As a toddler, we drove past or through MacMurray College, on the way to church. The MacMurray baseball field was across the street and the Town Brook, from the playground of Franklin School, where I went to kindergarten. My kindergarten teacher was Sue Jones. Her husband was the coach of the Mac baseball team, Itchy Jones. When I came to SIU, Itchy Jones was the baseball coach here, before his career at U of I.
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Starting with first grade, I walked through the MacMurray College campus every day, on the way to Our Saviour grade school, and later Routt High School. When I was in grade school, I remember being proud of how unique MacMurray was. While every other high school and college had a football game following their homecoming parade, MacMurray had a soccer game. This was decades before the sport swept the nation.
MacMurray was home to "the bridge" (linking the north side of campus, with its academic buildings and sports fields, with the dorms, south of the town brook) and the student center, to those in my neighborhood. We met under the bridge in the morning to smoke cigarettes, and progressed to the student center to drink cokes and play Foosball, years before Foosball tables were ubiquitous in every bar and suburban basement in the country.
When I was in grade school, our lunchtime routine was to burst outside and steal bikes off the rack and take off, before any teachers, or playground moms, knew we were gone. Then we pedaled as fast as we could to Burger Chef, got sandwiches and drinks and headed back to the bridge to eat. Sometimes on it, most times under it. Morning, noon, and after school, for years, that bridge was our meeting place, staging area and refuge. The track field, out on Routt Street provided an out of sight hide away for 8th graders playing hooky and drinking beer.
MacMurray was a growing institution when I was a kid. I remember watching the chemistry building (Julian Hall) go up on Clay Ave. It was on what seemed like more of a hill, in those days. I spent happy winter days throwing snowballs at, and through, the windows of passing cars. I remember Michaelson Hall being built, when I was very young. Later, I marveled over all the out of state license plates in the parking lot and the loud music blasting from the windows. Even later, I found myself in Michaelson, and other dorms, as their residents tolerated the long haired local kids who wandered into their rooms to smoke their pot and occasionally buy it, when they had cash.
MacMurray provided so many firsts. Besides soccer and foosball, that was where I first saw a lacrosse game, a war protest, hippies and attended my first rock concert (The Grassroots, at Annie Merner Chapel).
MacMurray was central to every day on the east side of Jacksonville. It was north, west and south of the hospital where I was born, and the church, grade and high schools where I spent 11 and a half years. It was the eastern end of the street I grew up on and it's campus like a magnet. The clock on top of the library was a focal point of my life for 20 years. It was visible going to school, church and work, from Beecher, College, Hardin or Clay streets. The last memory I have of my mom, before we moved her to a nursing home, was of an autumn afternoon, walking her down Franklin St, across Clay and down the asphalt walk behind the chemistry building to Beecher, past the library and on down to East street and on south, through the fallen leaves, home.
Bob Dylan dropped a new song today. Tonight I'm reminded of the last line, of a song he released in 1974, " ...I love you more than ever now that the past is gone."
Friday, March 27, 2020
Thursday, March 12, 2020
IT'S NOT OVER, BECAUSE YOUR VOTE COUNTS
The Illinois primary, among others, is March 17. That's when you can vote to nominate Bernie Sanders for President, and make America the country we were brought up to believe in. The New Deal saved the elderly from poverty by creating Social Security. Bernie wants to protect it, expand it and make sure it is properly funded. Franklin Roosevelt believed that every human being was entitled to four basic freedoms: the freedom of speech, the freedom of worship, the freedom from want, and the freedom from fear. Bernie Sanders wants to fulfill that vision.
Bernie supports a Green New Deal that will save our children and grandchildren from the ravages of a changing climate. This is a plan that protects workers who work in affected fossil fuel industries.
At a time when the nation is rocked by a pandemic, it is clear that we need a leader with a plan big enough to tackle the problem. Bernie supports Medicare for All, a single-payer, national health insurance program to provide everyone with comprehensive health care coverage. No networks, no premiums, no deductibles, no copays, no surprise bills.
Bernie proposes College for All, and the elimination of student debt. He also proposes Fair Banking for All. Consumer loans and credit cards rates would be capped at 15 percent across all financial institutions. Every post office could offer basic and affordable banking services. (I remember when the post office was where you went to purchase money orders!), If the Democratic Party really still wants to help the poor and marginalized of society, this is a simple but vitally important solution to those at the mercy of predatory lending institutions and without the liquidity to maintain bank accounts.
Now, I know, the media and a bunch of politicians have told you that the race is over. It's not. Some, in the last couple of days have called for the DNC to end the debates because they want to protect one of the candidates from scrutiny. Some are even pretending that Bernie should just drop out and support Joe Biden. Um, no. Joe Biden only leads by 153 delegates. He is short by 1,113 delegates from the nomination.
The Democratic convention will have 3,979 delegates eligible to vote on the first ballot. At this point, only 1,754 of them have been pledged to a candidate. That's only 44%. There are still 2,225 delegates still to be picked. Voters in many states have not yet had the opportunity to have their say.
It was just three weeks ago that party leaders, and Joe Biden, were saying that if no one had yet earned a majority of delegates, after the primaries were all over, then the delegates should select the nominee, at a brokered convention. Now, with no one within even a thousand delegates of a majority, they'd like the Sanders campaign to just stipulate Mr. Biden a victory? No.
Either Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden will have a formidable opponent in Donald Trump. This primary is about what we want, not what we don't. None of us want Donald Trump. But, what do we want to happen after January 20, 2021? We can't simply go back to the days of Barack Obama. The past is gone. Damage has been done. Climate change has to be tackled. Urgently. All Americans need affordable health care immediately. Our children must be freed from the choice between higher education and future home ownership. We owe them a clean, healthy, vibrant future. There is one candidate with the energetic vision to offer us the America of our dreams. This is a once in a lifetime chance. Please. Vote for Bernie Sanders and his down ballot delegates!
Bernie supports a Green New Deal that will save our children and grandchildren from the ravages of a changing climate. This is a plan that protects workers who work in affected fossil fuel industries.
At a time when the nation is rocked by a pandemic, it is clear that we need a leader with a plan big enough to tackle the problem. Bernie supports Medicare for All, a single-payer, national health insurance program to provide everyone with comprehensive health care coverage. No networks, no premiums, no deductibles, no copays, no surprise bills.
Bernie proposes College for All, and the elimination of student debt. He also proposes Fair Banking for All. Consumer loans and credit cards rates would be capped at 15 percent across all financial institutions. Every post office could offer basic and affordable banking services. (I remember when the post office was where you went to purchase money orders!), If the Democratic Party really still wants to help the poor and marginalized of society, this is a simple but vitally important solution to those at the mercy of predatory lending institutions and without the liquidity to maintain bank accounts.
Now, I know, the media and a bunch of politicians have told you that the race is over. It's not. Some, in the last couple of days have called for the DNC to end the debates because they want to protect one of the candidates from scrutiny. Some are even pretending that Bernie should just drop out and support Joe Biden. Um, no. Joe Biden only leads by 153 delegates. He is short by 1,113 delegates from the nomination.
The Democratic convention will have 3,979 delegates eligible to vote on the first ballot. At this point, only 1,754 of them have been pledged to a candidate. That's only 44%. There are still 2,225 delegates still to be picked. Voters in many states have not yet had the opportunity to have their say.
It was just three weeks ago that party leaders, and Joe Biden, were saying that if no one had yet earned a majority of delegates, after the primaries were all over, then the delegates should select the nominee, at a brokered convention. Now, with no one within even a thousand delegates of a majority, they'd like the Sanders campaign to just stipulate Mr. Biden a victory? No.
Either Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden will have a formidable opponent in Donald Trump. This primary is about what we want, not what we don't. None of us want Donald Trump. But, what do we want to happen after January 20, 2021? We can't simply go back to the days of Barack Obama. The past is gone. Damage has been done. Climate change has to be tackled. Urgently. All Americans need affordable health care immediately. Our children must be freed from the choice between higher education and future home ownership. We owe them a clean, healthy, vibrant future. There is one candidate with the energetic vision to offer us the America of our dreams. This is a once in a lifetime chance. Please. Vote for Bernie Sanders and his down ballot delegates!
Wednesday, April 04, 2018
OLD RADIOS AND PLAYGROUNDS
We went a through a period of time, when I was a kid, that we had no television. It sat, as a piece of furniture, because my parents couldn't afford to fix or replace it. In those times, we got our news mostly from the newspaper, radio or second hand. The telephone in our dining room rang fifty years ago tonight. My dad answered and sat down. I don't remember who he said had called, my sister or my brother in law. It was a quick call and Dad looked serious. He put the phone down and looked up at Mom and me. "Martin Luther King was shot in Memphis. He's dead. Black folks, all over the South, are coming out of their homes and spilling into the streets."
Well, that was half right. They were also spilling out into the streets in places like Newark, Detroit and Chicago. My reaction to the news was somber. King was a good guy on my black and white TV. True, I'd recently sensed some negativity after he'd denounced the Viet Nam War, but I knew that his side was right. Just as the Kent State killings would later turn me against the military and police, the sight of dogs and fire hoses in Birmingham, and horses and whips at Selma, would forever make civil rights a righteous cause in my eyes.
He'd been shot! Just like President Kennedy. It was hard to fathom. I was only in sixth grade. I don't remember much else, but one incident stuck with me. The next day, April 5, I was out on the playground. A classmate, who I'd known since I was 5 or 6, came up to me. He said, "Well, I say, 'It's just another dead n----r.'" I was dumbstruck. I remember that to this day. I remember what shirt I was wearing. I remember that it was cloudy. And, this afternoon, I remembered that three days ago, on Easter Sunday, I parked my car on the exact same spot, on the old playground, that ----- ------- and I had that conversation, 50 years ago.
I used to believe Dr. King, that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice. Tonight as the bodies of unarmed black men shot by police pile higher, here at home, and the bodies of Palestinians and Yemenis pile higher abroad, I guess the emphasis must be that the arc is long, if it bends the right way at all. The three evils King warned of are ascendant again: racism, militarism and materialism. And that's the problem. Too many, tonight, look at the victims of police killings, of Israeli snipers and of Saudi bombers as 'just another dead n----r'.
Well, that was half right. They were also spilling out into the streets in places like Newark, Detroit and Chicago. My reaction to the news was somber. King was a good guy on my black and white TV. True, I'd recently sensed some negativity after he'd denounced the Viet Nam War, but I knew that his side was right. Just as the Kent State killings would later turn me against the military and police, the sight of dogs and fire hoses in Birmingham, and horses and whips at Selma, would forever make civil rights a righteous cause in my eyes.
He'd been shot! Just like President Kennedy. It was hard to fathom. I was only in sixth grade. I don't remember much else, but one incident stuck with me. The next day, April 5, I was out on the playground. A classmate, who I'd known since I was 5 or 6, came up to me. He said, "Well, I say, 'It's just another dead n----r.'" I was dumbstruck. I remember that to this day. I remember what shirt I was wearing. I remember that it was cloudy. And, this afternoon, I remembered that three days ago, on Easter Sunday, I parked my car on the exact same spot, on the old playground, that ----- ------- and I had that conversation, 50 years ago.
I used to believe Dr. King, that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice. Tonight as the bodies of unarmed black men shot by police pile higher, here at home, and the bodies of Palestinians and Yemenis pile higher abroad, I guess the emphasis must be that the arc is long, if it bends the right way at all. The three evils King warned of are ascendant again: racism, militarism and materialism. And that's the problem. Too many, tonight, look at the victims of police killings, of Israeli snipers and of Saudi bombers as 'just another dead n----r'.
Friday, February 16, 2018
THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS
Yesterday was Valentine's Day, not Groundhogs Day, but it sure felt like the movie. How many times do we have to see the same things popping up in our news feeds, the same footage on TV, the same vapid tweets from politicians? Guns aren't an issue I normally get hot about. I'd leave this one to others, but, beyond the horror of what happened to the victims and their families, I hate having my intelligence insulted. So, let's set up the arguments we are starting to hear and knock them down, one by one.
- Guns don't kill people; people kill people. If guns were banned, they could still kill with their fist, a knife or a ball bat.
- Yeah? Well, here's the thing. In these mass shootings, they use guns. That's why they're called shootings! Yes, there is the occasional mass killing involving knives or cars, but the overwhelming majority, the constant, is massacre by shooting. The Las Vegas shooting dispels so many myths. This is one. Those victims were 11 floors below. The killer didn't kill with a bat, or a knife or his fist. He couldn't reach them without a gun!
- Any restriction on guns is unconstitutional.
- No. The type of militias, that existed when the 2nd Amendment was ratified, do not exist. In any event, those worried that they will lose their guns do not belong to a well regulated militia. Even so, is the absolutist argument that one may keep any arms? What about nuclear weapons? Chemical and biological bombs? If not, why not? If they are exceptions, that implies a line. Where is it drawn? If we can keep such war weapons out of citizens' hands, why not military style rifles?
