-By Vince Johnson
You can count me among the 56 million who voted for McCain, but you can’t count me among those who allowed any degree of disappointment to last more than an hour or so. Obama won, that’s reality. Anything else is like drifting around in dreamland. It is time to get on with life and one way to do it is expressed very nicely in a song composed sixty-four years ago.
The lyrics, by Johnny Mercer are right for these times:
You’ve got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In-Between.
You’ve got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
Have faith or pandemonium
Liable to walk upon the scene.
That song was an instant hit when introduced in1944 when WW II was at its peak. In mainland Asia, the Japanese had launched two major offensives. The first, started in March, 1944 was against British positions in Assam, India. The second was in China and by June the Japanese had conquered the province of Henan and begun a renewed attack against Changsha in the Hunan province.
In1944 American forces had driven Japanese invaders from the Aleutians, neutralized Japanese installations in the Carolinas, was engaged in a major effort to retake Western New Guinea, and preparing to invade Iwo Jima in February 1945.
In the Mediterranean Allied forces had landed at Anzio and were soon engaged with capturing Rome. Then on June 6, 1944 the D-Day invasion took place. Despite the reality that the fortunes of war we beginning to change the horrific maiming and slaughter was a fearsome load for all involved.
The lyrics by Johnny Mercer had a special meaning during WW II just as they do today.
We looked for positives, and when we found one, it was accentuated.
There were horrible negatives, so we looked beyond them.
We found affirmative thoughts and latched on to them.
We held on to all the positives and never messed with anything else.
Joy was in short supply, so we made mountains of it from what little there was.
Gloom was everywhere, but we found ways to keep it out of mind.
We kept the faith and pandemonium never had a chance.
And so it is today. Obama will be our President. The challenges before him will never be overcome unless we find ways to accentuate the positive. We had to do it before and we absolutely have to do it again.
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Vince Johnson welcomes comments. Please send them to,Vince Johnson(vjadtrak@wvi.com)
See Vince in the new book Americans on Politics. Policy, and Pop-Culture.