyrant).

I do feel a pride in our accomplishments. From a historical perspective, however, America was created out of a cauldron mixed with racism (slavery/Jim Crow laws) and genocide of Native Americans. That is fact. Yet, for 200 years we have tried — again through fits and starts — to “level” the playing field so that all Americans may freely participate in our democracy and prosper from the fruits of their own labor. This has been a wrenchingly tough slog, particularly for America’s oppressed (minorities, women and impoverished). And, much unfinished business remains.

We all must recognize that nothing lasts forever. This includes nations, governments, even people. America has had a great ride, historically speaking. We (white people) were fortunate that North America was apart from Europe. Our ancestors settled a continent with incredible natural resources of fertile land, bountiful water and phenomenal mineral/energy deposits. Our Founding Fathers embraced Enlightenment ideals of deism, science and representative governance. Understand, of course, that what they established (the United States) counted blacks as three-fifths of a human being and limited participation in our democracy to white men with property. That is our history.

And — through fits and starts — all white men eventually did achieve the right to vote. And after the Civil War, emancipated male slaves, too, achieved voting rights. Of course, Jim Crow was implemented and for the next 100 years it was much more a “paper” right than a “real” right. Is it not particularly perverse that our white ancestors gave the right to vote to emancipated male slaves decades before they considered women (their wives and daughters) worthy of that right?

We’ve arrived in 2012 a deeply divided, polarized nation. We have a long history of an evolving (expanding) democracy. Yet, arguably, we are not evolving as a nation, as a people. Many Americans are reactionary when it comes to religion, race, sexual orientation, nationalism/imperialism, progressive governance and the environment/climate. Some resistance to change is understandable. All of us, to varying degrees, want certainty in our lives. Yet, historically — through fits and starts — what was once thought unfathomable or unrealistic (women voting, eight-hour work day, environmental protections, Medicare, etc.) became reality because someone tilting at a windmill of injustice became many pursuing just that — a better, more just America.

Fits and starts. The Republicans are convening (in an angry fit) in Tampa, and what we are viewing is a reactionary, last-gasp carnival of essentially older, whiter Americans who remember an America that never was and long for a future that will never be. They bark and bray about an America that has lost its way.

But it is “these” Republicans who are on the wrong side of history. While I may dispassionately assess the state of America today (too reactionary, frightened and insecure), I do not despair. The Republican vision will not prevail long-term.

The Republican National Convention is just one of the many historical “fits” that has preceded yet another human start (step) forward.

You may weep while watching, but do not lose hope. Buck-up, kiddos.