 America finding its way here at a given Thursday at 11 and we have the troop Tim is Tim is on vacations as Stephanie Stahl Dalton Cynthia Sinclair Winston Welch. Today we're going to talk about July 4 because July 4 is coming soon it's coming on Sunday observed on Monday. Welcome to the show you guys. Thank you. Let's start with you Stephanie. You know, you've been in and around the federal government for your whole life. And I wonder how you feel about it. In terms of patriotism. You know, I just before we start that I just want to tell you that we had zaps later on one July 4 he's a retired admiral Navy admiral. He said that the one thing that happened in his life that you'll never forget was he was ferrying a plane over to Vietnam. I'm not a good word actually ferrying a plane a fighter plane over to Vietnam and fly over the country. And, and it was on July for the evening of July 4. Way back when in Vietnam times and he looked down at the country, and he saw fireworks all across America. And it touched him to the point where he could sort of see the patriotism palpably all across America, despite the fact we were in an unpopular war. It's very interesting that that he would remember that. So Stephanie, what are your thoughts about July 4. And that is a very interesting tale and story because I had, I have a little similar one for when we were in Japan with the compliments of the federal government and you know Japan and their bases were backed up for the Vietnam war to, you know, the administration and support, but the story is that it took along was the planes were slower than and people came back and said they had gone back to the main to us. And then, while they were on the plane. They were told to look out the window because they were like over the heartland of the country and the corn and the wheat and everything. And they get from way high up the bread basket. It was just beautiful and spontaneously, everybody started to sing America the beautiful. And it was so moving. It was even just to hear and tell the story is just so moving just to know that that happens spontaneously sometimes. So yes, I'm, I'm a patriot. I'm a fashion kind of patriot. And, and yes, you're right. But because it was a big but my mom, my sips did and I don't know why I missed it but anyhow my mother, I guess didn't want to go there. And with going to places around the world compliments of the federal government so yes I do think about my country very dearly and also I've been brought to think about its flaws because I know that when I was in Iraq, and being a consultant for what they were trying to do in education. And they asked me questions that indicated that they thought we did all these really wonderful things. And that was a breakthrough for me because my inside my head. Oh my God, they're asking, you know, me for what we do in America and in America, we don't even have the goals they have here and just for example, people, the Iraqis just like the Greenlanders and some and other countries they they have goals for their students to graduate from high school, and have quadri-lingualism. That's knowing four languages, because they have to know their, their primary language of the country they have to know what is that secondary language in the case of a rocket was Kurdish, and then they had to know at least one or two other languages to do business with France or Russia or whoever would be their business partner. So others think very highly of us or did. There was a time when, yes, we were the nation on the hill. Yeah, so that's Yeah, let me move to use Cynthia, you know, everything we hear today, or very nearly everything, and certainly during the Trump years. And for that matter, since Vietnam. And I guess you could also say Rumsfeld's death showed us how unwise those wars were that he, you know, jammed us into. So, you know, the question is all these negative things. How does how does that affect your patriotism. Can you and others similarly situated inclined can feel patriotic, given all the negative things, not only now, not only during Trump but through our lives that we have heard about this country and its sensibilities and and prospects and its, you know, vision and so forth. Wow, that's a big. Um, I still feel all kinds of patriotism. I love my country in the midst of being on Trump week for the last three years and following what that crazy man did. Trying to understand how people could sacrifice their integrity in order to get what they wanted in the form of judges and, you know, things like this so a tax cuts and whatnot. That's difficult for me. And, and so it's, I still struggle. And this is for the first time in my life that I've ever struggled like this, because I've always been one of those people that stands for the, you know, they are our anthem. I stand, even if I'm in a restaurant, and I'm, it's a sports bar and the national anthem comes on, I stand up and I'll yell at everybody else in the restaurant to stand up to because that's why that's the kind of patriot that I've always, always been. Um, I got a couple of quotes here today, and one that I think is is important and it's from Abraham Lincoln. And it says I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him. And I think that's kind of what we're kind of going through right now in this country. There was a lot of misinformation and lies and, and things that and fighting like I've never seen for our country before. And sure you know you talk