- The solution is more guns in schools, churches and concealed carry on every American
- This is a call for circular firing squads. The teachers at Strongman were too busy shielding students with their bodies to have fired a gun, if they'd had one. What happens when the police arrive at the theater, church, school or mall? How do they distinguish the villain from the heroes when everyone has a gun?
- We need guns such as AR-15s to defend ourselves from the government.
- The theory here is that an armed citizenry will defend themselves from Big Government. That means they will be shooting police and soldiers. This is what the NRA and the Right are promoting? That literally makes them domestic enemies. Do we really believe that a band of private gun owners are going to over throw the U.S. government?
- The NRA and other absolutists are protecting the Bill of Rights.
- The First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Ninth Amendments have been under assault for 20 years. The Fourth Amendment is barely existent anymore. Where has this band of patriots been? Even if we believe they seek to protect the Second Amendment, it is no more sacrosanct than the others. What this is really about is the NRA and politicians propagandizing the population to buy more guns. The goal isn't patriotism or protection. It's to amass profit for the weapons industry.
- "They" want to take our guns.
- No gun has ever been confiscated. No politician has ever advocated gun confiscation. No such law has ever been passed nationally or at the state level.
- It's too soon, after the horror, to talk about guns.
- OK. While this is maddeningly hypocritical, for the sake argument, let's give them the most recent incident at Stoneman Douglas. Why can't we discuss gun control in the context of the Las Vegas shooting? It's been five fucking years since the 1st graders at Sandy Hook Elementary, at Newtown, were slaughtered. Too soon?
Saturday, December 09, 2017
JON'S WINTER READING LIST
I was sitting around my sister's kitchen table, with one of my nieces and a nephew, late this summer. Somewhere in a discussion, I mentioned how a friend, decades ago, had made me a list of ten books to read, labeled Jimmy's Summer Reading List. My nephew sat up and said, "I'd like to have a 'Jimmy's Summer Reading list!" OK, Jon, several months late, but here you go.
Jon's request was to keep it short and to lean toward non-fiction. But, where to start? Where to stop? And I love fiction. Also, I like historical fiction and believe sometimes you learn more there than from volumes of dry scholarship. I made two lists, one fiction and one non-fiction. So, as Rod Serling would have said, "presented, for your consideration... "
FICTION
I didn't read Uncle Tom's Cabin until I was several decades into adulthood. The term "Uncle Tom" has taken on such negative connotations in the last 50 years, that I was surprised at what a powerful story it is. I was angry reading it. No wonder Abe Lincoln, and others, referred to it as the book that started the war. It paints a searing picture of terrorism and of courage under seige.
I have read, and re-read, Lincoln many times. I love Gore Vidal. I read this years before Doris Kearnes Goodman published her non-fiction Team of Rivals. I was startled to realize that I knew the entire story in detail. I learned nothing from her book, that I did not already know from Vidal's novel. And his is more fun!
Watership Down is still my favorite book, of all time. Period.
Leon Uris sometimes gets knocked but I think Trinity is a great introduction to Irish history and the background to The Troubles.
The Fountainhead is not great literature. But, I think Atlas Shrugged is wretched. So, given Ayn Rand's influence over our current ruling party's ideology, this is a window into her philosophy/ideology of Objectivism. At least it's a novel, with a story, as opposed to her non-fiction propaganda.
I haven't read the Trattner book, since I was in grade school. My father had it on our bookshelf. It was my introduction to Copernicus, Malthus, Darwin, Marx and others.
The Mainspring of Human Progress was included with a folder of pamphlets and booklets, that one of my uncles sent me. I never met him. Our only communication, that I remember, was this one mailing that I received, when I was about ten. A folder of free market/capitalist propaganda, from the American Enterprise Institute!
Silent Spring is the one book on the lists I have not read. It's on my winter reading list.
Jon's request was to keep it short and to lean toward non-fiction. But, where to start? Where to stop? And I love fiction. Also, I like historical fiction and believe sometimes you learn more there than from volumes of dry scholarship. I made two lists, one fiction and one non-fiction. So, as Rod Serling would have said, "presented, for your consideration... "
FICTION
- 1984 George Orwell
- Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe
- Lincoln Gore Vidal
- Watership Down Richard Adams
- A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens
- Johnny Got His Gun Dalton Trumbo
- Cat's Cradle Kurt Vonnegut
- Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
- Trinity Leon Uris
- The Fountainhead Ayn Rand
- Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee Dee Brown
- Roots Alex Haley
- Saving Capitalism Robert Reich
- Gulag Archipelago Alexander Solzhenitzen
- Hitler: A Study in Tyranny Allan Bullock
- The Story of the World's Great Thinkers Ernest R. Trattner
- The Brethren Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong
- The Mainspring of Human Progress Henry Grady Weaver
- A People's History of the United States Howard Zinn
- Silent Spring Rachel Carson
I didn't read Uncle Tom's Cabin until I was several decades into adulthood. The term "Uncle Tom" has taken on such negative connotations in the last 50 years, that I was surprised at what a powerful story it is. I was angry reading it. No wonder Abe Lincoln, and others, referred to it as the book that started the war. It paints a searing picture of terrorism and of courage under seige.
I have read, and re-read, Lincoln many times. I love Gore Vidal. I read this years before Doris Kearnes Goodman published her non-fiction Team of Rivals. I was startled to realize that I knew the entire story in detail. I learned nothing from her book, that I did not already know from Vidal's novel. And his is more fun!
Watership Down is still my favorite book, of all time. Period.
Leon Uris sometimes gets knocked but I think Trinity is a great introduction to Irish history and the background to The Troubles.
The Fountainhead is not great literature. But, I think Atlas Shrugged is wretched. So, given Ayn Rand's influence over our current ruling party's ideology, this is a window into her philosophy/ideology of Objectivism. At least it's a novel, with a story, as opposed to her non-fiction propaganda.
I haven't read the Trattner book, since I was in grade school. My father had it on our bookshelf. It was my introduction to Copernicus, Malthus, Darwin, Marx and others.
The Mainspring of Human Progress was included with a folder of pamphlets and booklets, that one of my uncles sent me. I never met him. Our only communication, that I remember, was this one mailing that I received, when I was about ten. A folder of free market/capitalist propaganda, from the American Enterprise Institute!
Silent Spring is the one book on the lists I have not read. It's on my winter reading list.
Friday, December 08, 2017
NEED TO IMPEACH?
I was asked, last night, what I think of Tom Steyer and NeedToImpeach.com. I don't know anything about Tom Steyer, beyond what I read today on Wikipedia. I'm uncomfortable with the idea that we need a rich guy to save us. It's a pattern: Ross Perot, Michael Bloomberg, Trump and, now in IL, JB Pritzker. All billionaires.
As to impeachment, I'm torn. The Russia stuff leaves me cold. I think it's a fantasy that everyone wants to be true. Hillary Clinton uses a private email server to circumvent freedom of information laws, gets hacked, leaving a trail of evidence that the Democratic Party primary process was a sham and, for a host of other reasons, manages to lose the election to an ignorant reality show host. Wouldn't it be satisfying if he was guilty of treason and the evidence was.... the act of hacking her emails? Vindication! ...Bullshit.
There is no reason to believe that the hacked emails, or attempts to hack, steal and alter voter data in various states, by Russia, had anything to do with Trump or, for that matter, Wikileaks. Did Trump's campaign attempt to obtain info, after the fact, from Russia? It appears so. Is that illegal? Maybe. Did they try to coordinate the timing of the release of info with Wikileaks? Maybe. Is that illegal? No.
The Russians may have been involved in hacking various Democratic accounts. They apparently have also tried to tamper with state electoral commission rolls. That needs investigated and dealt with. If Trump refuses to do that, that should be the crime. Collusion is just a feel good narrative.
I suspect there are financial crimes that he is guilty of too, unrelated to the election. Failure to execute the laws as president and tax evasion are real crimes. That's where any possible impeachment should be focused.
Should he be impeached? Will he be impeached?
I struggle with the first one. I loathe him and want him humiliated. But, let's assume he is impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate and removed from office. That gives us President Pence. Beyond Trump's ignorance and personality disorder (and I recognize how dangerous those are), would we be better off without him? Most of what Trump does on a daily basis is a freak show. Yes, we feel like we need a shower at the end of the day, but the reality is that the major destruction comes from the cabinet he's put in power. Trump is an ignoramus, in over his head. Pence believes in all this bullshit. I don't see an end to an advancing police state, racial strife or environmental destruction in Pence World. Plus, with Trump, people are focused on resisting. If he gets impeached, the attitude will be, 'we overthrew him!' and everybody goes back to being sheep.
I'm not convinced he will be impeached in any circumstance. The Republicans have a majority. They have shown, in both houses of congress, that they no longer have any sense of responsibility. The Republican Party is utterly without conscience. They currently are endorsing a senate candidate that, regardless if one believes the accusations that he likes having 14 year olds touch his Little Roy through his underwear, has publicly said (within the last three months) that his idea of when America was last great was during slavery. They are not going to impeach a guy who does their, and their donors, bidding. That leaves the Democrats. Let's assume they win the House. Nancy Pelosi, who famously declared impeachment "off the table", before the 2006 election, has now essentially done the same for Trump, when recently questioned about the NeedToImpeach campaign.
So, should he be impeached? Probably, just to confirm the rule of law. Will he? I doubt it, as long as our rulers are people like Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell.
As to impeachment, I'm torn. The Russia stuff leaves me cold. I think it's a fantasy that everyone wants to be true. Hillary Clinton uses a private email server to circumvent freedom of information laws, gets hacked, leaving a trail of evidence that the Democratic Party primary process was a sham and, for a host of other reasons, manages to lose the election to an ignorant reality show host. Wouldn't it be satisfying if he was guilty of treason and the evidence was.... the act of hacking her emails? Vindication! ...Bullshit.
There is no reason to believe that the hacked emails, or attempts to hack, steal and alter voter data in various states, by Russia, had anything to do with Trump or, for that matter, Wikileaks. Did Trump's campaign attempt to obtain info, after the fact, from Russia? It appears so. Is that illegal? Maybe. Did they try to coordinate the timing of the release of info with Wikileaks? Maybe. Is that illegal? No.
The Russians may have been involved in hacking various Democratic accounts. They apparently have also tried to tamper with state electoral commission rolls. That needs investigated and dealt with. If Trump refuses to do that, that should be the crime. Collusion is just a feel good narrative.
I suspect there are financial crimes that he is guilty of too, unrelated to the election. Failure to execute the laws as president and tax evasion are real crimes. That's where any possible impeachment should be focused.
Should he be impeached? Will he be impeached?
I struggle with the first one. I loathe him and want him humiliated. But, let's assume he is impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate and removed from office. That gives us President Pence. Beyond Trump's ignorance and personality disorder (and I recognize how dangerous those are), would we be better off without him? Most of what Trump does on a daily basis is a freak show. Yes, we feel like we need a shower at the end of the day, but the reality is that the major destruction comes from the cabinet he's put in power. Trump is an ignoramus, in over his head. Pence believes in all this bullshit. I don't see an end to an advancing police state, racial strife or environmental destruction in Pence World. Plus, with Trump, people are focused on resisting. If he gets impeached, the attitude will be, 'we overthrew him!' and everybody goes back to being sheep.
I'm not convinced he will be impeached in any circumstance. The Republicans have a majority. They have shown, in both houses of congress, that they no longer have any sense of responsibility. The Republican Party is utterly without conscience. They currently are endorsing a senate candidate that, regardless if one believes the accusations that he likes having 14 year olds touch his Little Roy through his underwear, has publicly said (within the last three months) that his idea of when America was last great was during slavery. They are not going to impeach a guy who does their, and their donors, bidding. That leaves the Democrats. Let's assume they win the House. Nancy Pelosi, who famously declared impeachment "off the table", before the 2006 election, has now essentially done the same for Trump, when recently questioned about the NeedToImpeach campaign.
So, should he be impeached? Probably, just to confirm the rule of law. Will he? I doubt it, as long as our rulers are people like Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell.
Monday, July 31, 2017
A TEACHER PUTS HER CHALK DOWN
Today is Katie Carl's last day of work at John A. Logan College. Tomorrow is her first official day of retirement. That can't go unmentioned. Her last day in the classroom was in May; she has taught on-line, this summer. She didn't get a gold watch, there wasn't a reception for her at the College (she didn't want one and some of her friends would have been in an awkward position attending, given that they were laid off!). She didn't make a speech, though David Cochran made an eloquent toast at a private party, in her honor, earlier this summer.
The College she loved fell apart and the job she loved changed. As she heads toward the proverbial door, she's been questioning, "was it all worth it?" "Did I waste 30 years of my life?" No. ...No!
While teaching ENG 101, (in addition to Mythology, Speech, Literature and Journalism) which every college kid has to take, she touched hundreds (thousands?) of lives over the years. I started to type "young lives", but so many of them weren't. She loved the returning, non-traditional aged, students. And she gave them the confidence to go to college, after so many years removed from the class room.
