By Tony Deyal
H.L. Mencken was a journalist, satirist, social critic, cynic and freethinker known as the “Sage of Balimore” USA. As I was leaving Canada to spend a few days with my sons in Washington, DC where I had spent a lot of time working for PAHO (Pan American Health Organisation), I thought of my time there.
As the great Mencken said: “One horse-laugh is worth ten thousand syllogisms. It is not only more effective; it is also vastly more intelligent.” In a way, that is totally true. George Carlin, the comedian and social critic, agreed. First, he said, “In America, anyone can become President. That’s the problem.” Later, he added, “When you’re born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America, you get a front-row seat.” The great Grouch Mark, saw it differently, “All people are born alike. Except Republicans and Democrats.”
In the Caribbean, it is the same with basically two parties in each country. Stephen Colbert, the comedian, put it within a broader context, “If our founding fathers wanted us to care about the rest of the world, they wouldn’t have declared their independence from it.”
One of the great female actress, writer and producer, Lily Tomlin, put it in a different context, “Ninety-eight percent of the adults in the country are decent, hardworking, honest Americans. It’s the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them.” Dan Rather, the journalist, said what some people in the US prefer, “Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn’t block traffic.” Jackie Mason, the actor and comedian, talked about men, women and choices, “Eighty percent of married men cheat in America. The rest cheat in Europe.”
Bill Maher, writer and humourist, added a “New Rule”, “This Valentine’s Day, Americans must remember that politicians are like a box of chocolates. We bite into them to find out what’s on the inside only to discover that Democrats are often soft and gooey and Republicans are mostly nuts.” The best ending for this group is Paul Goodman with a great ending, “In America you can say anything you want, as long as it doesn’t have any effect.”
For what it’s worth, this is me, not just in Canada or the US but increasingly everywhere! The reason is the sense, or even nonsense, regarding whether you could talk when you visit or you shut your trap. The musician, Bruce Springsteen, is upset that there is as much noise as music. He said, “I have spent my life judging the distance between American reality and the American dream.” The female journalist and television actress, Cristina Soralegui, a Cuban-American, put it differently: “To realise the American Dream, the most important thing to understand is that it belongs to everybody. It’s a human dream. If you understand this and work very hard, it is possible.”
For me, especially, as well as my many friends originally from the Caribbean, I went with what Martin Luther King, Jr. sees at both the beginning and end, “I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”
However, the great H.L. Mencken, saw it from a different perspective. He made it clear: “The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably, he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally, he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are.”
This is why Mencken was considered a controversial journalist and a pungent critic, but also a humorous and combative one, especially against the middle class. He was probably the most influential American literary critic who very often jabbed at American social and cultural weaknesses. This is an example of his view of his country and home, “On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” He was convinced that politicians, and I am convinced it is all of them not just those in the US, had a major plan when it comes to dealing with the people, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
With several Caribbean and other countries, due to having general elections within the rest of this year and the next, I was laughing at Mencken’s comment at the US folks because it knows that it is not they alone, “The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.” I got that myself from a party group that had won an election, and, with two years left before the next election, I told them that there were six areas where it would be closed and they should start working to ensure that they reached out to everyone, white, black and in between. I got laughter, hard talk, and even some cursing that I was talking nonsense, and they would win easily. I bet one of them a black coffee if I won, and six bottles of Champagne if he won. He lost, but cheap as it was, I never got the coffee.
In a way it is what H.L. Mencken saw as a major problem, “The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing.
The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.” It is what we call, “Goods to the last drop!” Or, for that matter, dump in a fast shop. The only way out is to take the advice of James Baldwin, the civil rights activist, “In every country of the world, regardless of who’s in charge at the time or forever, a profound understanding of citizenship is the only safeguard of democracy and the best defence of social, political, economic and environmental justice.”
*Tony Deyal is last seen but not heard, especially when it comes to politics.
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