Ichabod's Kin

May

THE BULLSHIT SCANDALS

English: President George W. Bush with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld outside the Oval Office. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

    Republicans believe that God loves them again. Having lost all foothold on their anti-Obama attacks since his re-election, and staring at the chance of a mid-term electoral disaster, along came some red meat not even of their making.
   Well, the Benghazi smear is their creation, given that it was all they had–before the IRS soiled itself and loose cannons went after journalists including, oh, dear me, some at Fox News. The last two goofs were like manna from heaven, and conservatives have made a gourmet (gormand?) feast of them. But these gifts are full of holes; as Ali said to George Foreman at the Thrilla in Manila, “Is that it, George? Is that all you got?” And this is all theGOP and their Tea Party has got, and it ain’t enough.
   Given their penchant for illogic, the rhetoric goes like this: all the sins of the American right-wing are hereby erased from the Book of Bad. Obama is again the devil incarnate and his religion, birth certificate and Americanism are back on the table. And all that is properly “under investigation, ” totheir minds are confirmed “scandals,” no if, ands, or buts. And the word scandal means, “they’re all Obama’s fault and he should be impeached for them.”
   Never mentioned by their blame-stream press is that among those on the IRS hot seat is a Bush holdover, but, hey, never mind. What else is unmentioned is that they undoubtedly know that all of this is going to go away. But they’ll make the most of it before it does. Not that it won’t be long and drawn out, but when all is said and done there will be nothing but gossamer punching bags. Whatever loss of self-image is suffered by Obama, the American public will either forgive or just decide to forget. That’s not just politics for you, it’s the way Americans treat prezes they otherwise like.
   We forget that other than the avuncular and even grandfatherly image Reagan that had with the populace, there were many points of dislike of his decisions and policies. His poll ratings sank to dangerous lows and a major financial crisis (at the time, the worst since the Great Depression) came during his tenure. Another Republican, George W, gave us a worse economic scare but Obama is trimming down that problem.
   What is lost among the GOP gush of self-righteousness are the silly, stupid things said by folks like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld–that the current brouhaha is the worst thing they’ve seen in their political careers. That is, if you pretend to forget all about 9/11. Peggy Noonan, Reagan’s speech writer, recently played that card but Jon Stewart trumped it on his Daily Show with some reminders of what went on while Peg was serving the Gipper.
   If Benghazi was all the GOP had, that too would be worth looking at but hardly the way they think. Assaults on American presence in foreign lands have been steady and numerous for years, and with far more casualties. Every day we get to hear John McCain’s mantra that “four brave dead Americans” died at Benghazi but I count ten attacks under Bush at both consulates and embassies: two each in Karachi and Yemen and singletons at Islamabad, Istanbul, Kolkata, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Tashkent, from early 2002 to 2008 for a total of 60 casualties. May I add that the number of outraged Republicans at the time was: zero. And Bush got re-elected.
   Reagan was much more economical; he multiplied Bush’s losses in one fell swoop. In his second year in office, U.S. Marines in Beirut suffered 241 losses in a single blow. For that, Obama would be impeached and convicted before being hanged, drawn and quartered. But not Ronnie, and for that he had Democrats to thank as well.
   Reagan decided to tell a story, i.e., a narrative, walking his audience through what happened from beginning to end, hoping the American public might sympathize with the administration’s vulnerability in the face of the unexpected. Here is where we must jump ahead to Hillary Clinton’s appearance before Congress when she said, regarding Benghazi, that we had to take our lessons from what happened and from what can’t be changed, and move on.
   Oh, the outrage! How could she so cavalierly pass off all that tragedy? Now back to Reagan. That’s essentially what he said to us after Beirut. The difference was he wasn’t hauled before Congress where the opposition party could spit on his every remark. He said it in a speech to the nation. And when he did, people, including Democrats and their leaders, said: Okay, got it, let’s move on.
   I suggest we keep our heads now, while others are losing theirs.