As a role model, she was a magnet for the troubled students, some of whom treated her as a mother figure and clung, by phone and letter, to her for years after leaving Logan. As an advisor for Phi Theta Kappa, she gave some students their first glimpse outside of southern Illinois and first glimpse of a cosmopolitan city.
As advisor for the Journalism program, she learned herself, and then taught her student staff, how everything from newspaper writing to investigative techniques to the nuts and bolts of advertising sales and getting the stories into print. She traveled to the printing plants and took students to conferences. Then, when the technology changed, she started over and she, and they, learned how to produce on-line content. She has former journalism students living across the country. She is their biggest fan and many of them remain hers.
As an academic advisor, she didn't just make the effort to understand what the students needed to transfer and how to build a schedule. She guided many into unthought-of (as yet, by them) majors and careers. Her former students and advisees include lawyers, teachers, photographers and journalists.
She was always excited to think up, or learn of, a new teaching technique. She took pride when others asked to copy her discoveries and she loved the camaraderie of discussing students and teaching with her colleagues.
Just when she finally achieved her ambition of becoming department chair (a position she wanted not because of extra money, but because she could put many of her ideas into effect), the Board of Trustees reorganized the College and abolished her chair. They also laid off 55 of the Logan staff. While frustrated at what happened to herself, as a result of the reorganization, she was broken hearted at what had happened to others. She not only took an active role in the grievance process, defending her fellow teachers, she became a shoulder to cry on, a sympathetic ear and a voice of counsel.
She didn't just teach Mythology, she related the stories to the present day. She taught her students that lessons, values, triumphs and tragedies of the gods and goddesses, and the concepts such as "hubris", were always applicable to our democracy. Teaching mythology didn't end at the school house door. For 30 years she has been telling the stories to this son of a Greek, who knows so much less about it than she. She, last night over dinner, once more, explained how Cassandra, Athena, and Aphrodite related to the story of Agamemnon, Achilles and the Trojan Horse. Logan's loss is the gain of her oldest student.
Good job, Katie Carl! Congratulations!
The College she loved fell apart and the job she loved changed. As she heads toward the proverbial door, she's been questioning, "was it all worth it?" "Did I waste 30 years of my life?" No. ...No!
While teaching ENG 101, (in addition to Mythology, Speech, Literature and Journalism) which every college kid has to take, she touched hundreds (thousands?) of lives over the years. I started to type "young lives", but so many of them weren't. She loved the returning, non-traditional aged, students. And she gave them the confidence to go to college, after so many years removed from the class room.
As a role model, she was a magnet for the troubled students, some of whom treated her as a mother figure and clung, by phone and letter, to her for years after leaving Logan. As an advisor for Phi Theta Kappa, she gave some students their first glimpse outside of southern Illinois and first glimpse of a cosmopolitan city.
As advisor for the Journalism program, she learned herself, and then taught her student staff, how everything from newspaper writing to investigative techniques to the nuts and bolts of advertising sales and getting the stories into print. She traveled to the printing plants and took students to conferences. Then, when the technology changed, she started over and she, and they, learned how to produce on-line content. She has former journalism students living across the country. She is their biggest fan and many of them remain hers.
As an academic advisor, she didn't just make the effort to understand what the students needed to transfer and how to build a schedule. She guided many into unthought-of (as yet, by them) majors and careers. Her former students and advisees include lawyers, teachers, photographers and journalists.
She was always excited to think up, or learn of, a new teaching technique. She took pride when others asked to copy her discoveries and she loved the camaraderie of discussing students and teaching with her colleagues.
Just when she finally achieved her ambition of becoming department chair (a position she wanted not because of extra money, but because she could put many of her ideas into effect), the Board of Trustees reorganized the College and abolished her chair. They also laid off 55 of the Logan staff. While frustrated at what happened to herself, as a result of the reorganization, she was broken hearted at what had happened to others. She not only took an active role in the grievance process, defending her fellow teachers, she became a shoulder to cry on, a sympathetic ear and a voice of counsel.
She didn't just teach Mythology, she related the stories to the present day. She taught her students that lessons, values, triumphs and tragedies of the gods and goddesses, and the concepts such as "hubris", were always applicable to our democracy. Teaching mythology didn't end at the school house door. For 30 years she has been telling the stories to this son of a Greek, who knows so much less about it than she. She, last night over dinner, once more, explained how Cassandra, Athena, and Aphrodite related to the story of Agamemnon, Achilles and the Trojan Horse. Logan's loss is the gain of her oldest student.
Good job, Katie Carl! Congratulations!
Thursday, May 04, 2017
THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU
The Fourth be with you. The fourth. Star Wars. Fourth of July. Four. Four dead in O-HI-O..
As I scroll through Facebook, throughout the day, I see my lifelong friend, Dirk Keller, posting articles, links and songs about the Kent State killings. It was 47 years ago today. He expresses his outrage every year. Good. We need to be reminded, constantly, that our own government would order our killings and that uniformed police and soldiers would willingly carry them out.
I was in the 8th grade, in 1970. I lived down the street from MacMurray College, in sleepy Jacksonville, Illinois. Back then, MacMurray was a small but thriving little religiously affiliated liberal arts college. It's students were probably affluent and many came from out of state. It was common to see license plates from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York and other northeastern states. By the late 1960s, their hair grew longer and some were staging small protests against the Vietnam War. Oddly, I felt no affinity for those I saw with hair curling down their necks or those carrying protest signs. That seemed foreign to me. While I idolized the Beatles, I also liked my Sgt. Rock comic books.
It was a confusing world. I was checking out books, by Eldridge Cleaver, from the library, buying the Walker Report on the Chicago police riot (what 13 year old reads a government report?) and checking biographies out of the library on Lenin, Stalin, Tito and Che. And then I would go home and watch reruns of Combat on TV. I watched Patton, in the theater, and loved it (I still do).
One sunny day, the first week of May, I came home and started to walk into the living room where my dad was watching the nightly news. I stopped in the doorway between the dining room and the living room as I started to realize what they were saying and showing. National Guard troops, at Kent State University in Ohio, had fired on students armed with nothing more than rocks bottles and tear gas canisters (which they were returning to sender). Some were actually running away as the soldiers, whose faces were concealed by gas masks, fired on them. I was stunned. I had a Eureka! moment. Those students down the street at MacMurray weren't much older than me. They were the ones I had most in common with, not the politicians or police. If they would shoot those kids in Ohio, they would shoot people like me! In that instant, I knew which side I was on. For life.
As the days went on, students went on strike throughout the country and many universities were closed down for the year. Some were occupied by their own states' National Guard troops. One of those schools was Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. Many years later, I would move to Carbondale, and attend SIU. In those days (late '70s), one would still see flyers stapled to telephone polls with the message, "Remember Kent State". Thanks to people like my friend Dirk, who keep the flame alive, we pause briefly each year to remember the fallen at Kent State and at Jackson State.
Yes, Jackson State. Because while the media focus was always on what happened in Ohio, those four weren't the only students killed that week. Students were killed in Mississippi as well. And that brings us to the present, because the reason we didn't hear as much about Jackson State, nor remember it today, is because those students were black. No one was punished for the Kent or Jackson killings. No one is convicted for the murders of unarmed young black men, by those wearing the uniform of the state today. We hear apologists for the police asking why the hashtag for the movement is #BlackLivesMatter. It's because they don't.
In the end, those controlling the levers of the state will kill all they deem necessary, to suppress dissent that threatens their wealth and power. They won't care what we look like. One of the most inspirational movements in recent times has been the Native American led protests at Standing Rock, in the Dakotas. They were peaceful. They were prayerful. And they were met with violence. They were attacked with dogs, threatened with guns and sprayed (in below freezing temperatures) with hoses. Politicians across several states have responded not with reflection on the object of the protest but to attempt to outlaw protest itself. Some have gone so far as to introduce legislation immunizing from prosecution anyone striking a protester with an automobile.
Clearly, in these charged times, the atmosphere exists where one spark could light one or many Kent States. Those of us who believe resistance, to unconstitutional and militaristic acts by our government and environmental degradation by polluting corporations, is our moral duty must recognize that we may suffer casualties. We may be the casualties. But, we must.... persist.
The fourth be with you.
As I scroll through Facebook, throughout the day, I see my lifelong friend, Dirk Keller, posting articles, links and songs about the Kent State killings. It was 47 years ago today. He expresses his outrage every year. Good. We need to be reminded, constantly, that our own government would order our killings and that uniformed police and soldiers would willingly carry them out.
I was in the 8th grade, in 1970. I lived down the street from MacMurray College, in sleepy Jacksonville, Illinois. Back then, MacMurray was a small but thriving little religiously affiliated liberal arts college. It's students were probably affluent and many came from out of state. It was common to see license plates from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York and other northeastern states. By the late 1960s, their hair grew longer and some were staging small protests against the Vietnam War. Oddly, I felt no affinity for those I saw with hair curling down their necks or those carrying protest signs. That seemed foreign to me. While I idolized the Beatles, I also liked my Sgt. Rock comic books.
It was a confusing world. I was checking out books, by Eldridge Cleaver, from the library, buying the Walker Report on the Chicago police riot (what 13 year old reads a government report?) and checking biographies out of the library on Lenin, Stalin, Tito and Che. And then I would go home and watch reruns of Combat on TV. I watched Patton, in the theater, and loved it (I still do).
One sunny day, the first week of May, I came home and started to walk into the living room where my dad was watching the nightly news. I stopped in the doorway between the dining room and the living room as I started to realize what they were saying and showing. National Guard troops, at Kent State University in Ohio, had fired on students armed with nothing more than rocks bottles and tear gas canisters (which they were returning to sender). Some were actually running away as the soldiers, whose faces were concealed by gas masks, fired on them. I was stunned. I had a Eureka! moment. Those students down the street at MacMurray weren't much older than me. They were the ones I had most in common with, not the politicians or police. If they would shoot those kids in Ohio, they would shoot people like me! In that instant, I knew which side I was on. For life.
As the days went on, students went on strike throughout the country and many universities were closed down for the year. Some were occupied by their own states' National Guard troops. One of those schools was Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. Many years later, I would move to Carbondale, and attend SIU. In those days (late '70s), one would still see flyers stapled to telephone polls with the message, "Remember Kent State". Thanks to people like my friend Dirk, who keep the flame alive, we pause briefly each year to remember the fallen at Kent State and at Jackson State.
Yes, Jackson State. Because while the media focus was always on what happened in Ohio, those four weren't the only students killed that week. Students were killed in Mississippi as well. And that brings us to the present, because the reason we didn't hear as much about Jackson State, nor remember it today, is because those students were black. No one was punished for the Kent or Jackson killings. No one is convicted for the murders of unarmed young black men, by those wearing the uniform of the state today. We hear apologists for the police asking why the hashtag for the movement is #BlackLivesMatter. It's because they don't.
In the end, those controlling the levers of the state will kill all they deem necessary, to suppress dissent that threatens their wealth and power. They won't care what we look like. One of the most inspirational movements in recent times has been the Native American led protests at Standing Rock, in the Dakotas. They were peaceful. They were prayerful. And they were met with violence. They were attacked with dogs, threatened with guns and sprayed (in below freezing temperatures) with hoses. Politicians across several states have responded not with reflection on the object of the protest but to attempt to outlaw protest itself. Some have gone so far as to introduce legislation immunizing from prosecution anyone striking a protester with an automobile.
Clearly, in these charged times, the atmosphere exists where one spark could light one or many Kent States. Those of us who believe resistance, to unconstitutional and militaristic acts by our government and environmental degradation by polluting corporations, is our moral duty must recognize that we may suffer casualties. We may be the casualties. But, we must.... persist.
The fourth be with you.
Sunday, January 29, 2017
BUT MY FATHER GOT IN
It's Islam now; it was Bolshevism then. It's Middle Easterners now; it was southern and eastern Europeans in the 1920s. My father came here in Aug 1920. Had he, and my Aunt Martha, tried to come a few years later, they might not have gotten in. In 1924, Congress, responding to nativist hysteria, created restrictions for immigrants from certain countries, including Greece. For instance, the quota, for Greece, in 1925 was 100. What are the odds that the teenaged brother and sister, Demetrios and Martha Skarlatos, would both have gotten in? They would have been 2% of the entire quota for the country for the entire year. There were at least 23 Greek immigrants coming in to Ellis Island, on the S.S. Themistokles, that day (I have a copy of the ship's manifest, in my lap, as I type this). One ship, on one day.