about about going back as far as Vietnam and sure there was a lot of you know peace marches and all that there was a lot of unrest then, but even then, we all came together as a country right away. And the last time I saw that was after 911. I was in New York, and I was on the ferry. I was going past the Statue of Liberty. And I was standing out on the balcony or the little thing it was wintertime so it's really cold. I was out there by myself, and I just started singing my country tis of the it just sort of came over me and I started singing. And then I didn't really realize that I got so into singing it. Then all of a sudden I hear all these voices up behind me, sort of like Japanese story a few minutes ago. All these people, there must have been 30 of them had all come out on the balcony with me, and we all stood there and sang my country tis of the we were all crying and hugging and that's the kind of, to me that is that is America and that makes me proud to be in this country and told them I can't you will be proud of me. Wow. Wow Winston, can you can you top that. Not, not about trying to top these ladies or would never succeed. So I can only just try and hold my, my own, but we're all patriots, we all love this nation very deeply that's evident over the last year we've been together and longer for the These that have been on the show, or me, you know that the patriotism is it there's nothing there. This is a wonderful country. This is why we fight for it. This is why we fight for its best and highest and truest values. It's why we, why we, why we criticize it and why we want it to be better why we why we face its problems while we look at them openly and address them and say we don't want to cover them up so they fester. We want to bring light on them so that we can continue to reinvest our, our energies and our best thoughts into making this a group and keeping it to be a great nation. And this is why did the Trump administration do for us that the Trump administration was a gift for us to see where we need to shore up, reinvigorate ourselves, recommit, reconnect, replace repair, all of the all of the all of the Ries right now that we got to do and show us what it is that we've lost and what we could potentially much more lose. So I think it was it was a gift given to us and you know there's a song says Cynthia's giving some clothes and just throw out a couple. William Jefferson Clinton the golden years of the 90 says there is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America. John Lewis the late great John Lewis says, I want to see young people in America feel the spirit of the 1960s, and find a way to get in the way to find a way to get in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble. And I think we're seeing that with the, the whole generation coming up. You know, Abraham Lincoln, you said Abraham you mentioned Abraham Lincoln, great American obviously my dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of Earth. And, you know that this is America constantly every we all have to always always give back to this nation. It's like Kennedy said ask not what your country can do for you but what you do for your country. Truman. America was not built. He says America was not built on fear America was built on courage on imagination and unbeatable determination to do the job at hand. Is this a perfect nation. No, does it have words. Yes. And does it have laws. Yes. Do we address those head on. Yes, this is we are more we're going towards a more perfect union all the time and it is up to each of us individually generationally organizationally to recommit to the ideals and hopes and best promises of this nation because if we don't the alternative is not good and that's what patriotism is it's it's not about nationalism it's about patriotism it's a love of country and this is right and good and something that we should all feel. And we look around and we point well they should do something about this and they should just guess what you know what there's four fingers or thumbs pointing back at you when you say they so get out there and do something make your country a better place make our country a better place by contributing however you can. Whether it's on being hosts on big tech or volunteering for the Boy Scouts or cleaning up trash or writing a letter to the editor your congressman or helping a little old lady across the street whatever it is. One of the American culture is exceptionalism. The historians will tell you that in the 19th century. We developed this notion that we were the best and the 20th century to for a time we developed this notion that we were the best part of that of course was winning World War one and World War two and overcoming you know all the issues around those On the other hand, you know, in some sense patriotism and July 4 is different because if it's nostalgia isn't it Stephanie. It's largely nostalgia and and can you know when you look at patriotism on July 4 and PS less we forget July 4 is about independence from Britain. It's about writing a constitution. It's about inventing a new system of government democracy for the first time in the world. You know the pretty great company you know pretty great achievements, but but it seems to me that patriotism is is retrospective these days. And it's hot it's you know when you see how weak we have been. There's only six months ago we had an insurrection in our in the heart of our government. So, you know, I