Plessner Chronicle Blog

Is that what American marriage and marital bliss have come to? Why has our society created a world in which marrying age adults don’t know how to cultivate and maintain love and passion, who care more about their favorite television show than they do about their mates?

Are American young people being raised in homes where they never learn from the example of parents who love each other and show it in front of their children, either through touching, kissing hello or goodby or by acts of caring and concern?

No wonder our divorce rates are so high!

If you are in the same kind of marriage as those two couples, I have some advice for you. I’m a 73-year old man who recently lost his wife of 48 years. Carole and I were deeply in love as soon as our second date and we remained in love until her last day. And I remain in love with Carole even now.

But our love didn’t remain vibrant, and I mean really vibrant, without conscious work by both of us to keep our partner in love with us.

We never parted without a kiss and we never greeted each other without kissing and holding. (Carole’s smile upon seeing me remains my most treasured memory.)

Nobody believes it but we never had an argument, although she probably won almost all of our “discussions”. And we never, never showed anger or resentment at one another in front of our three children. Never!

You have to work at being in love. Romance doesn’t just happen and it won’t survive on its own energy. If you want to avoid having to force yourselves to “have sex” you need to decide together to “make love” eagerly and often.

Human sexuality is a profoundly wonderful gift, either from God as you may believe or as a result of evolution as others might understand. In either case it is a gift bestowed in such abundance and complexity only in the human specie. Those who deny it or soil it or work to make it seem sinful are fools.

And contrary to what you may think, true love that lasts for years requires attention, response, dedication, tolerance and compromise. Only with an abundance of those will lifelong love and romance survive.

But you still have to work at it.

If you don’t take her hand when she is sitting next to you in the car, in church, in a movie or at home, you are not working at it. And if you don’t return his gesture by squeezing his hand when he takes yours, you’re not working at it.

If you don’t grab or pat some part of her when she brushes by, you are not working at it.

If when in bed reading or watching television and you don’t reach over and touch each other in those special places, then you are not working at it.

If you don’t show your pride in your lover’s achievements and brag about them to others in front of your lover, then you are not working at it.

If you don’t kiss at least once a week with unexpected passion, perhaps ending up behind a closed door, then you are not working at it.

And perhaps finally if you are making love and your partner’s satisfaction isn’t your first concern, then you certainly are not working at it!

If you are reading my commentary for the first time and want to be added to our email list forward this article to gerald@geraldplessner.com .

And if you believe that a McCane presidency will be able to reduce our military commitments around the world or significantly improve our relations with friendly nations you may be in for a whole bunch of disappointments.

A new McCane presidency will be confronted with dozens of neo-conservative war hawks planted in the White House, the Defense and State Departments. They are avid in seeing America increase and extend its imperial footprint around the globe and especially in the oil rich Middle East.

A new administration — McCane or Obama — will not be able to replace those operatives fast enough to completely stop them from advancing the disastrous initiative they created in the Bush administration.

And some of those people, because they are vital to daily operations or because they have powerful benefactors, will inevitably be allowed to stay on to “insure a smooth transition”. Its how the system works.

Then there are the American oil companies and their partners in the Arab world; Dick Cheney and his buddies who want to secure control over Iraq’s oil exports.

The Bush administration’s negotiations to secure 50 permanent American bases in Iraq is intended to secure that source of supply and profits for American companies.

If George W. Bush is able to create a document that our Congress might approve, then he will have established generations-long American imperialism and the neo-conservatives will have achieved their original goal. Then the United States will be burdened with running an imperial empire to support international corporations, and American military men and women will continue to die unnecessarily for generations.

But there’s more. The oil industry will be followed by other corporations eager to keep the war machine alive. John McCane can talk about being a maverick but he is going to need money — lots of money — to finance his campaign. And he will take it gladly from all sorts of corporations that have an interest in providing military supplies, hardware, security services in war zones, along our borders and elsewhere.

There are also the research and development companies at work on new military hardware, much of it untested and outdated even before it is finally designed.

Although many of those programs have bloated budgets, questionable value and poor management, you can be sure that lobbyists and Members of Congress who want Federal money spent in their districts will pressure a McCane administration to show its gratitude to the people who helped finance his campaign.

And when it comes to reducing our troop strength in Iraq or withdrawing entirely, which will never happen in a Republican administration, a President John McCane would be acting against everything his party and he, through his entire adult life, has stood for.

And that ain’t gonna happen!

(You can comment on Gerald Plessner’s comments at his BLOG at geraldplessner.com.)