But my father got in. He was a resident alien for 16 years, before being granted citizenship. Depending on what time it is, and who is interpreting the rules, green card holders from restricted countries may not be able to return to the U.S. under Trump's Muslim ban. If those rules had applied in the 1920s and 1930s, people like my father could not have visited their relatives in Greece, and returned to the United States. Now, as it happens, my father never returned to Greece. But, his brother John did. He returned after the Spanish Flu pandemic to collect two of his orphaned siblings and bring them to America. My Uncle John was a resident alien, had a business and a wife in the U.S. What if a ban, such as the one now imposed on Muslims from certain countries, was imposed in 1920? He would have left the U.S. to settle his family's affairs and care for his siblings, only to find himself unable to return to his wife and business in the U.S. The United States of America: the country he had fought for in the trenches of France, in World War I.
There is a reason some of us are reacting so viscerally to Trump's actions. A short dictionary definition of 'empathy' is "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another".
But my father got in. He was a resident alien for 16 years, before being granted citizenship. Depending on what time it is, and who is interpreting the rules, green card holders from restricted countries may not be able to return to the U.S. under Trump's Muslim ban. If those rules had applied in the 1920s and 1930s, people like my father could not have visited their relatives in Greece, and returned to the United States. Now, as it happens, my father never returned to Greece. But, his brother John did. He returned after the Spanish Flu pandemic to collect two of his orphaned siblings and bring them to America. My Uncle John was a resident alien, had a business and a wife in the U.S. What if a ban, such as the one now imposed on Muslims from certain countries, was imposed in 1920? He would have left the U.S. to settle his family's affairs and care for his siblings, only to find himself unable to return to his wife and business in the U.S. The United States of America: the country he had fought for in the trenches of France, in World War I.
There is a reason some of us are reacting so viscerally to Trump's actions. A short dictionary definition of 'empathy' is "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another".
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Now What?
Donald Trump's election provoked fear, anger and confusion on the part of his millions of opponents. Worrisome though, was the anger directed against other voters. In a healthy democracy, neighbors, friends and family members will always differ on politics. Arguments become more intense around election time and then die down. Some people, like myself, are news and political junkies and think about politics constantly. Most normal people do not. They may or may not have a basic political leaning, but their awareness rarely extends beyond elections season. Now we hear people unfriending people. I'm not talking about virtual friends on a social media platform. I mean the warm blooded kind you can (and should) reach out and touch.
POLARIZATION
The logic is that because Trump has said and done crude things, voting for him makes one "OK" with his treatment of women or his appeals to racism. I don't think that's true. It's true that racists voted for Trump. But, those aren't the voters I'm talking about. I'm talking about normal people, friends and relatives, that we know and love. These people are the same folks they were on the Monday before the election. To suddenly think they are worthy of ostracism, because of what they did in the voting booth, assumes everyone looks at politics the same. If one starts out believing that all, or most, politicians are corrupt, conniving liars, then how is one so worse than the other? If politicians of both major parties will sell themselves for campaign cash, future employment and political ambition... If, when elected they bail out crooked Wall Street bankers, while leaving millions of ordinary citizens to lose their homes and businesses... If they create two systems of justice, one for the rich and one for the poor... If, when elected, they condone wars their children don't have to fight, the wiretapping of our phones and computers and torture... Is racism and predatory sexism really that much of a leap?
Forgetting, for a moment, the arguments and the specific candidates, is this tenable? Can we allow politics to become so all consuming that we turn against parents, close friends or co-workers? Brother against brother? We did that once in this country. Up where I live, we call it the Civil War. Over 600,000 died.
WHY DID THEY DO IT?
Blaming the voters ignores what happened. The electorate was presented with two major party candidates they didn't like. But voters didn't stay home. They were angry. The country was ready for revolution. The question was whether it would come from the left or the right. The Democratic Party had the chance to offer democratic socialism (though realistically, it would have only been a return to New Deal Democracy) against the Republican Party's potential fascism. In the end, the Democrats insisted on an establishment nominee. That left the Republicans with the revolutionary candidate and the Democrats as the "low energy" campaign, as Trump would put it.
Those who blame Trump voters miss the point. They weren't choosing Trump over Clinton because they like all of what he says and does. And that many people didn't turn out just because they hate Clinton, though most do. They are frustrated. They want to break things, just like one does when they sweep papers off their desk or dishes onto the floor. They were voting against the system. They wanted to change the regime!
That may not be rationale. We may disagree with the logic, but this is what happens when people are not given an outlet for their frustrations, or an honest critique of their situation.
NOW WHAT?
How do we survive the radical, right wing, top down revolution we're about to experience. And revolutionary it will be. Many of us lived through Nixon, whose newly appointed Attorney General, John Mitchell, told the press, "we're going to take this country so far to the right, you won't recognize it". We lived through Reagan, who never heard of a weapons system he didn't think the tax payers shouldn't buy, who made the initial assault on environmental protections and intervened, internationally, on the side of death squads and tropical oligarchs. If George Bush set the Constitution on fire, and Obama left it to smolder, Trump is going to grind the ashes out with his foot. We really won't recognize this place.
So, how to fight back? Well, first, on a national level, we have to see if the Democratic Party can be saved, or is worth saving. It doesn't look good. In democracies all over the world, when a party loses, its leaders resign. Party chairs, prime ministers, losing nominees all disappear. After the Brexit vote, which was not even a parliamentary election with candidates, David Cameron resigned. Leaders take responsibility! Not politicians in this country, and certainly not Democrats in 2016. After failing to take a majority in the Senate, Chuck Shumer moved up to minority leader. After failing, again, to lead the Democrats to victory in the House, Nancy Pelosi was reelected minority leader. After the party lost a national presidential election, the titular heads of the party being Obama and Biden, Joe Biden starts making noise about being the nominee in 2020. The DNC was exposed, over and over, working against Bernie Sanders and for Hillary Clinton. Debbie Wasserman Schultz overturned Obama's rule against lobbyist money and opened the sewer again. After she was exposed working against Sanders, she resigned, to be instantly hired by Clinton's campaign. Her successor, Donna Brazille, was presented to the public as an independent on air analyst, by CNN. She slipped debate questions to Clinton, showing she had neither integrity as a news analyst nor as a member of the party. She is unapologetic. The first candidate to declare for the DNC chair is Keith Ellison, who comes from the actual progressive wing of the party. My guess is the corporate insiders will find a way to keep him out.
Corporate Democrats simply will not accept that they drove this train wreck. The party had a candidate that all data showed could beat Trump decisively. They insisted on Clinton over Sanders, and took a chance. It was a bad bet. Even the entire party organization, the celebrity and corporate money and the support of a popular president, she ran a lack lust campaign. On the debate stage, with a worldwide audience, she made her candidacy small. She had Trump on the ropes and then, at the end chews up time criticizing him for insulting a beauty pageant contestant, years earlier. No matter what offense Steven Douglas might have committed outside the debate, I can't imagine Abe Lincoln going off on that tangent.
The FBI director may have intervened in our election, and possibly affected its outcome, but hiding behind him or the Russians doesn't mitigate the responsibility of losing an election to a billionaire con artist. We don't, as of this writing, even know for sure the Russian government had any involvement with the hacks of DNC and other computers and the subsequent publication of Clinton campaign and DNC emails. We do know that those emails revealed reprehensible behavior on the part of the Democratic Party hierarchy, much of against a campaign peopled, and funded, by people like myself. And let's please remember that the CIA is not our most credible source of public information, if one remembers how we got into Iraq. Also, using 'CIA' and 'intervening in a foreign election', in the same sentence, is rich.
OK, beyond national electoral politics, now what? We need to support smaller groups, like the Standing Rock protesters and Black Lives Matters. We need to support local environmental and community organizing groups. We need to support and join unions and make them a fierce and vibrant force, once again. We need to get off media and get in the streets.
Argue and engage, in person, with people with opposing views. Get out of the echo chamber. If we just read and share Huffington Post articles, we miss the opportunity to win over the Fox viewers. We have valid arguments, but they have to be made in terms others understand. When conservative friends or relatives ask why there is support for the mothers of young black men killed by police, but no political fervor, months later, for the families of slain police officers, point out the difference. Beyond the fact that one is killed by an agent of the state and the other in the line of duty, is the issue of justice. The cop killer will be convicted, but the killer cop will be set free.
Speak up and express your displeasure with racist comments, jokes and displays. Tribalism and racism are common, if not natural, human traits. It takes effort and civility to tamp them down. If stoked, you get Rwanda in the '90s.
There were days of demonstrations, across the country, immediately after the election and still much hand wringing. But, we need to conserve our anger and energy. It's easy to be righteous now, when Trump's not yet in office and things are relatively peaceful. When the next really bad terrorist attack happens, that will change. You think we will all stand together and resist? No. Remember 9/11? Did we resist torture? Did we prevent the war, or punish the politicians who voted for it? Did we resist the humiliations at the airport? The surveillance of our communications and travel? Did we insist Bush and Cheney be impeached? Did we insist they be tried after they left office? Did we oppose Obama, when he declared he could order and American citizen killed, by simply declaring that the person is a terrorist? What do you think Trump will do with that power in his hands, if the country is scared silly, like it was in 2001?
What do you think he's going to let the cops do, the next time an African American sniper takes out a bunch of cops like in Dallas? He's already praising Duerte and the death squads, in the Philippines. We have to be ready.
We have to stop blaming voters and Russians and focus on what our own government, and its corporate allies and owners, are doing to us and our fellow citizens. We need to insist the Democratic Party purge its old guard. We need to make sure our schools teach science, logic and reason, even if it means running for the school board ourselves. We need make activism a common place, not something a few others do. We need to suit up, put on our helmets, dampen the bandanas for our faces and lock arms.
POLARIZATION
The logic is that because Trump has said and done crude things, voting for him makes one "OK" with his treatment of women or his appeals to racism. I don't think that's true. It's true that racists voted for Trump. But, those aren't the voters I'm talking about. I'm talking about normal people, friends and relatives, that we know and love. These people are the same folks they were on the Monday before the election. To suddenly think they are worthy of ostracism, because of what they did in the voting booth, assumes everyone looks at politics the same. If one starts out believing that all, or most, politicians are corrupt, conniving liars, then how is one so worse than the other? If politicians of both major parties will sell themselves for campaign cash, future employment and political ambition... If, when elected they bail out crooked Wall Street bankers, while leaving millions of ordinary citizens to lose their homes and businesses... If they create two systems of justice, one for the rich and one for the poor... If, when elected, they condone wars their children don't have to fight, the wiretapping of our phones and computers and torture... Is racism and predatory sexism really that much of a leap?
Forgetting, for a moment, the arguments and the specific candidates, is this tenable? Can we allow politics to become so all consuming that we turn against parents, close friends or co-workers? Brother against brother? We did that once in this country. Up where I live, we call it the Civil War. Over 600,000 died.
WHY DID THEY DO IT?
Blaming the voters ignores what happened. The electorate was presented with two major party candidates they didn't like. But voters didn't stay home. They were angry. The country was ready for revolution. The question was whether it would come from the left or the right. The Democratic Party had the chance to offer democratic socialism (though realistically, it would have only been a return to New Deal Democracy) against the Republican Party's potential fascism. In the end, the Democrats insisted on an establishment nominee. That left the Republicans with the revolutionary candidate and the Democrats as the "low energy" campaign, as Trump would put it.
Those who blame Trump voters miss the point. They weren't choosing Trump over Clinton because they like all of what he says and does. And that many people didn't turn out just because they hate Clinton, though most do. They are frustrated. They want to break things, just like one does when they sweep papers off their desk or dishes onto the floor. They were voting against the system. They wanted to change the regime!
That may not be rationale. We may disagree with the logic, but this is what happens when people are not given an outlet for their frustrations, or an honest critique of their situation.
NOW WHAT?
How do we survive the radical, right wing, top down revolution we're about to experience. And revolutionary it will be. Many of us lived through Nixon, whose newly appointed Attorney General, John Mitchell, told the press, "we're going to take this country so far to the right, you won't recognize it". We lived through Reagan, who never heard of a weapons system he didn't think the tax payers shouldn't buy, who made the initial assault on environmental protections and intervened, internationally, on the side of death squads and tropical oligarchs. If George Bush set the Constitution on fire, and Obama left it to smolder, Trump is going to grind the ashes out with his foot. We really won't recognize this place.
So, how to fight back? Well, first, on a national level, we have to see if the Democratic Party can be saved, or is worth saving. It doesn't look good. In democracies all over the world, when a party loses, its leaders resign. Party chairs, prime ministers, losing nominees all disappear. After the Brexit vote, which was not even a parliamentary election with candidates, David Cameron resigned. Leaders take responsibility! Not politicians in this country, and certainly not Democrats in 2016. After failing to take a majority in the Senate, Chuck Shumer moved up to minority leader. After failing, again, to lead the Democrats to victory in the House, Nancy Pelosi was reelected minority leader. After the party lost a national presidential election, the titular heads of the party being Obama and Biden, Joe Biden starts making noise about being the nominee in 2020. The DNC was exposed, over and over, working against Bernie Sanders and for Hillary Clinton. Debbie Wasserman Schultz overturned Obama's rule against lobbyist money and opened the sewer again. After she was exposed working against Sanders, she resigned, to be instantly hired by Clinton's campaign. Her successor, Donna Brazille, was presented to the public as an independent on air analyst, by CNN. She slipped debate questions to Clinton, showing she had neither integrity as a news analyst nor as a member of the party. She is unapologetic. The first candidate to declare for the DNC chair is Keith Ellison, who comes from the actual progressive wing of the party. My guess is the corporate insiders will find a way to keep him out.