Categorized in Politics
Tags: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Foreman, George W. Bush, GOP, IRS, Jhn McCain, John McCain, Muhammad Ali, Obama, Peggy Noonan, Reagan

May

COMPARING PRESIDENTS

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English: President Barack Obama takes a practice putt with a golf club presented to him by golf legend Arnold Palmer prior to the signing ceremony for H.R. 1243, the Arnold Palmer Congressional Gold Medal Act, in the Oval Office, Sept. 30, 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Oval Office (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

    Presidents Day occasioned my annual peek into history, bringing me this time to Eisenhower, about whom no one seems to know jack. But he is vaguely recalled with fondness because time colors current perceptions.
   Ike was commander of all Allied forces in Europe during WWII, and when we and our pals won, he was the biggest winner of all. There was no way Adlai Stevenson was going to beat a war hero for the presidency, though Ike diddled before deciding which party he’d run with, before choosing the GOP.
   Stevenson was perceived as an egghead. A woman once gushed that every intelligent person in the U.S. would vote for him, to which he famously responded, “Regrettably, madam, I need a majority.”
   Ike was seen as a strong leader with, curiously, the demeanor of an old shoe. He was less impressive-looking out of uniform and his advisers told him to hold up his head more during speeches and other appearances so his baldness was less obvious. His evasiveness in press conferences was first viewed as his just being the strong, silent type but soon enough he came across as indecisive and disengaged, and soon the press at last was all over him.
   Part of the disenchantment with Ike was his playing golf too much–800 times in eight years, not counting the many occasions he stepped out of the Oval Office to practice putting. Rich friends even built courses for him in various places, a gifting process that raised eyebrows as influence-buying. Golf pros took exception to his helping himself with ball placement and exaggerating his own scores. But, hey, they had to let the boss win.
   His notoriously queasy stomach was nothing compared to his first-term heart attack, stroke and painful case of ileitis. No help was his violent temper, when a huge vein stood out prominently on his head while he desk-pounded with his massive fists and swore at subordinates. “Goddamit” was his favorite word-bomb. His personal physician said his anger was that of a bear with a butt full of bees.
   When faced with indecision, and though armed with all the facts, Ike went with his gut and instincts, and was usually right, and hugely wrong when he was talked into one more U-2 flight over Russia.
   And let us not forget Sputnik, a dramatic Red-success that made the USSR look more fearsome than it was. Ike didn’t want anyone, including Congress, to know he knew better because prior U-2 flights showed the number of missiles, bombers, nuclear weapons and ICBMs were all in our favor, not the Ruskies. But when they shot down Gary Powers and had both him and the plane, it was a tremendous coup for Krushchev.
   The other thing Americans didn’t know was that the USSR was scared to death of Ike because of his military reputation. His eight-year problem was not them but our generals who wanted outlandish expenditures for weapons when we already had an extreme advantage in case of war, something the enemy knew as well.
   Hawkish voices in Congress and the military’s insane wish to go back into war, constantly scared Americans, and Eisenhower’s famous warning about the “military-industrial complex” actually included Congress, making it a triad.
   Ike didn’t want war and didn’t believe in “small” ones because he knew they have a way of becoming big ones. But had he been pushed, he would have gone all-out to win.
   The U-2 had already made multiple flights over Russia when the twenty-fourth fell into enemy hands. It ruined the four-nation summit in Paris that Ike dearly hoped would end the arms race and become his lasting legacy.
   Americans live and breathe on anecdotes about past and present, but you’d think past presidents could give us some perspective regarding the current one.
   An incident akin to Sputnik would raise holy hell today, not to mention a felled U.S. spy plane–the existence of which Ike had kept from Congress; and Benghazi seems tame compared to Ike being totally in the dark about the Israelis secretly building a nuclear reactor with the help of England and France, something that pissed him off mightily. What is called Obama’s “anger” is virtually imperceptible compared to Ike’s, and Barack can in no way risk being seen as an angry black man. And if our current prez played basketball as often as Eisenhower played golf (not to mention his frequent bridge games) he would be called lazy and disengaged. And if he sat and wrote long sappy doggerel to Michelle for hours while on duty in the Oval Office, it wouldn’t be considered wonderful love poetry but a huge waste of presidential time.
   Someday we’ll look back fondly on Obama’s tenure, and invoke his name when roasting future prezes. That will also be the day too when the GOP has wised-up and the Tea Party has drowned in the Potomac.
   But it’s worth mentioning that, queasy stomach and all, when our generals toured a Nazi death camp, it wasn’t Ike who puked–but ol’ George “Blood and Guts” Patton. Truth is stranger than fiction.

Categorized in Politics
Tags: Cold War, Eisenhower, Gen. George Patton, Obama, presidential anger, Reagan, Soviet Union, the Missile Gap

Apr

A Holy Mess

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The Roman Catholic Church, in this post-Easter season, ledby a
new and promising pope, should declare a world-wide Year of
Mourning for all children abused by priests and others.