think you have to separate nostalgia from optimism or whatever you feel about the future. Where are you and that and that continuum Stephanie. Well, I think back to the fact that we were a colony. And we had over Lord and Sears and George with King. And we had to move out from under that once we felt oppressed. So we've had all of these experiences as a nation as a people. And, and so we we need to be in demonstrating that we understand those issues, and that we know what we had to do that was the extreme to get out of it to get out from under it and establish our own country. And we want to avoid having to do anybody having to do that again, because, and we have had some success in that over what 240 years or something of modeling that this is how it works. But now we're thrown into a situation where we have corruption, and our institutions are failing and we're questioning what what's going on here. And what are our values and do enough of us share that values that made all of this country happen. You know, and things were different in many ways in the 18th century when we invented this new form of government. And the question is, has this new form of government kept up with the changes in our world with the, the science, the technology, you know, the social dynamic of the world is, it's really different now. And arguably, you have to keep up with it. That's why we have these things called amendments to keep up with it. And, you know, we've seen fragility. We've seen cracks in the armor we've seen trouble in River City, so to speak, we've seen parts of the government that simply aren't functioning right now. This runs a different course. This contends with the old fashioned notion of exceptionalism. And how do you feel about that? It must be a mixed bag. At least for some people right now, you think of the government failing, there's no easy solution to that. The damage that was done and by one president, you know, what, what, what, you know, how does that mesh with the notion of exceptionalism and a brand new form of government that was going to be the best in the world. Can I comment on that? I, I just respect and realize what was kind of an epiphany when I thought about the founding fathers and wish there had been mothers too but it wasn't in. Betsy Ross. But what happened to have that DNA present itself in those men in the same place, in the same time of their lives, their productive portion of their lives. How miraculous was that that they came all together and they battled it out for the best outcome they could make for these big ideas. So that has led me to look for capacity in the leaders and talk about capacity in our leaders and how education to have people understand what it takes to be in those positions and what you need to have to be there to make the best decision. So, anyhow, that's, that's my conundrum right now and we're not doing it as well as we did and I don't know if the DNA is around anymore, not certainly not all in the same place like New England. But yeah, the East Coast, so that is just overwhelmed me that that was such a miracle that happened and we have this paper from them that has lasted quite a long while has done some very good things but you're right. The amendments are needed, you know, we have to find the people with the capacity to help us make the changes that have it fit for the next 250 years. My own emotional experience before we go to you again Cynthia my own emotional experience was here on sync tech when we were talking about immigration reform and I decided I would read the poem on the base of the Statue of Liberty. Give me your tired, huddled tired masses journey to breathe free. I hadn't read that poem a long time. I only remembered it faintly but it seemed like an appropriate poem to read in view of what Trump was doing to every immigrant that he could get his hands on and you know the country is great success. What people agree with me has been the melting pot, allowing people from all over the world to come here freely and make a life. That is truly truly remarkable. That's our great gift to the world because it has shown others other countries the way. And so when I read that poem it actually I couldn't finish it. I couldn't finish it I was so taken emotionally by it. And yet, you know we we aren't going forward on this going backward. Yesterday there was a news story about anti Semitism, and the, you know the authorities were reporting the extraordinary increases in anti Semitism and anti Asian racism and anti black racism and you name it. You know the melting pot has has locked up somehow. And instead of going forward which I have observed all my life here and elsewhere. We're going backward. But how does that play in terms of your view of the country because you have to have a view of the country in the future to ideate have to have a vision for the ideal way it's going to be. And how do you reconcile, you know the obvious going backward direction now with your view of the country going forward. Well, you know that exceptionalism that you were mentioning a little bit ago, I think has gotten perverted to be a racism, instead of just an exceptionalism. I think that a large swath of the country is afraid that they will no longer be the majority. And they think that they are the only ones who are exceptional. And I experienced that when I lived in the south and it's been emboldened, I think over these last four years by the last racist president that we had. And, and