Corporate Democrats simply will not accept that they drove this train wreck. The party had a candidate that all data showed could beat Trump decisively. They insisted on Clinton over Sanders, and took a chance. It was a bad bet. Even the entire party organization, the celebrity and corporate money and the support of a popular president, she ran a lack lust campaign. On the debate stage, with a worldwide audience, she made her candidacy small. She had Trump on the ropes and then, at the end chews up time criticizing him for insulting a beauty pageant contestant, years earlier. No matter what offense Steven Douglas might have committed outside the debate, I can't imagine Abe Lincoln going off on that tangent.
The FBI director may have intervened in our election, and possibly affected its outcome, but hiding behind him or the Russians doesn't mitigate the responsibility of losing an election to a billionaire con artist. We don't, as of this writing, even know for sure the Russian government had any involvement with the hacks of DNC and other computers and the subsequent publication of Clinton campaign and DNC emails. We do know that those emails revealed reprehensible behavior on the part of the Democratic Party hierarchy, much of against a campaign peopled, and funded, by people like myself. And let's please remember that the CIA is not our most credible source of public information, if one remembers how we got into Iraq. Also, using 'CIA' and 'intervening in a foreign election', in the same sentence, is rich.
OK, beyond national electoral politics, now what? We need to support smaller groups, like the Standing Rock protesters and Black Lives Matters. We need to support local environmental and community organizing groups. We need to support and join unions and make them a fierce and vibrant force, once again. We need to get off media and get in the streets.
Argue and engage, in person, with people with opposing views. Get out of the echo chamber. If we just read and share Huffington Post articles, we miss the opportunity to win over the Fox viewers. We have valid arguments, but they have to be made in terms others understand. When conservative friends or relatives ask why there is support for the mothers of young black men killed by police, but no political fervor, months later, for the families of slain police officers, point out the difference. Beyond the fact that one is killed by an agent of the state and the other in the line of duty, is the issue of justice. The cop killer will be convicted, but the killer cop will be set free.
Speak up and express your displeasure with racist comments, jokes and displays. Tribalism and racism are common, if not natural, human traits. It takes effort and civility to tamp them down. If stoked, you get Rwanda in the '90s.
There were days of demonstrations, across the country, immediately after the election and still much hand wringing. But, we need to conserve our anger and energy. It's easy to be righteous now, when Trump's not yet in office and things are relatively peaceful. When the next really bad terrorist attack happens, that will change. You think we will all stand together and resist? No. Remember 9/11? Did we resist torture? Did we prevent the war, or punish the politicians who voted for it? Did we resist the humiliations at the airport? The surveillance of our communications and travel? Did we insist Bush and Cheney be impeached? Did we insist they be tried after they left office? Did we oppose Obama, when he declared he could order and American citizen killed, by simply declaring that the person is a terrorist? What do you think Trump will do with that power in his hands, if the country is scared silly, like it was in 2001?
What do you think he's going to let the cops do, the next time an African American sniper takes out a bunch of cops like in Dallas? He's already praising Duerte and the death squads, in the Philippines. We have to be ready.
We have to stop blaming voters and Russians and focus on what our own government, and its corporate allies and owners, are doing to us and our fellow citizens. We need to insist the Democratic Party purge its old guard. We need to make sure our schools teach science, logic and reason, even if it means running for the school board ourselves. We need make activism a common place, not something a few others do. We need to suit up, put on our helmets, dampen the bandanas for our faces and lock arms.
Tuesday, November 08, 2016
There Won't Be a Happy Ending
Come Wednesday morning, we will not wake up from our "long national nightmare". No matter who wins, we lose. The ads on TV will stop and our PO boxes will no longer be stuffed with political junk mail, but things aren't going back to normal.
If Trump wins, there will be fear and anger among all he's threatened and insulted during the campaign. If he loses, his supporters will feel cheated, frustrated and angry. The crazier ones will want to get violent. The rest will be divided between those who shrug off politics forever, lick their wounds and go back to their lives and those wishing to regroup and fight on. Do they simply take over the Republican Party? Do they form another party? Unlike Bernie Sanders' supporters, they did not get co opted by the party. Their guy got nominated.
I'm not going to waste time pondering what life under Trump will be like if he wins. We know he would be dangerous. He is unfit for office. He clearly doesn't read. He has no attention span. He is uninformed, vindictive and seeks instant gratification. That's a volatile combination.
Then there will be counter moves in the street. Most Americans are docile as sheep, but a Trump victory would wake up many, and demonstrations by the masses would probably be accompanied by rioting and other acts of violence by the few.
What if Clinton wins? In 2008, she mocked Obama's young supporters, saying they thought "celestial choirs will be singing... and the world will be perfect", if he won. Now, that's essentially what we hear that from her supporters, including many who just last spring
were Bernie Sanders backers who said they could not vote for Hillary Clinton because she's a war monger. She hasn't changed. They have.
War and Peace
Donald Trump should not be President and certainly should not have access to the nuclear launch codes. However, Hillary Clinton's election does not usher in an era of peace. Just the opposite. She's not insane, or ignorant, like Trump, but that doesn't mean we're safe. This is a woman who gets her advice from the likes of Henry Kissinger, Madeline Albright and Benjamin Netanyahu. Look at those names and you know we're in for more subversion of democracies, coups, wars and an increasingly unstable Middle East.
She will continue arming the Saudis to the teeth, so they can continue their current war crimes in Yemen. She will continue to arm the Israelis and give them political cover to continue turning the West Bank and Gaza into open air prisons. And people wonder why "they" hate us and want to kill us.
Her vote, in the Senate, helped start the Iraq War. That war led to the creation of ISIS. Now that ISIS has spread to Syria, she wants to implement a "no fly" zone, supposedly to protect civilians, but, in reality to contain the Assad government, as her husband did with Saddam Hussein in the 1990s. That will require bombing radar installations and probably killing Iranians, Russians and members of Hezbollah. It also could involve shooting down Russian planes. Feeling safe yet?
Race relations
Keeping Donald Trump and his band of white supremacist followers out of the White House does not equate to an era of racial justice. Think the Clintons would not throw black females under a bus, if would serve their ends? Ask Loretta Lynch, who will never be appointed to the Supreme Court. Ask Lani Guinier, who will never be Attorney General. Ask Sister Souljah. Ask Hillary's mentor, Marion Wright Edelman, if the Edelmans and Clintons are still political friends.
Climate and the environment
A Trump victory will abolish the Environmental Protection Agency. But, a Clinton victory is just a slow death. Does anyone, who believes that global climate change is an immediate existential threat, believe that Hillary' incrementalism will provide the solutions necessary, in time, to save our children from planetary disaster?
Dancing on Donald Trump's grave is fine. I plan to. But why celebrate a Clinton victory? Why celebrate a candidate we saw attack a young Greenpeace activist, last spring? Why celebrate a woman who told her patrons that environmental activists need to "get a life"?
Secrecy
Donald Trump will unshackle the FBI and other security services to bring us all to heel. But, let' not forget who voted for the Patriot Act. What is the practical difference between Trump and Clinton's attitude toward Edward Snowden, who went into exile in order to reveal to us what our government had been doing to us?
Money
All through 2015 and the first third of 2015, we witnessed tens of thousands attending Bernie Sanders rallies in a rejection of the monied interests control of our government and politics. Donald Trump is one of the billionaires he was railing against. But Hillary and Bill Clinton took hundreds of millions of dollars in legalized bribes. Those debts will come due when Hillary is sworn in. We now know why she didn't want to release transcripts, of her talks to the bankers, during her primary run against Sanders. She had told the bankers she thought they should be allowed to write banking regulations!
So, we're screwed
The two party system has driven us down a dead end alley. In the darkness, is unrelieved political and cultural polarization, oligarchy and war. The Republican Party, in its institutional denial of science and reason, ensured a purge of its Old Guard and gave themselves, and us, Trump.
The Democrats, and their allies in the corporate media, have been exposed gaming the nomination and electoral process, with back channel communication between the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign against Bernie Sanders and between the DNC and at least one national news network (CNN). CNN asked the DNC for questions to pose to Republican candidates. Donna Brazille, epitomizing the revolving door between political elites and the media, slipped questions she copped, as a temporary CNN employee for Clinton to use in her debate against Sanders.
We learned this through the emails revealed by WikiLeaks. DNC and Hillary mouthpieces wish to distract us with supposed Russian hacking of their computers. I'll have to be excused if my level of outrage seems low. These are the same people that are OK with our own government hacking our email.
If you are genuinely for Clinton, not just scared shitless (as you should be) of Trump, celebrate if she wins. But be proud of what you are getting, not what you are avoiding. If you are OK with fracking, OK with the death penalty, OK with government surveillance, OK with banks writing the rules they play by, OK with hundred million dollar arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Israel, OK with wars of intervention, OK with CIA coups, believe there is an equivalency between the water protectors in North Dakota and the cops, construction workers and security guards beating them down and believe the fossil fuel industry is being unfairly put upon by radical environmentalists, then shout and dance and set off fireworks!
But, if not, and Hillary wins, wipe your forehead in relief, have a beer and wake up Wednesday, ready to continue the Revolution. If Trump wins, hold your neighbor tight, speak quietly, plan and be ready to resist the fascists and the fools.
If Trump wins, there will be fear and anger among all he's threatened and insulted during the campaign. If he loses, his supporters will feel cheated, frustrated and angry. The crazier ones will want to get violent. The rest will be divided between those who shrug off politics forever, lick their wounds and go back to their lives and those wishing to regroup and fight on. Do they simply take over the Republican Party? Do they form another party? Unlike Bernie Sanders' supporters, they did not get co opted by the party. Their guy got nominated.
I'm not going to waste time pondering what life under Trump will be like if he wins. We know he would be dangerous. He is unfit for office. He clearly doesn't read. He has no attention span. He is uninformed, vindictive and seeks instant gratification. That's a volatile combination.
Then there will be counter moves in the street. Most Americans are docile as sheep, but a Trump victory would wake up many, and demonstrations by the masses would probably be accompanied by rioting and other acts of violence by the few.
What if Clinton wins? In 2008, she mocked Obama's young supporters, saying they thought "celestial choirs will be singing... and the world will be perfect", if he won. Now, that's essentially what we hear that from her supporters, including many who just last spring
War and Peace
Donald Trump should not be President and certainly should not have access to the nuclear launch codes. However, Hillary Clinton's election does not usher in an era of peace. Just the opposite. She's not insane, or ignorant, like Trump, but that doesn't mean we're safe. This is a woman who gets her advice from the likes of Henry Kissinger, Madeline Albright and Benjamin Netanyahu. Look at those names and you know we're in for more subversion of democracies, coups, wars and an increasingly unstable Middle East.
She will continue arming the Saudis to the teeth, so they can continue their current war crimes in Yemen. She will continue to arm the Israelis and give them political cover to continue turning the West Bank and Gaza into open air prisons. And people wonder why "they" hate us and want to kill us.
Her vote, in the Senate, helped start the Iraq War. That war led to the creation of ISIS. Now that ISIS has spread to Syria, she wants to implement a "no fly" zone, supposedly to protect civilians, but, in reality to contain the Assad government, as her husband did with Saddam Hussein in the 1990s. That will require bombing radar installations and probably killing Iranians, Russians and members of Hezbollah. It also could involve shooting down Russian planes. Feeling safe yet?
Race relations
Keeping Donald Trump and his band of white supremacist followers out of the White House does not equate to an era of racial justice. Think the Clintons would not throw black females under a bus, if would serve their ends? Ask Loretta Lynch, who will never be appointed to the Supreme Court. Ask Lani Guinier, who will never be Attorney General. Ask Sister Souljah. Ask Hillary's mentor, Marion Wright Edelman, if the Edelmans and Clintons are still political friends.
Climate and the environment
A Trump victory will abolish the Environmental Protection Agency. But, a Clinton victory is just a slow death. Does anyone, who believes that global climate change is an immediate existential threat, believe that Hillary' incrementalism will provide the solutions necessary, in time, to save our children from planetary disaster?
Dancing on Donald Trump's grave is fine. I plan to. But why celebrate a Clinton victory? Why celebrate a candidate we saw attack a young Greenpeace activist, last spring? Why celebrate a woman who told her patrons that environmental activists need to "get a life"?
Secrecy
Donald Trump will unshackle the FBI and other security services to bring us all to heel. But, let' not forget who voted for the Patriot Act. What is the practical difference between Trump and Clinton's attitude toward Edward Snowden, who went into exile in order to reveal to us what our government had been doing to us?