During this time, it would be wise to remove all those guilty of such crimes, release their names, and place all relevant Church sanctions against them while providing secular law enforcement with information helpful to prosecution for civil crimes. This will allow, following a year of Confessional services, a fresh and important start for Catholicism and for religion in general throughout the world.

This is a time when one may make the mistake of a fatal pause so as not to offend friends, acquaintances and society at large, or risk a reputation for tolerance and even-handedness when dealing with the faults of others.
   Especially is this so in the matter of religion where, in the Western world, Christians have so often turned into lions and devoured their enemies and competitors, both real and perceived.
   To be sure, the sins of recent decades that have been documented within the Roman Church have been pervasive throughout Protestantism and its many sects. Any religious movement, mainstream or minimal, has been guilty of like moral and social transgressions.
   The Catholic Church claims 1.1 billion adherents world-wide. In the U.S., there are far more within its communion than the top ten Protestant denominations combined. It is also hard for Protestants and other sects to admit that the Roman institution is the pace-setter in so many religious endeavors, both for good and for ill.
   The child of one Catholic parent, I have no brief against Catholicism or its followers. When I entered the Protestant ministry my father assumed I would wish or insist that he follow me into my denomination as a matter of familial and emotional support. I knew that he remained Catholic more than anything, regardless of his estrangement from it since the Mexican Revolution of the early 20th century when the Church there sided with the government and the wealthy landowners against the oppressed and poverty-stricken laborers.
   Indeed, he came to this country to start over following that conflict and was loathe thereafter to enter the doors of a cathedral. At the time of my ministerial decision, he softened considerably, leading to his suggestion that he follow me in my religious direction. In a moment of mutual reflection, I was sure that in his own heart his place was in the Church of his youth and family and, if so, I would accompany him to meet the local priest and begin his restoration to that faith. He did return to its fold and at his death was buried following the appropriate Mass in his name.
   I say this to defend myself against accusations, sure to come, that I have animus toward a faith that is not my own. I have deep appreciation for the rituals and practices of Catholicism; Protestantism is a faith largely of words–hence the centrality of pulpits in its chancels. Catholicism touches the emotional and unspoken in human experience via the sacraments and the Mass itself.
   But the Church and its considerable weight is in all our faces regardless of religious preference; it fills news reports at any given time; and lesser congregations in smaller communities know all too well how that weight affects their lives and social standing.
   In my own religious studies, I have followed the Catholic Church’s history and stayed current with its affairs since the early 1960s. I remember well another pope of great promise, Angelo Guiseppe Roncalli, who became Pope John XXIII–the one who “opened the windows of the Church and let in the fresh air.” He convened the Vatican Council that made people of all faiths hope again that its vast institution would begin leading the world of faith to be what it was called to be.
   I followed also the career of Joseph Ratzinger who in time became Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith–the direct descendant of the infamous Roman Inquisition of the mid-second millenium. I followed as well his efforts to dismantle the legacy of John XXIII with stunning effectiveness until recent times when one could hardly recognize it except for overt symbolisms such as priests facing congregations during masses. It is painful to say so, but by the time he became Pope Benedict XVI, he was effectively the Dick Cheney of the Church–the one behind the scenes who wielded far more influence that was deserved, in the interests of the institution.
   Before his accession to the papacy, Ratzinger also singularly held all the information regarding the disgraceful actions of abusive priests and higher-ups, which gave him additional power that calls to mind the FBI’s infamous J. Edgar Hoover and his hold on countless persons in crucial positions.
   Make no mistake, Benedict was the choice of Pope John Paul II, his predecessor. Both knew the devastating effects of the child abuse scandal, what they had failed to do to correct it, and how it could bring down the entire Roman hierarchy. It has been Benedict who has tried to hasten the elevation of John Paul II to sainthood to pre-empt the stain on his reputation. But the tentacles of the scandal could only embrace Benedict as well, even more so.
   And this is the back-story to Benedict’s resignation: there was no way he could shake the looming cloud except to step down and pray that his own successor might protect his memory as well. It is not altogether clear that this will come about during the papacy of Francis, who seems to have his own mind regarding the role and direction of the Church.
   Francis has begun well, with an abundance of symbolic moves and postures that indicate a change in direction. But popes, like U.S. presidents, have not as much power as we may think or wish. Francis will have to move quickly to mount a trend that can withstand the forces that will assail him within the Vatican and from among the backward and conservative Cardinals, the preponderance of whom were appointed by the prior two popes.
   John XXIII made the ingenious move of calling the famous Council of the 1960s and setting its agenda. Indeed, once in motion, it was temporarily unstoppable and cut a wide swath that would have been even wider and deeper save for the death of that pontiff. That is when Ratzinger and his retrogressive cohorts moved to reverse the gains so dearly made.
   One can only imagine how far that perverse influence may have gone beyond even our times, had not fate, or God(?), intervened with the child abuse scandal that would not die.
   If Francis can mount a new revolution and live long enough to see it through, we and the world could see the rebirth of the Roman Church as a leading edge of a Christianity whose work in the world may be far from done.
   Any moves to flush out and rid the Church of the disobedient priests must include investigation and revelation of the sins of both John Paul II and Benedict XVI–as well as Cardinal Bernard Law, who was by no means “banished” to Rome as many think, but as a means of escape from his considerable sins and legal liability in the American scandal, and from whence he lives in wealth and splendor as priest of a major “Chapel” in the shadow of the Vatican.
   Until such impediments are removed from the face and soul of the Catholic Church, redemption cannot come. And God knows, they, and we all, need it, so that if religion is to mean anything again it will begin with that oldest and (formerly) grandest of Christian expressions.
   Otherwise, this will be a Holy Mess without end. And who wants that?