he would like to claim he's not racist but in every action and everything he did and said he showed that he lied and he really is a racist, even though he says he's not. But I like to hope that this same country that, you know, eight years and four years and eight years beforehand had, you know, elected a black man to be our president. There's hope. These, these loudmouth racist are going to hopefully eventually just go back to the house and stay there and stop teaching their, you know, next generation to be that way. So I got a couple quotes on this one too. Of course, what else is new right. So there's one from William Faulkner that I really like. And it says we must be free, not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it. And I like that. I thought that was really good. Then I've got another one that I really love that is from Ronald Reagan. We're blessed with the opportunity to stand for something for liberty and freedom and fairness. And these are things worth fighting for worth devoting our lives to. And, you know, that's freedom, fairness, liberty, all these people that that are these, you know, the ones that are so loudly denouncing anyone of color. We can attribute these attacks and these, these, you know, raised numbers of people that are being anti, you know, anti Semitism and anti Asian and all this stuff. Right. If they could really live up to the thing they say they support, which is the Constitution, which is liberty, freedom, fairness, that's what these things are. Yet they, I don't know, conveniently convince themselves that they're above it or they deserve it more than anyone else. And that's the part that scares me and worries me about our country going forward. Well, Winston, you know, you used the word recommitment a little while ago and I, I'm touched by that because that suggests that we've lost it to some extent we have to recommit to it. And right now, you know, you have these, may I say, warring factions. Those who, you know, really do believe in the Constitution, and those who would like to turn over the government as we've seen in Washington and there are even a substantial number of members of Congress who would like to turn over the government even by their votes 147 of them on January 6. So we have this tension going on. Tim reports in his travels in New England, you know, that that people in New England are old fashioned Yankees, they believe in the Constitution. They believe in all those, you know, all those high, high morals and ethics. And they and they do not agree with the divisiveness we are experiencing, but it is a tension. And, and the question is which side of that equation is going to prevail. And I take it that your use of the term recommitment means that you have to make special effort, effort beyond the effort in the past, you can't be an observer. If you want to save the country, and you do that for patriotism. So my question is, how do you express the recommitment. Well, you know, I think the quotes we got are really good ones. I like Ronald Reagan quote. It's it's true. Eleanor Roosevelt. Life of a wonderful president, wonderful first lady. I mean, with freedom comes responsibility. They're good Marshall justice Marshall Supreme Court justice says when you see wrong or inequality or injustice speak out because this is your country. This is your democracy make it protect it pass it on. That recommitment is not something that we've lost. It means that we need to constantly, constantly recommit just like any relationship you have if you don't feed it withers on the vine. And the relationship that we have with our nation with our communities with our organizations, if we don't feed them, they wither. This is where we're much more diverse nation now. Maybe we always were diverse. We just weren't up to sharing the power, but things have changed now. And so again, you know, we want to look at where the injustices are. We're willing to look at them in this country. We're willing to address them. We're able to address them. We're able to look at fair play and equal opportunity. These are, you know, the problem that we have is these days is that people aren't feeling they're they're feeling partisan. And that's not what it's about. And I think on the 4th of July, we have a chance to check our baggage at the door and we can all be Americans and say, OK, what are the base values that we all believe in. Now, sometimes those values might be quite different. And it's a it's a country of diversity. There's no doubt about it. But as James Madison, our fourth president said, the advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of liberty. Unfortunately, these days, we got a lot of different diffusion of knowledge, whatever the knowledge isn't always knowledge. It can be false facts and fake news and alternative facts. So we have to be ever vigilant as people have needed to be. I think what we see now in America, and as you were saying, oh, is it, you know, you're and we do get down on it and we can get down. We have the luxury of getting down on it and pointing out its flaws. And that is a wonderful thing. And a huge majority of people around the world, I think don't have that opportunity. And the fact that we do is an amazing thing. It's stuck around for a long time. It's getting more diverse, more open, more guaranteed. Winston here on July 4, 2021. Is our country guaranteed? Nothing is guaranteed. You you recommit to it. I'm recommitting to it. This is a