Money
All through 2015 and the first third of 2015, we witnessed tens of thousands attending Bernie Sanders rallies in a rejection of the monied interests control of our government and politics. Donald Trump is one of the billionaires he was railing against. But Hillary and Bill Clinton took hundreds of millions of dollars in legalized bribes. Those debts will come due when Hillary is sworn in. We now know why she didn't want to release transcripts, of her talks to the bankers, during her primary run against Sanders. She had told the bankers she thought they should be allowed to write banking regulations!
So, we're screwed
The two party system has driven us down a dead end alley. In the darkness, is unrelieved political and cultural polarization, oligarchy and war. The Republican Party, in its institutional denial of science and reason, ensured a purge of its Old Guard and gave themselves, and us, Trump.
The Democrats, and their allies in the corporate media, have been exposed gaming the nomination and electoral process, with back channel communication between the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign against Bernie Sanders and between the DNC and at least one national news network (CNN). CNN asked the DNC for questions to pose to Republican candidates. Donna Brazille, epitomizing the revolving door between political elites and the media, slipped questions she copped, as a temporary CNN employee for Clinton to use in her debate against Sanders.
We learned this through the emails revealed by WikiLeaks. DNC and Hillary mouthpieces wish to distract us with supposed Russian hacking of their computers. I'll have to be excused if my level of outrage seems low. These are the same people that are OK with our own government hacking our email.
If you are genuinely for Clinton, not just scared shitless (as you should be) of Trump, celebrate if she wins. But be proud of what you are getting, not what you are avoiding. If you are OK with fracking, OK with the death penalty, OK with government surveillance, OK with banks writing the rules they play by, OK with hundred million dollar arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Israel, OK with wars of intervention, OK with CIA coups, believe there is an equivalency between the water protectors in North Dakota and the cops, construction workers and security guards beating them down and believe the fossil fuel industry is being unfairly put upon by radical environmentalists, then shout and dance and set off fireworks!
But, if not, and Hillary wins, wipe your forehead in relief, have a beer and wake up Wednesday, ready to continue the Revolution. If Trump wins, hold your neighbor tight, speak quietly, plan and be ready to resist the fascists and the fools.
Friday, October 21, 2016
A Night at the Circus
In ancient Rome, the masses were distracted by the spectacles presented in the Colosseum. As our republic devolves from government of the people to oligarchy, our rulers are hewing to the lessons of their Roman predecessors. In Wednesday night's debate, we were given the circus of ancient times, not a successor to the Lincoln/Douglas Debates.
On the left of our screens, was the orange freak show the media has fed us for a year. On the right, was the illusion of feminist, progressive liberalism. Rather than lions, gladiators and Christians, we beheld the vulgarity of a major party candidate without impulse control, intellect, decency or self awareness. His opponent: the embodiment of the intersection of crony capitalism with political careerism.
While WikiLeaks has exposed as fact the suspicions that Clinton holds environmentalists in contempt, is inclined to let bankers regulate themselves and is in collusion with the corporate mass media, she was allowed to get away with framing the discussion not on the content of the leaked emails, but on the method of their exposure. It was a debate of celebrity, not substance. Trump, Putin, Hillary.
Trump is so ignorant, self absorbed and inarticulate that he missed multiple opportunities to entangle Clinton in a web of her own illogic and deception. Two people stood on the stage last night. Only one of them has gotten people killed. Yet, what the public heard was an argument about Trump's opinion on the Iraq War, 13 years ago. Clinton snipped that, "I've said it was a mistake", referring to her Yes vote on the war, much as a teenager would stamp their foot and declare 'I said I was sorry!' No discussion about whose mistake, what the mistake was or what the consequences of her mistake were. Rather than point out that the 2003 invasion of Iraq led to the birth of ISIS, Trump confused his audience with childish declarations that "Obama and Hillary created ISIS" (presumably while she was Secretary of State). Of the three, only Senator Clinton had to the Constitutional power to vote on the actual war. In 2003, Obama was in the Illinois legislature and The Donald was a real estate developer turned TV star.
Trump, furiously denying accusations of sexual misconduct, with an outrage that conflicts with his public self image as unrestrained libertine, failed to force Clinton to account for her family's behavior. Bill Clinton, Hillary, their liberal supporters and the mass media have always treated Bill Clinton's accusers with a skepticism and contempt that they would never tolerate toward the accusers of Donald Trump, Bill Cosby or nearly any athlete.
And so went the night. Trump would act stranger and stranger, the clock began to wind down and neither would have to explain what the world would really be like, if they were elected. Once again, Clinton pointed out how heartless Trump's refugee policies would be, without explaining to the voters what the future will look like, after she is elected. Instead, it was 'look! there's a squirrel!' An honest discussion of refugees, energy or national security would center on the emergency of climate change. Instead, we were treated to the tired discussion of the mean things Trump has said about Mexicans and Muslims and to Clinton's platitudes about how America is Great because America is Good.
What voters need to be told is that the wave of refugees we witnessed flooding into Europe this last year is nothing compared to what will happen when climate change forces millions to march out of Africa, not fleeing war, but in search of food. That's a national security issue they don't discuss. It will happen. For 10,000 years humans have migrated when famine or climate have made their homes uninhabitable. This will lead to reduced standards of living, worldwide, political instability and wars. Trump huffed and puffed and Clinton offered lip service to an onrushing global emergency.
Clinton says she came to oppose the TransPacificPartnership when she learned of how it was going to hurt workers. Yet, she had the treaty text when it was being negotiated and when she said, 45 times, that she supported it (even calling it the "gold standard"). After she left the State Department, Obama wouldn't even let senators, such as Elizabeth Warren, see the final text. So, when did HRC come to oppose it? What new provisions does it include that were not there when she had promoted it? Who knows? Putin! Sexual assault! Crooked Hillary! Liar! Nasty! Emmy awards! ... Lions! Christians!
Climate change. Israel. Saudi Arabia. Yemen. Government surveillance. Health care solutions. Income inequality. We heard nothing. We saw nothing but the circus.
On the left of our screens, was the orange freak show the media has fed us for a year. On the right, was the illusion of feminist, progressive liberalism. Rather than lions, gladiators and Christians, we beheld the vulgarity of a major party candidate without impulse control, intellect, decency or self awareness. His opponent: the embodiment of the intersection of crony capitalism with political careerism.
While WikiLeaks has exposed as fact the suspicions that Clinton holds environmentalists in contempt, is inclined to let bankers regulate themselves and is in collusion with the corporate mass media, she was allowed to get away with framing the discussion not on the content of the leaked emails, but on the method of their exposure. It was a debate of celebrity, not substance. Trump, Putin, Hillary.
Trump is so ignorant, self absorbed and inarticulate that he missed multiple opportunities to entangle Clinton in a web of her own illogic and deception. Two people stood on the stage last night. Only one of them has gotten people killed. Yet, what the public heard was an argument about Trump's opinion on the Iraq War, 13 years ago. Clinton snipped that, "I've said it was a mistake", referring to her Yes vote on the war, much as a teenager would stamp their foot and declare 'I said I was sorry!' No discussion about whose mistake, what the mistake was or what the consequences of her mistake were. Rather than point out that the 2003 invasion of Iraq led to the birth of ISIS, Trump confused his audience with childish declarations that "Obama and Hillary created ISIS" (presumably while she was Secretary of State). Of the three, only Senator Clinton had to the Constitutional power to vote on the actual war. In 2003, Obama was in the Illinois legislature and The Donald was a real estate developer turned TV star.
Trump, furiously denying accusations of sexual misconduct, with an outrage that conflicts with his public self image as unrestrained libertine, failed to force Clinton to account for her family's behavior. Bill Clinton, Hillary, their liberal supporters and the mass media have always treated Bill Clinton's accusers with a skepticism and contempt that they would never tolerate toward the accusers of Donald Trump, Bill Cosby or nearly any athlete.
And so went the night. Trump would act stranger and stranger, the clock began to wind down and neither would have to explain what the world would really be like, if they were elected. Once again, Clinton pointed out how heartless Trump's refugee policies would be, without explaining to the voters what the future will look like, after she is elected. Instead, it was 'look! there's a squirrel!' An honest discussion of refugees, energy or national security would center on the emergency of climate change. Instead, we were treated to the tired discussion of the mean things Trump has said about Mexicans and Muslims and to Clinton's platitudes about how America is Great because America is Good.
What voters need to be told is that the wave of refugees we witnessed flooding into Europe this last year is nothing compared to what will happen when climate change forces millions to march out of Africa, not fleeing war, but in search of food. That's a national security issue they don't discuss. It will happen. For 10,000 years humans have migrated when famine or climate have made their homes uninhabitable. This will lead to reduced standards of living, worldwide, political instability and wars. Trump huffed and puffed and Clinton offered lip service to an onrushing global emergency.
Clinton says she came to oppose the TransPacificPartnership when she learned of how it was going to hurt workers. Yet, she had the treaty text when it was being negotiated and when she said, 45 times, that she supported it (even calling it the "gold standard"). After she left the State Department, Obama wouldn't even let senators, such as Elizabeth Warren, see the final text. So, when did HRC come to oppose it? What new provisions does it include that were not there when she had promoted it? Who knows? Putin! Sexual assault! Crooked Hillary! Liar! Nasty! Emmy awards! ... Lions! Christians!
Climate change. Israel. Saudi Arabia. Yemen. Government surveillance. Health care solutions. Income inequality. We heard nothing. We saw nothing but the circus.
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
Thoughts on Yesterday
So this is what defeat feels like. Not losing a race or a game, but actual defeat. Not with a bang, but a whimper. Surrender.
My head always knew it had to end in defeat, from the moment I donated my first dollar last year. But we flew so high and worked so hard. Chasing people down with a clipboard, in a parking lot, while circulating petitions for delegates. Calling voters in Iowa. Dialing numbers for hundreds of phone bank callers, in dozens of states. Pounding the pavement, with sore feet, sometimes in the rain, to knock on doors in different towns. A true volunteer community. Not hired guns, but real people, from all walks of life. Young, old, black, white, brown. A benevolent, committed community that wanted a better country and believed you could make revolution with peace, love and hard work. We started to believe in our own magic. Tied in Iowa. Landslide in New Hampshire. The crowds, despite the media black out. Michigan! So close, in places like Missouri and Illinois.
Once it became clear that we weren't realistically going to pull it off, the reaction of the volunteer community, at least the team that I belonged to, was to stick together and keep the movement going. The emotion, even in an on-line setting, was powerful the weekend before California. Nobody wanted to log off. Nobody wanted it to end. We'd been a part of something, a community, on a daily basis for six months. And while many naively, I think, thought the nomination was still within reach, even those of us who saw the writing on the wall wanted to keep the organization going, to elect truly progressive candidates and to force our positions onto the Democratic Party's platform. We were repeatedly told, by Sanders himself, that we had 1900+ delegates and were going all the way to the convention. I don't think there is another way to interpret that but that we would force floor fights on our platform planks, if they failed in committee, and that Bernie's name would be placed in nomination and that there would be a full roll call vote.
Bernie had said from the beginning that he would support Hillary, if she were the nominee. I never dreamed that meant prior to the convention. I assumed that after the vote, he would get up on stage and say something to the effect that he was keeping his word to support the Democratic nominee, Trump is a pig and he recognized that not all his supporters would follow his lead but he was endorsing Hillary and asked them to do so too. That would suck, but losing always does. Some of us would vote for her, some not. Some would be vocal in opposition, some not. We would remain united having come through the fight and then, if she was elected, resist her every effort to renege on campaign promises and present her, over the next couple elections, with an increasingly progressive Congress and party.
But, this! Throughout the day, yesterday, you could witness the movement splintering. Bernie endorsed her before the delegates had a chance to vote. Our delegates aren't party insiders with the financial wherewithal to just hop off to Philadelphia. That trip, for Bernie delegates, will be a hardship. Many had to plead for help through crowd sourcing sites. On Twitter, on Facebook, on the Slack channels of the campaign, it no longer felt like a revolution. As I said, in March, you can't have a revolution march behind one of those it seeks to overthrow.
The splintering is real. Many instantly declared their allegiance to Jill Stein and the Green Party. Many were just confused and adrift. Some were taking a wait and see attitude before deciding whether to vote for Hillary. Some were saying they'd vote for her over Trump. Many were saying we'd followed Bernie this far, had worked for him, believed in him, and since we think he's a good man, were obligated to follow his advice. And some said they'd now vote for Trump.
Those last two disturb me. I understand, but do not agree with, those who say they will vote for Hillary out of fear of Trump. I do not understand surrendering one's own thought process and judgement to anyone, even one for whom we have fought so hard. ...And how on Earth can one have been part of this campaign and turn around and vote for a billionaire demagogue who, at one point, blamed our campaign for violence at his own rallies?