English: Pope Benedict XVI (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Categorized in Religion
Tags: Benedict, Catholic Church, Catholicism, Church, Pope Benedict XVI, Pope Francis, Pope John Paul II, Pope John XXIII, Rome

Mar

BLACK HISTORY MONTH

LET’S SEE: THIS MONTH IS…

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    …Black History Month or, what white folks call, “February.”
   Few persons use this time to find out things they don’t know. What was Jim Crow? Who was Frederick Douglass? How on earth did this country, “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal,” come so soon to tolerate slavery? Does anybody read a book anymore?
   Some people still think blacks should stop whining and thinking they see racism everywhere; after all, wasn’t there an Emancipation Proclamation, and a war to defend it? And just to re-make the point, didn’t we have a Civil Rights movement a hundred years later? What escapes them is why, indeed, we had to re-make the point a century after.
   My previous blog post was on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (“Long Live The King), regarding my experiences, with three young black men, all members of the NAACP, on our way to Atlanta for the King funeral in 1968, with harrowing excursions into Baltimore and a dead-of-night Virginia countryside.
   Let me that on our return to Pennsylvania, people found our reports hard to believe: they believed first, and only, the media and even then harbored suspicions.
   Of course Southerners like me knew and understood because we were, and are, used to racism as a thing writ large, having seen beatings or knew even of lynchings, right up to mid-20th century America.
   Northerners seemed not acquainted with racism up close. They were still surprised, when King marched in Chicago, that all those adorable fonzies turned out to pelt him with rocks, bricks and bottles. But that’s why King went there–otherwise Chicagoans would have denied their racism.
   Such has been my experience since migrating north many years ago. People knew of early segregation in Boston and the whole ugly integration-and-busing controversy, but few knew the face of racism up front and personal.
   As a young clergyman in Missouri, and not far from my own hometown, my very suggestion of a pulpit exchange with a black minister for a single Sunday–after the church board had approved it–occasioned my being met on the street and in public buildings with a hail of fists and spittle, including by members of my congregation.
   A clergyman newly arrived was always met with instant respect, and could risk that only by gross betrayal. Preaching racial equality was such a betrayal and you had to see to believe the change in faces that go from friendly to the hardest cast of expression imaginable.
   Local threats to burn the church finally induced the elders to revoke my invitation to the black minister. I suggested that if it burned we would wear such disgrace like a badge of honor, for there could be no denial of what our town was really like. To no avail: hearts went out to the lovable old building, though a visit several years later found it filled with junk and replaced by a new, flat, tasteless place of worship in another part of town.
   This is not to say that all the town was racist, but better people allowed it to happen–viz, the truism that evil triumphs when good people do nothing.
   Racism is a deep and insidious sickness of the human heart and soul. When I heard, after the church bombing in Birmingham in the 60s, some northerners say that the perpetrators must have regretted that children were victims, I could but marvel. That kind of racist absolutely doesn’t care. They believe that “little ones turn into big ones” and the age and time of their demise is of little consequence.
   During this month, among my reading is the autobiography of Frederick Douglass. Though brief, it is more than instructive of a way of life that really wasn’t all that long ago. If you read nothing else, read that, and remember.
   I have walked my local Ward with petitions and each time have been surprised how many black persons live nearby. One always spoke with me through a crack in the door, her face not showing. To all of them I said that I was delighted to have them as neighbors and wished I saw them more frequently on our streets and downtown.
   Then I remembered: regardless of all that we think has changed, racism hasn’t gotten up on little hind legs and walked away. We need to assure our African American neighbors that they are at home in our town.
   If they don’t feel that way, whose fault is that? After all, it’s easy for us to forget, but not for them.

