Slutzky column: Americans must work together

I read the commentary by Bruce Miller entitled, “Put America first, not your party,” in your Dec. 21, 2011, edition.
As I started to read it, I became a bit puzzled by his apparent confusion between “we” the American people and “we” the Republican Party. He appears to bunch them together as one and the same. He goes on to say that the Democrats are “partying” over the struggle for an identity by (his) party.
Mr. Milller is my fellow American, just as much as I am his. Yet he wrote his piece as though “we the people” are only Republicans and everyone else is those other people – perhaps the enemy. 
This contradiction between his title and his opinion concerns me as an American who happens to be a Democrat.
Those thinking of political one-upmanship and not what is best for our nation and our people tend to express themselves in this way. This is not the sole domain of any individual or political party. Indeed, Mr. Miller proudly revealed his own partisanship under the guise of “putting America first.”
I find no joy in what has been happening to our nation and our people over the past 11 years. Many of our young people are returning from an undeclared, yet longest war in our history to a nation at war with itself. I hope the Republican Party rediscovers itself as the “loyal opposition.”
I am a baby of the Great Depression and learned quickly about the financial excesses, greed and inequity of opportunity of the Gilded Age, culminating in the unrestrained excesses of the 1920s, which contributed to the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression. I am also an old “New Deal” Roosevelt Democrat. My first campaign was at age 5, with my father, World War I veteran Harry Slutzky, who was a Democratic Party activist in the 1940 race that pitted Wendell Willkie against Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I won’t try to convince anyone of the social and economic reforms brought about by Roosevelt and his distant cousin Theodore Roosevelt more than 100 years ago – starting with anti-trust and child labor laws.
I can only say that my parents and I are beneficiaries of America’s Golden Age – from the late 1930s to the early 1980s. My dad was given the chance to pass on a better nation than he found. I am grateful I had the same opportunities. I do worry about my children, grandchildren and their children. Will they have the same opportunities? This is the question that needs to be asked and answered by all Americans, not just Republicans or Democrats.
During World War II, I participated in a shared sacrifice called the war effort. People sacrificed equally. At the stores, there was widespread rationing of necessities – food, clothing, etc.  There was no civilian automobile  production. Everything was converted to war production. People volunteered as air raid wardens, auxiliary police, USO, Red Cross work, etc. Victory gardens sprang up all over patches of ground in urban areas. 
Kids like myself had older brothers fighting. We volunteered for scrap drives. I climbed into our neighbors’ basements after school to pull out old newspapers, magazines, metal toys, old plumbing parts, scrap metal and old clothing. We were even given old World War I and Spanish American uniforms and helmets. I came home well after dinner too tired to eat. There were war bond drives just about every few months. And, yes, wealthy and influential corporate executives worked at $1-a-year salary for the war effort. That was shared sacrifice. We were at war with the most ruthless of enemies, seeking world conquest and domination. Yet, as a nation, we never lost sight of the traditions and values for which we were fighting and hold so dear. That is what makes us the greatest democracy in the history of the world.
Over the past 11 years, I fear we have lost that sense of unity, shared sacrifice and belonging, which made us all Americans first and last. The past seems to have become prologue. I see the old attitudes of the 1920s rising again – grab mine and let someone else do the fighting and heavy lifting.
As an American who served our country in the Korean War, I am saddened by Mr. Miller’s cynicism, which appears to separate us on either side of a no man’s land.
We are the greatest democratic nation. We didn’t do this by resting on our laurels and bragging. We are not as great as we have been in the past and not as great as we can and will be in our future. This does, however, mean shared burden and sacrifice.
The questions are: Are we all fellow Americans? Does a social conscience belong in our fabric of government? Do we repeat history or make history together? If Mr. Miller is willing to consider these questions, then America’s best days lay ahead.