There is plenty of time to argue over what to do in the privacy of the voting booth. My distress and sadness, today, is that yesterday seemed like a surrender. In a rush to placate the party, and get a few progressive platform planks, our campaign was handed over to the very Establishment that we revile. The convention will now be, not a battle for the soul of the party, but the coronation of an individual. Yes, Bernie's name will probably be placed in nomination, pretty words will be spoken and a roll call allowed. But, it will be for show. Everybody will know Bernie's delegates are voting for a candidate that has already conceded.
I got into this because I wanted a candidate that I could vote for, rather than the lesser of two evils. I opposed Hillary for years. She was a carpet bagger who rode sympathy for her trials as First Wife into the nomination for New York's U.S. Senator. Her two most momentous votes were in favor of the Iraq War and the Patriot Act. As Secretary of State, she supported illegal warfare, the TransPacificPartnership and fracking. Since leaving the White House, she and Bill have accumulated a net worth in excess of $110,000,000.00. Of that, Hillary has a net worth of $31,000,000.00+. Neither of them hold a job that pays that kind of money. Corporations that have, for years, expected her to be elected, have paid Bill and her to make speeches as a means by which to funnel them money. They've gotten rich by peddling influence. Two years ago, I was annoyed by all the 'Ready for Hillary' ads that would pop up on my computer. Then came the counter punch, 'Ready for Warren'. I would have worked and voted for her. She didn't run. Bernie took a look at the process, determined an Independent couldn't make it, and decided to throw his hat in, as a Democrat, to say what otherwise wouldn't be said. I understand why he went that route and have no regrets about participating in the campaign. My affection for my fellow campaigners and Dialer Monitor Team members is everlasting.
I've followed Bernie a long way, but I can't follow him to Hillary. I always knew we'd part ways. I just thought we'd make it to the convention, all together, whether figuratively or literally. Even in defeat, I thought we'd go down swinging. Now, after yesterday's surrender, our delegates will be witness to a coronation, much like a conquered people are forced to watch the parade of an occupying army.
My head always knew it had to end in defeat, from the moment I donated my first dollar last year. But we flew so high and worked so hard. Chasing people down with a clipboard, in a parking lot, while circulating petitions for delegates. Calling voters in Iowa. Dialing numbers for hundreds of phone bank callers, in dozens of states. Pounding the pavement, with sore feet, sometimes in the rain, to knock on doors in different towns. A true volunteer community. Not hired guns, but real people, from all walks of life. Young, old, black, white, brown. A benevolent, committed community that wanted a better country and believed you could make revolution with peace, love and hard work. We started to believe in our own magic. Tied in Iowa. Landslide in New Hampshire. The crowds, despite the media black out. Michigan! So close, in places like Missouri and Illinois.
Once it became clear that we weren't realistically going to pull it off, the reaction of the volunteer community, at least the team that I belonged to, was to stick together and keep the movement going. The emotion, even in an on-line setting, was powerful the weekend before California. Nobody wanted to log off. Nobody wanted it to end. We'd been a part of something, a community, on a daily basis for six months. And while many naively, I think, thought the nomination was still within reach, even those of us who saw the writing on the wall wanted to keep the organization going, to elect truly progressive candidates and to force our positions onto the Democratic Party's platform. We were repeatedly told, by Sanders himself, that we had 1900+ delegates and were going all the way to the convention. I don't think there is another way to interpret that but that we would force floor fights on our platform planks, if they failed in committee, and that Bernie's name would be placed in nomination and that there would be a full roll call vote.
Bernie had said from the beginning that he would support Hillary, if she were the nominee. I never dreamed that meant prior to the convention. I assumed that after the vote, he would get up on stage and say something to the effect that he was keeping his word to support the Democratic nominee, Trump is a pig and he recognized that not all his supporters would follow his lead but he was endorsing Hillary and asked them to do so too. That would suck, but losing always does. Some of us would vote for her, some not. Some would be vocal in opposition, some not. We would remain united having come through the fight and then, if she was elected, resist her every effort to renege on campaign promises and present her, over the next couple elections, with an increasingly progressive Congress and party.
But, this! Throughout the day, yesterday, you could witness the movement splintering. Bernie endorsed her before the delegates had a chance to vote. Our delegates aren't party insiders with the financial wherewithal to just hop off to Philadelphia. That trip, for Bernie delegates, will be a hardship. Many had to plead for help through crowd sourcing sites. On Twitter, on Facebook, on the Slack channels of the campaign, it no longer felt like a revolution. As I said, in March, you can't have a revolution march behind one of those it seeks to overthrow.
The splintering is real. Many instantly declared their allegiance to Jill Stein and the Green Party. Many were just confused and adrift. Some were taking a wait and see attitude before deciding whether to vote for Hillary. Some were saying they'd vote for her over Trump. Many were saying we'd followed Bernie this far, had worked for him, believed in him, and since we think he's a good man, were obligated to follow his advice. And some said they'd now vote for Trump.
Those last two disturb me. I understand, but do not agree with, those who say they will vote for Hillary out of fear of Trump. I do not understand surrendering one's own thought process and judgement to anyone, even one for whom we have fought so hard. ...And how on Earth can one have been part of this campaign and turn around and vote for a billionaire demagogue who, at one point, blamed our campaign for violence at his own rallies?
There is plenty of time to argue over what to do in the privacy of the voting booth. My distress and sadness, today, is that yesterday seemed like a surrender. In a rush to placate the party, and get a few progressive platform planks, our campaign was handed over to the very Establishment that we revile. The convention will now be, not a battle for the soul of the party, but the coronation of an individual. Yes, Bernie's name will probably be placed in nomination, pretty words will be spoken and a roll call allowed. But, it will be for show. Everybody will know Bernie's delegates are voting for a candidate that has already conceded.
I got into this because I wanted a candidate that I could vote for, rather than the lesser of two evils. I opposed Hillary for years. She was a carpet bagger who rode sympathy for her trials as First Wife into the nomination for New York's U.S. Senator. Her two most momentous votes were in favor of the Iraq War and the Patriot Act. As Secretary of State, she supported illegal warfare, the TransPacificPartnership and fracking. Since leaving the White House, she and Bill have accumulated a net worth in excess of $110,000,000.00. Of that, Hillary has a net worth of $31,000,000.00+. Neither of them hold a job that pays that kind of money. Corporations that have, for years, expected her to be elected, have paid Bill and her to make speeches as a means by which to funnel them money. They've gotten rich by peddling influence. Two years ago, I was annoyed by all the 'Ready for Hillary' ads that would pop up on my computer. Then came the counter punch, 'Ready for Warren'. I would have worked and voted for her. She didn't run. Bernie took a look at the process, determined an Independent couldn't make it, and decided to throw his hat in, as a Democrat, to say what otherwise wouldn't be said. I understand why he went that route and have no regrets about participating in the campaign. My affection for my fellow campaigners and Dialer Monitor Team members is everlasting.
I've followed Bernie a long way, but I can't follow him to Hillary. I always knew we'd part ways. I just thought we'd make it to the convention, all together, whether figuratively or literally. Even in defeat, I thought we'd go down swinging. Now, after yesterday's surrender, our delegates will be witness to a coronation, much like a conquered people are forced to watch the parade of an occupying army.
Sunday, July 03, 2016
Mike Royko
My first memories
are of walking down to the Wallgreens, in Jacksonville IL, and buying
my dad the Chicago Daily News. I would stop, on the way back, and
read Royko's column so I wouldn't have to wait for my dad to be done
with the paper. From the beginning, Royko's angle always seemed to
be that the system (Chicago Daley machine) was corrupt and that its
corruption had real life, daily, consequences for ordinary citizens
who were, for the most part, immigrants or first generation
Americans. The vast majority that he wrote about were the Eastern
Europeans that reflected his own background. But, he was clearly
immersed in the Greek Town world as well.
Royko seemed to view the Machine as a criminal enterprise, like the Mafia. The pressure, like that placed on store owners to place political signs in their windows was not unlike the pressure placed by a protection racket. Fail to comply and a visitor from code enforcement or the liquor board would show up.
I think the quality of his work and his perspective changed as he went from paper to paper and wife to wife. However, his courage and reason for switching papers was undeniable. There was no preventing the Daily News from folding. The real conundrum was when Ruport Murdoch bought the Sun-Times. Royko had declared he would work for neither the Chicago Tribune or Ruport Murdock. However, he viewed Murdoch as an actual threat to journalism itself, so wound up at the Tribune.
In his book, Boss, Royko directly attacked the Daley machine, prefacing each chapter with a quote from the transcript of the Chicago 7 trial. It was one of the very few books my father and I shared. I was, I think in early high school. I remember him saying that he hated me reading something with that kind of language in it (the Daley quotes, I suspect, particularly the retort back at Sen. Abraham Ribbicoff, at the '68 convention, which Royko interpreted as, “Fuck you , you Jew son of a bitch; you lousy motherfucker, go home!”). But, he thought it was important that I read it. My Greek immigrant father viewed Royko as a knight defending people like him.
Royko seemed to view the Machine as a criminal enterprise, like the Mafia. The pressure, like that placed on store owners to place political signs in their windows was not unlike the pressure placed by a protection racket. Fail to comply and a visitor from code enforcement or the liquor board would show up.
I think the quality of his work and his perspective changed as he went from paper to paper and wife to wife. However, his courage and reason for switching papers was undeniable. There was no preventing the Daily News from folding. The real conundrum was when Ruport Murdoch bought the Sun-Times. Royko had declared he would work for neither the Chicago Tribune or Ruport Murdock. However, he viewed Murdoch as an actual threat to journalism itself, so wound up at the Tribune.
In his book, Boss, Royko directly attacked the Daley machine, prefacing each chapter with a quote from the transcript of the Chicago 7 trial. It was one of the very few books my father and I shared. I was, I think in early high school. I remember him saying that he hated me reading something with that kind of language in it (the Daley quotes, I suspect, particularly the retort back at Sen. Abraham Ribbicoff, at the '68 convention, which Royko interpreted as, “Fuck you , you Jew son of a bitch; you lousy motherfucker, go home!”). But, he thought it was important that I read it. My Greek immigrant father viewed Royko as a knight defending people like him.
Royko
had the clear eyed view of the cynic, regarding the system. But, he
never seemed to shake his belief that it was supposed to work. In
that, he reminded me of my other favorite writer of the time, Hunter
Thompson, who was also cynical and also could not shake his belief in
what constitutional government in this country could be, if kept out of the hands of the hucksters. Thompson believed in the Constitution
and Royko believed in the voters.
I
remember the column he wrote the day after Jayne Byrne (at the time,
the anti-machine candidate) defeated Michael Bilandic. “You did
it!” He was so proud of the people of Chicago. In that one
moment, they had united, stood up and beat back the forces of
darkness. He turned on Byrne, almost immediately, as she turned out to be an opportunist. But, the column he wrote the day after Harold Washington was elected was another example of good will and hope over cynicism.
Thursday, March 17, 2016
My March Manifesto
Don't give up; stand up! This ain't over. Contrary to the propaganda you see and hear in the mass media, Tuesday was not the end of the Democratic presidential primary race. Between now and June 14, there are 28 more states, territories and districts that will send delegates to the convention. Forget the superdelegates. A superdelegate is, by definition, an uncommitted delegate. Clinton only has 314 more elected delegates than Bernie. There are 2087 delegates still to be selected!
Stop talking about Trump! The media has demonstrated its hostility by its blackouts, its slanted reporting and by its snark. Ignore them. Now stop getting caught up in the fear regarding Trump. Until a candidate is nominated by the delegates votes, at the convention, he is irrelevant. If he is nominated, worry about him in November. Yes, he's awful. Yes, he has fascist tendencies. He is not yet the GOP nominee and the general election isn't until November. Focus!
It is easy to get caught up in fear and hysteria. Everyone wants to say, "I can't live in a country with Trump as President!" "I'll hold my nose and vote for Hillary before Trump!" That is an option. IF she is the nominee. Many of us may never vote for her, but that is mostly irrelevant now too. The important thing is to not get discouraged when Bernie has a bad night, nor to let up on our efforts. We must double our efforts. Those of us who live in states that have already voted, and have canvassed, must work the phone banks into upcoming states. Those living in the upcoming states must realize that the rallies are great and sharing memes on Facebook and across Twitter are reinforcing, but you must knock on doors, make phone calls and pester all your friends and relations to vote for Bernie.
Too many people are allowing themselves to be caught up in the news cycle and the free media that Trump and Clinton get and suddenly talking about Hillary. Stop it! Stop your friends. When anyone says they're for Bernie but are voting for Hillary in November, make them talk to your hand! Insist that she is not the nominee and it is our intention that she not be. If they are so worried about Trump, they must work harder for Bernie. Polls show he is the only candidate seeking the Democratic nomination that can beat Kasich or Cruz and he would beat Trump by a wider margin than Clinton. That means a Clinton nomination would make a Trump presidency more likely. Your insurance plan is Bernie Sanders!
