letter to the editor

Have faith, "...losing respect.."(Nov.15). You are witnessing yet another "revision of American history"- this one not as intent on glorifying narratives from the past as it is on creating new ones which all may be privileged to participate in, comment on, and hold up as an example of ourselves for the future. Without dismissing your perception, nor confirming or denying the truth of what is written as history, I point to the last administration as a clear example of greed, secrecy, and unchecked power attempting to present- as history- a narrative of wealth and opportunity few of us have realized. I have as deep a regard for the Presidents you have mentioned- their role in shaping the freedoms we enjoy cannot be understated. Felled cherry trees and log cabin bunk-mates aside, many of these freedoms have come at the expense of peoples of other nations as well as of our own. To ignore suffering and injustice where and how ever it occurs for the sake of national pride is a "glorious history" I do not celebrate. The feeling of the country right now (!) as we face economic and global uncertainty is that, with this new President, we are offered a chance to acknowledge our failures and move forward. Maybe we do this as a collection of fractured self-interests, as sniping partisans of one party or another, as people who resent other people for their language and culture, but I have greater hopes for our nation than that. We are constantly in the process of determining one just law to place ahead of the last to ensure that failures from the past are not perpetuated or revisited on citizens of this country whose advantages, despite the language of our founding documents, are fewer probably than your own. There's a lot of glorious history out there. Much of it from civilizations at points similar to our own who could never have predicted their own demise. But I remain hopeful that given this new opportunity, with the transparency in government we need in order to participate fully, with an understanding of other nations as people not so unlike our own, and with an earnest regard for the planet that supports us all, we will succeed.