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The honorable ceremony of celebrating a victory appears to have fallen out of favor lately. Yesterday was VE Day, the 50th anniversary of Germany's surrender to end World War II in Europe, and the public rituals have been rather subdued.
Coming up in August is the 50th anniversary of VJ (Victory in Japan) Day, except it won't officially be VJ Day because we're a sensitive society which esteems victimhood rather than victory, and we don't want to hurt any feelings.
But at least we recognize such days from old wars, although Armistice Day and Decoration Day have been transformed almost past recognition.
Move to modern times, and there's the long twilight
struggle
of the Cold War which ended sometime in recent
memory, but when precisely? The fall of the Berlin Wall?
The collapse of the Soviet Union? Golden arches in
Moscow?
I was going to ask why we don't set aside one of those anniversaries as VCCCP Day, but the answer struck me instantly. For an influential portion of our nation -- red-baiting politicians, over-running defense contractors, inept intelligence agents -- there's nothing to celebrate when faced with the awful prospect of finding honest work. Best to pretend that the victory never happened, and hope people continue shoveling money your way.
The victory has also had dismal effects on our society. Without communists abroad, our leaders have been forced to find domestic enemies: users of non-prescribed pharmaceuticals, homosexuals, single mothers, rural gun users, patriarchal oppressors, historians, environmentalists ...
Little wonder that we have found so little to celebrate after the Cold War; the only thing that seems to unite Americans is a common enemy, and if we can't find one, we go to war with each other.
Fortunately for those who yearn to celebrate, there are many other victories.
VS Day: On Feb. 4, 1787, Daniel Shays and his force of 1,200 farmers were defeated at Petersham, Mass., after attacking a federal arsenal as part of their protests that government policies favored rich speculators over sturdy hard-working yeomen. Thus we got the savings-and-loan scandal and the peso bailout 200 years later.
VP Day: On Sept. 1, 1914, the last passenger pigeon -- an American species which once numbered in the billions -- died in the Cincinnati Zoo. This triumph over the arrayed forces of nature should be added to the calendar, perhaps as early as this year when Congress finishes eviscerating the Endangered Species Act.
VBM Day: On July 28, 1932, the United States Army under the command of Gen. Douglas MacArthur scored a little-noted triumph.
With tanks, cavalry and poison gas, the soldiers routed a seditious Washington encampment of unarmed and jobless World War I veterans who had ventured to the national capital to petition the government for early payment of a bonus they had been promised.
VS Day: Remember the Maine? Probably not. Hardly anybody
does, and no Spanish-American War Centennial
Commission
has emerged. The battleship Maine blew up in
the Havana harbor on Feb. 15, 1898, and America went to war
with Spain, capturing Manila in the Philippines and
destroying the Spanish Caribbean fleet at the Battle of
Santiago.
Although Theodore Roosevelt called this a splendid
little war,
it is difficult to fix a date for a Victory
over Spain Day. Good contenders include July 17 for the
Battle of Santiago, Dec. 10 for the treaty that gave the
U.S. control of Spain's old colonies, and some undetermined
date years later when U.S. forces finally subdued most of
the misguided Filipino rebels who couldn't tell the
difference between U.S. colonialism and Spanish
colonialism.
VM Day: On June 26, 1858, the U.S. cavalry rode into
Salt Lake City after conquering it from the Mormons who
built it. The Mormon War is worth remembering because, in
the words of historian David Lavender, their rebellion
flared and was resolved without anyone on either side
discharging a gun at another human being.
Back in those days, American authorities were apparently better at dealing with sequestered and armed religious cults.
VMEW Day: I remember President Jimmy Carter in his
sweater announcing that the latest energy crisis was the
moral equivalent of war.
And in the ensuing years, we've won the moral equivalency. Energy prices, adjusted for inflation, are as low as they've ever been. We're not a cold, dark nation. Perhaps people have forgotten this victory because we had to resort to the physical equivalent of war in the Persian Gulf four years ago.
At any rate, there are dozens of victories to celebrate. Alas, there are also some losses.
The War on Poverty? Poverty continues to gain ground, and Congress is prepared to surrender. The War on Drugs grinds on with helicopter surveillance, bombing in South America, house-to-house fighting in American cities, and no end in sight.
Maybe these losses explain why people just aren't as enthusiastic about celebrating victories these days.
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