Categorized in Uncategorized
Tags: Black History Month, Frederick Douglass, Jim Crow, Racism, Slavery

Jan

Long Live the King

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English: Dr. Martin Luther King giving his “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington in Washington, D.C., on 28 August 1963. Español: Dr. Martin Luther King dando su discurso “Yo tengo un sueño” durante la Marcha sobre Washington por el trabajo y la libertad en Washington, D.C., 28 de agosto de 1963. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

    January’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day ushers in February, the newer incarnation of which is Black History Month. Both are times that memories flood my mind.
   During the last year of Martin Luther King’s life, I was vice president and Housing chairman of a Pennsylvania branch of the NAACP. With influence far beyond our few numbers we negotiated many issues with city leaders who assumed we were hordes of angry black people ready to threaten the peace at any provocation.
   What the city fathers didn’t know, or deign to find out, was that whites were among our active members. When asked to serve as president, as a Mexican-American, I felt African Americans should always lead that distinguished movement at all levels.

                                             Baltimore 1968
   When King, Jr. was assassinated, a delegation of four headed to Atlanta for the memorial–three young black officers and me. We took my car late at night, one of my companions drove while I slept in a back seat till the driver mistakenly drove off the interstate and into Baltimore, which was under strict curfew and resembled a ghost town. As owner of the car I retook the wheel to try and find quick exit from the city, but my first turn took us headlong into a phalanx of Baltimore’s finest, who surrounded us but pulled only me from the auto.
   Blacks were, and are, used to abusive police treatment. Ironically, the police didn’t know what to do with me. We learned later that many areas were under orders to avoid mistreatment of blacks lest it incite more riots. At first I was assumed to be white, another irony that could have been worse for me, but one of the men in blue wasn’t so sure.
   Shoved firmly again the car, I took a barrage of repeated questions while title and registration were checked. All my responses were made quietly and I avoided vociferously demanding “my rights,” to avoid an emotional reaction on the part of law enforcement. I was asked if my surname were African and I repeatedly said I was a person of color, and left them to figure it out from there.
   From the blare of police radio reports, more urgent incidents elsewhere were deemed more threatening than we were. Finally the officer in charge ordered me back in the car and barked rapid-fire directions that none of us could understand or remember; told us to get out of Baltimore and, if found again, we would be subject to arrest.
   The rest was like a movie: finding ourselves quickly lost again, we saw that the broad, empty city avenues had at every few corners a sole armed policeman with a dog. I drove the middle of the streets while the passenger seat occupant asked for the nearest highway exit. Perhaps unthinking, the solitary sentry gave clear directions while we roared off and he yelled orders for us to stop. A couple of quick turns brought us to the interstate exit–but the “up” ramp was blocked. Terrified, we hung onto our seats as I sped up the down ramp.
   But a convoy of National Guardsmen appeared and came right at us on their way into the city. Everything happened so fast: I pulled to one side of the ramp at high speed, right tires off the pavement, and we flew past the sleepy-eyed faces of Guardsmen deployed from home in the mid of night.
   On the interstate again, there were no other cars at the moment, but we were speeding south on north-bound lanes–daring not to go north and have to take an exit again–and had to cross the median before we were caught going the wrong way. In most places, the median was too deep to cross and elsewhere not shallow enough to chance a crossing. But as a few headlights appeared in the distance, we felt little choice: again we held tight and went flying towards the other lanes, wheel treads biting into whatever ground was solid enough to keep our momentum.
   Safely back on our way, no one said a word for several miles, till one of my black colleagues said, “You sure know how to ‘talk soft’ to policemen, don’t you?” and we all burst into loud, nervous laughter.