Remember why we're for Bernie in the first place. He's honest; she is not. He opposed the war; she did not. He wants to break up the banks; she does not. He opposes fracking; she does not. He wants to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act; she does not. He wants to abolish the death penalty; she does not. He refuses super-PAC money; she does not. He opposes interventionism; she does not. He rejects private prison money; she does not. And she talks about herself, while Bernie talks about us.
If you are one of those who say that if we fall short at the convention, and Clinton gets the nomination you will vote for her, remember later that you voted for the lesser of two evils. Our beliefs must not change (even if hers often do). Bernie is building a movement. The revolution goes on. We must stick together. That does not mean sticking with her. If people vote for her, as a rejection of Trump, it changes nothing about our views of her. If she becomes President, we will remember why we did not support her in the first place. We joined Bernie because we rejected what she represents. Even if she's elected, the revolution must go on. Her support of the banks, her militarism, her cronyism must be resisted. Her hollow words must be ignored. She is not for the revolution. She is not about the revolution. She is not of the revolution. She is the target of the revolution. It is her throne that we seek to overthrow!
Let's not get in a position of having to make a dreadful choice in November. Let's not get in the position of anyone having to fight the president they helped elect. Let's get the nomination right. We've got a candidate. He's made us proud. Keep working. Keep pushing.
Go Bernie!
Forward with the Revolution!!
Stop talking about Trump! The media has demonstrated its hostility by its blackouts, its slanted reporting and by its snark. Ignore them. Now stop getting caught up in the fear regarding Trump. Until a candidate is nominated by the delegates votes, at the convention, he is irrelevant. If he is nominated, worry about him in November. Yes, he's awful. Yes, he has fascist tendencies. He is not yet the GOP nominee and the general election isn't until November. Focus!
It is easy to get caught up in fear and hysteria. Everyone wants to say, "I can't live in a country with Trump as President!" "I'll hold my nose and vote for Hillary before Trump!" That is an option. IF she is the nominee. Many of us may never vote for her, but that is mostly irrelevant now too. The important thing is to not get discouraged when Bernie has a bad night, nor to let up on our efforts. We must double our efforts. Those of us who live in states that have already voted, and have canvassed, must work the phone banks into upcoming states. Those living in the upcoming states must realize that the rallies are great and sharing memes on Facebook and across Twitter are reinforcing, but you must knock on doors, make phone calls and pester all your friends and relations to vote for Bernie.
Too many people are allowing themselves to be caught up in the news cycle and the free media that Trump and Clinton get and suddenly talking about Hillary. Stop it! Stop your friends. When anyone says they're for Bernie but are voting for Hillary in November, make them talk to your hand! Insist that she is not the nominee and it is our intention that she not be. If they are so worried about Trump, they must work harder for Bernie. Polls show he is the only candidate seeking the Democratic nomination that can beat Kasich or Cruz and he would beat Trump by a wider margin than Clinton. That means a Clinton nomination would make a Trump presidency more likely. Your insurance plan is Bernie Sanders!
Remember why we're for Bernie in the first place. He's honest; she is not. He opposed the war; she did not. He wants to break up the banks; she does not. He opposes fracking; she does not. He wants to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act; she does not. He wants to abolish the death penalty; she does not. He refuses super-PAC money; she does not. He opposes interventionism; she does not. He rejects private prison money; she does not. And she talks about herself, while Bernie talks about us.
If you are one of those who say that if we fall short at the convention, and Clinton gets the nomination you will vote for her, remember later that you voted for the lesser of two evils. Our beliefs must not change (even if hers often do). Bernie is building a movement. The revolution goes on. We must stick together. That does not mean sticking with her. If people vote for her, as a rejection of Trump, it changes nothing about our views of her. If she becomes President, we will remember why we did not support her in the first place. We joined Bernie because we rejected what she represents. Even if she's elected, the revolution must go on. Her support of the banks, her militarism, her cronyism must be resisted. Her hollow words must be ignored. She is not for the revolution. She is not about the revolution. She is not of the revolution. She is the target of the revolution. It is her throne that we seek to overthrow!
Let's not get in a position of having to make a dreadful choice in November. Let's not get in the position of anyone having to fight the president they helped elect. Let's get the nomination right. We've got a candidate. He's made us proud. Keep working. Keep pushing.
Go Bernie!
Forward with the Revolution!!
Monday, March 14, 2016
Vote for Bernie Sanders
You should vote for Bernie Sanders, in the Democratic primary. Here's why I'm going to:
If our country is going to survive as a democracy, we've got to get money out of politics. Bernie wants to reform the campaign finance laws, not take advantage of them.
He wants to break up the huge financial institutions that threaten our national security. Their existence, as is, is a sword over our heads. They take risks for which they won't have to suffer the assumed moral hazard. Why? Because we'll be forced to bail them out. They're to big to fail. They hold the whole economy hostage.
Bernie believes these thieves are criminals. He would prosecute them, rather than continuing a two tiered system of justice, where the politically, and financially, connected get a pass and everyone else goes to jail.
Bernie wants to enact single-payer healthcare. Medicare would be for all. Why should we be paying the insurance companies, when we can do this better, together? There are many other reasons I support Bernie Sanders, but these are the ones that first attracted me to him.
Actually, there is one more. His opposition is Hillary Rodham Clinton. In October 2002, she voted to authorize the Iraq War. That war killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children. It made refugees of millions and destroyed relics and archaelogical sites going back to ancient Ninevah, in biblical times. Hillary Clinton now claims the war was a mistake, but she doesn't say it was her mistake. Millions of us went into the streets to protest, on February 15, 2003, ahead of the war. We knew it was a mistake. Bernie Sanders knew it was a mistake. Hillary Clinton served on the Senate Intelligence Committee. So did Russ Feingold; he voted against the war (he was also the only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act, as did then Rep. Bernie Sanders; Hillary voted for it). Thirteen years later and Saddam Hussein's unemployed officers are now the general staff of the Islamic State.
Hillary Clinton represents everything that is wrong with politics in our country. She is the recipient of legalized bribery. Why would multiple financial institutions give her and her husband millions of dollars? Because they are such spell binding speakers? While I assume the reason she doesn't want to release the transcripts of her speeches before Democrats vote in their primaries is because she probably mocked the Occupy Wall Street movement, comforted the well heeled audience by telling them she thought they were being unfairly maligned and assured them that she didn't believe in over regulation, the content of her speeches is really irrelevant. It doesn't matter what she said. The speeches were just an excuse to funnel her money. Her husband's administration was a temporary way station for many Wall Street big wigs to sit while they directed the economy to their advantage. Not only is there a business and political connection to Goldman Sachs, there is a familial one. Their daughter is married to a Goldman Sachs man, and lives in a $10,500,000.00 apartment . Are these the people that will defend us from the oligarchs?
Hillary Clinton, while incredibly well spoken, speaks with a forked tongue. There is not a nice way to say it. She lies. Just in the last week, she told two whoppers. One was that Nancy Reagan was in the vanguard of those calling for tolerance and help for AIDS victims, and the other was that Bernie Sanders was somehow AWOL when Hillary was working on a healthcare package for here husband, in the early 1990s. As most will recall, the Reagans were not in the vanguard, but straglers, during the AIDS epidemic. And video and still footage, as well as audio demonstrate that she bore false witness against Bernie Sanders. And this compilation of several of her "misstatements", making the rounds this weekend, surprised even me.
Those inclined to vote for Hillary, thinking she is the surer bet to beat the Republicans in November, need to think again. As this data from national polls shows, Bernie would beat Trump by a wider margin than Hillary, and he is the only Democrat that would beat Cruz, Rubio or Kasich.
Vote for Bernie.
If our country is going to survive as a democracy, we've got to get money out of politics. Bernie wants to reform the campaign finance laws, not take advantage of them.
He wants to break up the huge financial institutions that threaten our national security. Their existence, as is, is a sword over our heads. They take risks for which they won't have to suffer the assumed moral hazard. Why? Because we'll be forced to bail them out. They're to big to fail. They hold the whole economy hostage.
Bernie believes these thieves are criminals. He would prosecute them, rather than continuing a two tiered system of justice, where the politically, and financially, connected get a pass and everyone else goes to jail.
Bernie wants to enact single-payer healthcare. Medicare would be for all. Why should we be paying the insurance companies, when we can do this better, together? There are many other reasons I support Bernie Sanders, but these are the ones that first attracted me to him.
Actually, there is one more. His opposition is Hillary Rodham Clinton. In October 2002, she voted to authorize the Iraq War. That war killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women and children. It made refugees of millions and destroyed relics and archaelogical sites going back to ancient Ninevah, in biblical times. Hillary Clinton now claims the war was a mistake, but she doesn't say it was her mistake. Millions of us went into the streets to protest, on February 15, 2003, ahead of the war. We knew it was a mistake. Bernie Sanders knew it was a mistake. Hillary Clinton served on the Senate Intelligence Committee. So did Russ Feingold; he voted against the war (he was also the only Senator to vote against the Patriot Act, as did then Rep. Bernie Sanders; Hillary voted for it). Thirteen years later and Saddam Hussein's unemployed officers are now the general staff of the Islamic State.
Hillary Clinton represents everything that is wrong with politics in our country. She is the recipient of legalized bribery. Why would multiple financial institutions give her and her husband millions of dollars? Because they are such spell binding speakers? While I assume the reason she doesn't want to release the transcripts of her speeches before Democrats vote in their primaries is because she probably mocked the Occupy Wall Street movement, comforted the well heeled audience by telling them she thought they were being unfairly maligned and assured them that she didn't believe in over regulation, the content of her speeches is really irrelevant. It doesn't matter what she said. The speeches were just an excuse to funnel her money. Her husband's administration was a temporary way station for many Wall Street big wigs to sit while they directed the economy to their advantage. Not only is there a business and political connection to Goldman Sachs, there is a familial one. Their daughter is married to a Goldman Sachs man, and lives in a $10,500,000.00 apartment . Are these the people that will defend us from the oligarchs?
Hillary Clinton, while incredibly well spoken, speaks with a forked tongue. There is not a nice way to say it. She lies. Just in the last week, she told two whoppers. One was that Nancy Reagan was in the vanguard of those calling for tolerance and help for AIDS victims, and the other was that Bernie Sanders was somehow AWOL when Hillary was working on a healthcare package for here husband, in the early 1990s. As most will recall, the Reagans were not in the vanguard, but straglers, during the AIDS epidemic. And video and still footage, as well as audio demonstrate that she bore false witness against Bernie Sanders. And this compilation of several of her "misstatements", making the rounds this weekend, surprised even me.
Those inclined to vote for Hillary, thinking she is the surer bet to beat the Republicans in November, need to think again. As this data from national polls shows, Bernie would beat Trump by a wider margin than Hillary, and he is the only Democrat that would beat Cruz, Rubio or Kasich.
Vote for Bernie.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Good riddance, 2015!
I usually don't
think much about years, at the end of one. I can remember what we
did, in what year, but I've never thought of years as good or bad.
Until now. 2015 was bad.
Oh, as every year,
there were the good times on vacation or hiking with my wife, and the
always too short time spent with my daughters. There were parties
with friends, concerts and beer. But, this year, the good didn't
make up for the bad in the final tally. I was humbled to discover my
inadequacy to assuage grief, and struck dumb before the anguish of my
sister, my wife and our niece and nephew.
I am, gratefully,
aware that this would have been much worse without the thoughtfulness
of others. Several times the day was saved by the wisdom, and
perspective, of my children. Days when there was nowhere to turn, I
had the ear of my sister and a couple of close friends. The very
existence of a couple families in our lives brought normalcy and
sanity just when it was needed.
I've experienced
grief before. I've lost best friends, both parents and other
relatives, but the one-two punch of Francis and then Peggy and the
exponential complications accompanying her loss had us reeling.
Hell, we even lost our cat!
It didn't get any
better looking out into the wider world. Religious fanatics, racists
and ordinary lunatics are slaughtering people all over the world.
Our political leaders are no help. They indiscriminately bomb and
assassinate all over the world, with no regard to innocent
bystanders, then wonder why they lose the propaganda war. Old
fashioned racists are being legitimized by demagogues and the
weapons industry is handing any crazy from child soldiers in Africa
to terrorists in Europe to head cases in America a gun.
Looking forward, its
a soiled nest we're leaving our descendants. While the glaciers melt
and the climate changes before our eyes, what passes for statesmen
are denying science itself. In their lust for political and
financial gain, in the short term, they are destroying the
inheritance of their offspring. They are bequeathing a dumber
country and a hotter, wetter, more volatile planet. Geez, the
future's not rosy from this perspective!
OK. I'll pick my
self up, crack open a beer, head out for some music and set off some
fireworks. As my sister says, “what choice do we have?”
But, I miss Francis.
I miss Peggy. And I miss Socks. Piss off, 2015!
Friday, December 04, 2015
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