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#1 2008-11-07 20:25:29
- tom22
- Member
- Posts: 295
It is ALWAYS about America
So my father was a reserve Navy Officer and was called up for WWII and Korea (the rare double hit). My mother married him when he was called up the second time. She lived at Pearl Harbor during the Korean war and said to me" How did he graduate from the most exclusive school on the Islands?"
He went some where and Columbia and then Harvard Law. She went to Princeton and then Harvard? I'm not sure.
there was a long line of white Anglo Saxon Presidents. Most of whom went to Northeast schools. Then there was Jack Kennedy, product of Choate, Harvard, princeton and Stamford. Then there was a long line of WASP Presidents who had some connection to eastern schools except Reagan who said he was a bit Irish. And then there was this kid. Just another Ivy League President.
England can imagine these things. But they only really happen in America. And it usually is related to Ivy League style, in some way or other. we people across the pond are different.
Last edited by tom22 (2008-11-07 20:31:51)
#2 2008-11-07 20:30:55
- tom22
- Member
- Posts: 295
Re: It is ALWAYS about America
Ok: Nixon went to Duke in the southeast. And Harry Truman went to Europe and became an admired Army Officer. Farther east than many. But my argument does have that flaw.
#3 2008-11-07 21:00:24
- Dorian
- Member
- From: devil's island
- Posts: 132
Re: It is ALWAYS about America
wasnt truman thought a hick?
Life is too important to be taken seriously.
#4 2008-11-07 21:40:11
- tom22
- Member
- Posts: 295
Re: It is ALWAYS about America
Well, he followed FDR (Harvard and Columbia Law) the master of the then means of communication. Hard to figure out FDR's thinking. He had to have looked in the mirror every day and have felt the physical pains of heart disease. He had to have some clue when he dumped Henry Wallace.
He did nothing to prepare Truman. But he did know him as a Senator who made a career from discovering corrupt military contractors while protecting the administration.
HST ended by being very unpopular, mostly because of the war that had settled into an uneasy peace. Of course Republicans made a career out of accusing everyone being a traitor. It took Nixon to go back to China to figure out the heros (and revive a few reputations damaged by Joe McCarthy, all those people who actually knew who the Communists were). This is an old story.
And I know kids want to revise it, just as they hope to prove the GDP didn't go straight up during the years of FDR.
Old, old arguments.
But Harry Truman. I think his reputation really took off when a gay reporter published some interviews in a book called: Straight Talk (or something like that). Converstaions from the 1950s recorded and published a decade later. Just his opinions, unvarnished, and far better book than his published memoirs.
I have my own opinion. Both he and FDR were ill served by Dean Acheson. FDR saw through the fraud. HST suffered a bit because of his reliance on Acheson. But the great policies survived an incompetent Secretary of State. He wasn't the Red Dean as Nixon claimed. He was the foolish Dean. Averill Harriman should have been Secretary of State from 1945 untill 1972. These appointments do make a difference.
Last edited by tom22 (2008-11-07 21:45:50)
#5 2008-11-08 01:56:52
- chetmiles
- Member
- Posts: 1099
Re: It is ALWAYS about America
Yes, to my way of thinking, too, it is always about America, and about particular strands therein: often east coast/New York/Brooks/Press/Madison Avenue/Capitol Hill. There are other facets as well, of course, but possibly borrowed from the above.
Here am I in the UK, but barely anything I wear is English; almost everything is American: suits, shoes, shirts, knitwear, ties, overcoats: Brooks, Press, AE, Jarman etc.
I'm a graduate of the American Studies department of Keele University, from where Professor Adams, a great FDR man, pioneered the study of American history and politics within this country. Didn't, however, Acheson make the remark "through illusion to policy"?
#6 2008-11-08 02:13:19
- Taylor McIntyre
- Son of Ivy...
- Posts: 342
Re: It is ALWAYS about America
^ And for me too.
The style is American and the items which make it up ahould be made in the USA too - If you can get them.
And beyond just the clothing it still remains all about America for me too...
Probably we all have our own Americas - Is that too fanciful? My America is a land of music & style & possibilities which England didn't seem to be offering me when I was a lad. I like the idea of democracy too...
#7 2008-11-08 03:20:39
- formby
- Member
- From: Wiseacre
- Posts: 8359
Re: It is ALWAYS about America
"Dressing, like painting, should have a residual stability, plus punctuation and surprise." - Richard Merkin
Souvent me Souvient
#9 2008-11-09 22:49:59
- Horace
- Member
- Posts: 6433
Re: It is ALWAYS about America
""This is probably the last Deb season...because of the stock market, the economy, Everything..." - W. Stillman.
#10 2008-11-09 22:52:19
- Horace
- Member
- Posts: 6433
Re: It is ALWAYS about America
""This is probably the last Deb season...because of the stock market, the economy, Everything..." - W. Stillman.
#13 2021-12-21 03:57:00
- A Fine Sadness
- Member
- Posts: 3009
Re: It is ALWAYS about America
A timely reminder from the 'Talk Ivy' vault. Fill in the blanks. My 'take a holiday' eye might be on Italy, my 'search and consider buying' eye is always focussed more or less on the USA: not now, THEN. A mythical Golden Age? Perhaps, perhaps not.
#14 2021-12-21 03:59:40
- A Fine Sadness
- Member
- Posts: 3009
Re: It is ALWAYS about America
In fact, I took a good look at the Canali shirt I bought a few weeks ago and decided it looked just too 'European'.