                            Virginia–and On to Atlanta
   Thereafter the trip included a risky mid-of-night stop at a black farm home in the Virginia countryside, childhood home of one of our quartet, where remaining family had waited up for us, warm food at the ready. They were so proud of their son’s involvement in the King-led struggle for equality, and smiles were all around. I had not known of this planned detour but it began to grow on me that this could become a desperate situation: if anyone–anyone– white had seen us on the way in, things could take a terrible turn, only because I might be mistaken for a white man.
   Anyone who knows of the fate of the three young whites who had been killed and buried in Philadelphia, Mississippi only a year later, can guess why I was unnerved. Soon enough, however, we were on our way again.
   Arrival in Atlanta included our staying in a black hotel, and word spread quickly that there might be a white person among them, leading to concern as to who I was and why I was there. As we settled into our room heads burst in the door demanding reason for my presence. My colleagues had to say repeatedly, “He’s cool, he’s one of us in NAACP.”
   After little sleep we took to Atlanta’s streets, roaming from demonstration to demonstration and speech after fiery speech while high-profile civil rights leaders urged calm amid the tense emotions. I stopped in one of the more well-known black restaurants and saw Jesse Jackson at a table with a colleague; I sat but momentarily to say hello, given that he and I knew each other from the same floor of the same dorm while we were in seminary in Chicago only three years before.
   While there, Jesse was known as a quiet and highly-respected, up-and-coming black leader. He was part of Operation Breadbasket in the city but few knew how close he had become, in short order, to Dr. King. At this moment he was still emotionally shock-worn from being at King’s side when the leader was gunned down in Memphis. The memorial was in Atlanta because it was King’s home and where he had grown up in his dad’s local congregation, the Ebeneezer Baptist Church. And that is where the son would lie in state as lines thronged the streets and sidewalks around the building to view him for the last time.
   As for Jesse, only later would he become the face of the movement, known for sharp and inspirational oratory–and in time a presidential candidate.
   A last memory is of my being the campus of Spelman College, a black women’s institution, because of word that a major demonstration might occur there. Though outdoors and on spacious grounds, we were all packed in like sardines. Physical balance was not an easy thing to keep, and when a cry went up–perhaps only a rumor–that a car had passed carrying Bobby Kennedy, the sea of humanity surged in that direction. Despite all that had happened en route to Atlanta, my most fearful moment came as we all became powerless to the surge.
   I’m certain that all knew, as I did, that to fall was to risk being trampled. Each person pushed against the other, hoping not to lose balance. Some in parts of the crowd did fall and I have no idea what their fate may have been. But the very thought of that moment resurrects the terror of that time.
   People find it hard to believe that our vulnerability throughout the journey, from Baltimore to Atlanta, are matters that I thought absolutely nothing of for many years. But then again, it wasn’t so long ago. Now, on reflection, I keenly realize that it was perilous odyssey.
   At the time, we were just young soldiers in King, Jr.’s army. As we all know, he didn’t live a long time. But long may he live.

Categorized in Race in America
Tags: Atlanta, Baltimore, Jesse Jackson, King, Martin Luther King, Spelman College