wonderful nation. It has it has issues like every other nation, but we are a big ship and we need some we've been making some systemic bad decisions. I think that we can, but we're facing them and we're facing them. And that's what the gift of Donald Trump in the last four years is that it really just put it into and focus. But we have a lot of shoring up to do. Just look in any direction. You can fix that you want to work on and go for it. Let's let's go around the table for our last comment, sister, almost out of time. And let me let me see that discussion by saying, hey, there are people in this country that want to see this country come down. They want to see it come down. There are people in this country that cannot will not negotiate over this. They are filled with hatred. And in in the process, they hate the country as it exists. They're hard to deal with. And you can have noble ideas. But query, what do you do when so many people are trying to bring the thing down? Can you still be patriotic? And how do you deal with them to make them patriotic, or at least to follow in what Winston is saying, Stephanie, you first. I'm hopeful for what is happening in this in the Congress, which has to, which I'm hoping will get better and I think it will get better as models and practitioners of these values and beliefs could be more active, for example, Liz Cheney, being willing to be on that committee as the bipartisan standard bearer. And she's taking a lot of risk on that. So I can't praise her enough for doing that work. And then, of course, the president, we've got somebody doing things that are about bringing unity. And let's hope that these are going to be powerful enough influences to move the institutions and certainly the Congress into more comedy and more problem solving for the purposes of the people in this nation. Hopefully, because the Senate really needs to get back to what it used to be. And if you saw that movie about Lincoln, the Lincoln movie, which is powerful because it shows the Senate in its role of what it used to be, which was a place where they had these gigantic discussions that were very high level and just got to the best place they could because of the leadership that they had. So hopefully we have those people. Okay, that DNA is still here of the founding fathers. Somehow. Yeah. But as we have heard, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance that has not changed from revolutionary times. And so those guys made some mistakes. They made the mistake of slavery, for example. And arguably they had to do that to build a nation that's just the reality at the time, I suppose it was a huge mistake which we paid for with a lot of lives. But the question is, you know, how do we how do we face this going forward. And part of it is a consciousness thing Cynthia, what are your last comments. We often talk about my experience in the South dealing with people that have these sort of archaic, if you will, ideas about how things should be and how white people should be in charge of everything. And it, I don't have a magic answer for that, except for we got to go with what John Lewis said, you know, what, what Winston just said, what John Lewis, you know, we want our young people to get out there getting in some good trouble, be motivated enough to stand up to this this sort of what's set in stone here for us and we just need to break those stones apart and rearrange them just in the same way they were rearranged in the 19 These in those, you know, civil rights we need, we need them to to reignite now. So I want to finish with a quote that I have from Condoleezza Rice. I love her I think she's awesome. Okay, the essence of America, that which really unites us is not ethnicity or nationality or religion. It's an idea. And what an idea it is that you can come from humble circumstances and do great thing. True, true, give me your tired. Hello. Longing to breathe free. It still gets me. So Winston, I know it's less comments than you can say anything you want. I hope you say something slightly different. You talked about the kids, a generation to come. They're the ones we vest our, our hope in. What is your message to them. Now, July 4 2021. I'm different than my message to all people that live in this nation. Get involved, get involved. Find out how your government works. Find out what where our, our pain points are, you know, reach out, try and understand people educate each other and yourselves, recommit to this best and greatest idea of this country, a rule of law and a more perfect union. So, no, I'm going to give you the same answer, Jay. This country has always been an exceptional idea in the imagination of humankind, and we are continue down that path. We will stumble and fall, but we get up, we dust ourselves off and we do better, and we recommit ourselves to doing better. You're part of it. We're part of it. All of us are part of it, but we have to be part of it. It withers on the vine. So eternal vigilance is where we need to end this show because it, that's just it. And I love the idea of the best ideas of this nation. And if we do, we stand a fighting chance. So Stephanie Cynthia and Winston, let's, let's recommit to cover this. We're going to cover it. We're going to watch this like a hawk. We're going to be as vigilant as anybody alive to see how it moves and how the, how the dots connect. Thank you so much. Not only for the past shows, but for the future. Stephanie Cynthia Winston.