Nov

Obama Up, Petraeus Down

THE MOST SURPRISING CANDIDATE

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    Pardon the hiatus, but I suspended further comment because I had said all that was needed in the earlier days of the campaign and up until April. Those who wish to revisit my blog posts in the Politics category will find the following:
   1. That Mitt Romney would be the Republican nominee, when the anti-Romney cloud first gathered in the GOP and Herman Cain, Rick Perry and Newt Gingrich successively became front-runners in polls of Republican preference. Cain was a bad joke, played not on the nation as on the GOP faithful; and can we imagine what a fine cut of a president Perry would make with his aw-shucks, knee-slapping folks-isms that can only go over in a state like Texas, but not at the expense of, say, foreign heads of state where nuance and real brains are required. And we tired of Newt Gingrich touted as the “intellectual” center of the party.
   2. That Obama was and is smarter than all of them–not to say it is he alone but in tandem with those in his inner circle and other brain-trusts accessible to him at a moment’s notice. I truly believe the GOP leadership sensed that early on and felt that they had to strike quick and hard to cast the president as an idiot. But the prez is far too cool for that and has brilliantly outflanked them.
   3. That an Obama-Romney showdown would and will result in the former’s re-election, though that pairing is infinitely better than any others the Republican base flirted with at the expense of their own time and self-image. As this election plays out, we will see that Barack will survive not only an intransigent Congress and a brutal Tea Party, but the steady drum-beat of a major news organization (Fox News) devoted to nothing short of his political demise. There must be a god somewhere.
   Here’s what I didn’t count on: I predicted that candidate debates in this case would provide a more reasonable forum in which the real differences between modern liberalism and conservatism would be manifest; and that the electorate would clearly see that and reject the latter. But I didn’t guess that, pre-debate, Romney would be such an inept campaigner: everything that is bad about current day Republicanism has surfaced in his preachments and he has become his own worst enemy. Worse, he seems clueless regarding these gaffes and, while seeking to avoid repeats of the exact misakes, is totally unclear on the concepts at stake that should warn him what not to say regarding other issues.
   I also had predicted that Mitt would avoid making McCain’s kind of mistake regarding a running mate. Clearly, he could and would not name someone who might outshine him, but he could have done better than Paul Ryan if he really wanted to take his case to the people with a heavyweight at his back. When he introduced Ryan to the musical strains of what could be called a Wagner-esque rendering of “Twilight of Godzilla,” out skips this shave-tail of a choice. Forget about Ryan being athletic–everyone in your local gym these days is buff enough to look as fit. In a trice, Paul tried to play on his athletic repute by exaggerating his marathon-time. Now, no one forgets their real time on such occasions, just as Barbara Bush deftly refuted Bill Clinton’s supposedly poor memory on how often he met with Monica by saying that no man forgets any and every blow-job he ever got.
   Ryan already is seen less and less on the trail, and that’s not good for Romney since henceforth he gets to make all the mistakes.
   I am on the verge now of predicting an Obama landslide, and let me say this about that before my critics begin to scream again: when I said those many months ago that it would be an Obama-Romney runoff, I got heat from both the political left and right–after which I received apologies from those with the grace to offer them. And I remind readers when Reagan trailed Carter into October of their campaigns and, yep, Reagan won by a landslide.
   “Landslides” are not about one candidate drubbing another in total votes but refers to all those running for office nationwide who benefit from the “coattails” of the head of their ticket–in that case, Reagan. I’m not read to say so yet in this instance but it is conceivable because if Romney continues to fall apart, it will inflame not only Obama’s “base” but all others who have been on the sidelines but will turn out to be on the side of the November’s winner.
   Oh, of course, nothing is sealed in stone. All kinds of things can happen, and do, in elections where so much is at stake. But none is apt to occur in 2012, aside from spotty instances where the Tea Party may luck out with another brat or two.
   I’m grateful for Romney because with any other candidate from his party, this political season would have been a total joke. He is also killing the Tea Party, having thrown cold water on their string of prior successes; presently, they don’t know whether to crap or go blind, as we say in the Ozarks–having been one-upped by a real populist movement in the Occupy phenomenon and lacking their previous enthusiasm.
   So, for all of Obama’s cool craftiness throughout a bad economy that was none of his doing; high unemployment; and explosive surprises in the Middle East and elsewhere, it is Romney who is the Surprise candidate.
   And if things continue to implode in his camp, we may be looking at landslide. Or something close to it.

Categorized in Uncategorized
Tags: Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Occupy movement, Potential political landslide, Tea Party

Apr

TITANIC ILLUSIONS

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    This is April 14, the day in 1912 that the world’s biggest metaphor hit an iceberg. On board, John Jacob Astor, the fourth by that name in the family dynasty, was heard to say: “I rang for ice, but this is ridiculous.”
   The Boston Red Sox had just built a new ballpark that would last to the present day, but the sea-borne tragedy muted the glee of Opening Day.
   Every year, there’s always someone who declares April 15, now our tax deadline, as the fateful time and indeed that is when the unsinkable actually sank, into the deep, dark sea. But it hit ice not long before midnight of the fourteenth then took some three hours to disappear.
   For a hundred years, the Titanic’s crew, design and the first passing ship that failed to assist, have been blamed for the tragedy and have lived in disgraced memory. Newer research shows otherwise: historically high tides had broken off monumental bergs and lifted them to where they otherwise wouldn’t have been, and viewes both of the ice and the imperiled liner were distorted. Emergency flares from the doomed vessel appear shorter and were interpreted as less than indicative of danger.
   All in all, a perfect storm and even more a parable of human presumptiveness–belief that every stride in science and technology is the ultimate symbol that it, and we, are indestructible: another step in our wising up as a species.
   Imagine: all those people on the voyage of their lives, living a history that they would also die in. No doubt they would rather have lived to pay their taxes–the month of March that year marked the first levy on income, the one that ended the big party in Newport, Rhode Island and wherever the poor smothered rich gathered for seemingly endless fun and games.
   Suddenly a devastating jolt, a rude awakening that occasioned immediate decisions (women and children only in the boats), hastily kissing dear ones goodbye, while a fateful hymn played in the ballroom. And then oblivion.
   Turns out many of the early lifeboats moved away from the ship with far less than full occupancy. Those who fell, or dived, into the drink were dead in fifteen minutes from hypothermia.
   It’s a sobering remembrance and memorial, that at the height of life’s next party, a berg of sorts may be ahead, a reminder that we walk a narrow tightwire in life–or a narrow railing of a sinking ship that, for all its hype, cannot save us.

Categorized in Uncategorized
Tags: 1912; Fenway Park, Boston Red Sox, Personal Income Tax; Newport, Rhode Island, The Titanic;, The Titanic; John Jacob Astor; April 14

Mar

Of Game-Change, Cinderella, and the Supremes

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    The HBO documentary, “Game Change,” regarding the weird inclusion of Sarah Palin into the GOP presidential campaign of 2008, is as the title suggests, about the attempt of the McCain team to rearrange the dynamics of a failing election enterprise.
   McCain, his wife and the Palin family all said they would not watch the program, and that’s the most unbelievable aspect of all the hoopla surrounding the film. Of course they watched, even if they had to hide in order to avoid detection. Sarah’s sucker-eyes for media attention (also revealed in the doc) surely were all over it with rapt fascination.
   In doing so, she must have been surprised and mystified that, rather than a hatchet-job, everything in the narration was recognizable and portrayed fairly, whether or not she liked what she saw. Her family certainly was treated with sympathy, from her relation to all of them to the poignant little prayer session with her daughter just before the debate with Joe Biden.
   McCain too was shown as a sensitive guy who, despite his growing reservations about her choice for the ticket, gave her every break he could in his mind and behavior, and refused to blame her for one of the greatest

Lost Causes

since the Civil War.
   The real problem is that those most responsible, and thus guiltiest, for that train wreck are those who were judged by critics and the viewing public as wise counselors to John and Sarah and somehow victims of the charade. Oh, no: they dreamed up that “game-change” and virtually foisted it on the aspirant from Arizona. Their attempts to put a good face on Sarah’s rogue-ish comportment were the best they could do with hindsight, regardless that film fans all love Woody Harrelson and the gravitas he brought to this role.
   Much as I dislike Palin, the mistake was not hers. She was thrown as a brand into the burning, and in no way could have master-minded her way into a role that others deserved vastly more: Kay Bailey Hutchinson didn’t hear of the choice till the day all the world was notified, and must have wondered that if the Party needed a woman with McCain, what the hell was she–chopped liver?.
   I wonder how many viewers did not secretly have sympathy for Palin in that regard, imagining as we often do with story-principals, how we would fare in such a situation where we were called on to perform that for which we were unsuited. Palin was not only a Cinderella but one whose religious beliefs came into play, and it’s best to read the book itself, which came out in 2010.
   Palin’s faith includes the nutty little notion that God was laying his hands on her life as one chosen to rescue this nation from all those anecdotal sins drummed into loyal viewers of Fox News. Like their program fare, her mind is anything but “fair and balanced,” and the team’s worry that she was falling off the rails was well-placed. She can function well enough in a corner of the universe, like Wasilla, but she was woefully out of place on the grand stage where we choose the leader of the free world.
   But everything going on in the U.S. these days, given the bizarre leanings of too many citizens, including those who supposedly hold college degrees, is driven by attempts on the part of desperate masterminds and their minions to “change the game,” and to besmirch truth, decency, and ethics by the most egregious means, in the process.
   One need only look to the present Supreme Court and its “deliberations,” if so they may be called, into the health care plan approved by Congress. It is blatantly political, and the esteemed Supremes–after their Bush-Gore outrage and the more recent nonsense that made “individuals” of corporations–are up to more mischief, this time over the well-being of Americans most at risk by our health system.
   Only Justice Kennedy stands in the way of this, and he can be like a drunk on a barstool: you never know which way he’s going to fall. If the law is nullified, the conservatives on the Court once again will have handed the GOP an election-season tool against Obama.
   How in the world the prez stands up to the forces arrayed against him, I don’t know. From the nut-case pretenders who lined up to savage him in the guise of “debates”; to being saddled with all the blame stored up by his predecessor; to a major news network whose support of the GOP is not even thinly-veiled, he has somehow survived and, for now, is ahead of Romney in the polls.
   And it’s only the beginning of April–meaning seven more months of opportunity for liars, nay-sayers, twits, ninnies, ne-er-do-wells and sonsofbitches to seize on any and every happenstance to mess with the minds of an unthinking public. Call them puppet-masters and puppets.
   By all standards, one would think the devil would win this presidential campaign, yet more and more of the populace are seeing through things and coming to their senses.
   And that’s gotta be hard on Sarah’s theology. What stands to happen is that all these pranks get their comeuppance in November, knocking wind out of the Tea Party sails and at least restoring a losing GOP as a more sensible arm of American politics.

Categorized in Politics

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