My Hometown

 

My Hometown

 

         Recent media attention has been brought to bear on The Villages, where I and about 130,000 others live, because three residents have been identified as having voted illegally. There are several issues I have with the coverage. The Villages, for those who don’t know, is an age 55 plus community in Central Florida northwest of Orlando. The name stems from the original design of small, localized communities, or “villages,” clustered around what has grown to four town centers. Town centers have entertainment venues such as movie houses, restaurants, etc.) The Villages has taken Sumter County Florida from poorest to one of the richest counties in the state. Part of this reflects that fact that we all pay school tax but none of us have kids in school.

         Back to the issue: First off, that (three out of 130,000) represents a whopping .00023 percent of the residents and all three were seasonal and voted both here and in their home state. This is probably the lowest actual statistic for illegal voting to be found in any similar sized population sample. They all did vote Republican, by the way but some reports seemed to stress the party affiliation as if the Villages were entirely Republican, which it is not. Rather the partisan split here is about 55% Red, 45% Blue and, as an aside, several life-long Republicans I personally interact with would have eaten broken glass rather than vote for the ex-President, party notwithstanding.

        Second, and even more egregiously in error, was one article which cited “The hedonistic Villages.” In the opening sentence! While definitions vary. The implication is that much of what all residents do is somehow on or over the borderline of “respectable” behavior. Secondarily, it implies dedication to self-pleasure over all else.

        As an eleven-year resident, I can categorically call bullshit on that implication. Villagers are, as a whole, a health conscious and physically active community with the following indices: More, and more active, churches that any similar sized area in the state. Far more volunteerism via service clubs such as Churches, Rotary and Lions and more than that through individual volunteerism such as mentoring at risk students, meals for homebound individuals, and even outreach programs related to families living off the grid in the Ocala National Forest.

        University of Florida studies over two decades have found The Villages as a demographic to be the healthiest senior population in America. It’s easy to figure out why that is. There are age group specific men’s and women’s softball leagues, numerous yoga, and many other exercise classes at all the regional recreation centers as well as water aerobics and other low impact fitness regimes. On days when I  have an early tee time (we have more holes of golf than anywhere else in the world) I will see, on my way to the course, numerous dogs walking their owners, frequently in twos and threes, runners, joggers, speed walkers and every type of bicycle imaginable from recumbent to two passenger tandems as well as the ubiquitous racing bikes, whose pelotons are out early in groups of 10 to 30 riders. All day at the regional rec centers one hears the sound of pickleball, a lower impact tennis sport as well as regular tennis. There are too many sport and family swimming pools to count. Bocce courts (and leagues) abound as do shuffleboard and petanqe courts.

        Villagers routinely bring home a huge medal count from both Florida and National Senior Games annually.

        So why the “hedonistic” label? In brief, a book and a movie painted the entire population with a brush which bears little or no semblance to the truth. The book, entitled “Leisureville” was written by an individual whose stated viewpoint was that Seniors should remain in their local communities until they move to assisted living or whatever lies in store. Of course, this also means that for many, if not most, an end game of isolation, boredom and, in too many, cases lethargy and physical decline due primarily to inactivity. As a backhanded swipe, since his premise is tragically flawed, he also decided to find several sexually promiscuous residents (one actually, a single male who hung out (not literally, thank you) at a local watering hole and often hooked up with someone. He then, by implication, left the impression that The Villages is little more than a giant swinger’s club. T’ain’t even remotely such.

        Now here’s the rub: the author apparently believes this behavior, not so uncommon to 20 to 30 to 40 something single males in bars across Orlando or any place with a one hundred thousand plus population, is scandalous for fifty-five plus consenting individuals. There are several things wrong here. The man interviewed cited a “ten women for every man” gender distribution, which is actually about a “ten to nine” proportion, so his narrative begins with a lie. If I picked one male slut out of a mixed group of 20 to 40-year-olds in Orlando and extrapolated that to the entire population, I would be laughed out of town.

        Additionally, while, in the first place, what any consenting age adults do is their business, regardless of age, in my 11 years as a resident I have never seen or even heard anecdotal confirmation of any behavior similar to what the author of Leisureville would like the reader to believe is commonplace.

        The film I referred to is a later pseudo-documentary where the filmmaker managed to find four somewhat pathetic individuals who were less than happy with their lives and happened to live in the Villages. Their litanies of woe were not unique and, even more to the point, not even actually related to their living here. Nevertheless, while not as bad or outright fallacious as Leisureville, the film maker’s intent seemed to be to somehow link all these individual’s (4 out of over 100,000, remember!) to their living in the Villages. If that were true, why not move? (Because it isn’t true) _

        It seems to me that the real issue of dealing with the myths surrounding The Villages can best be banished by observing firsthand and that is what Dave Barry (you know, a real author from Florida with published creds?) did. In his recent book “Best State Ever” he recounts a three day stay here while preparing the text. While acknowledging that he had heard the “Leisureville” claims of debauchery, he essentially calls bullshit on it all. In fact, the only even close to negative comment (and it was tongue in cheek) is that line dancers at the town squares even line dance to slow numbers. (it’s true!)  

        So meanwhile, here we are. So, what is there to do? There is some sort of live theatrical and/or musical event essentially every night during the winter months, including a Broadway season package. Here is a snapshot from Monday December 13th. On that night, Emily and I went to a Classic Albums Live presentation of Led Zeppelin IV at the eight hundred seat Savannah Center (superb!). The Studio Theater (a two hundred or so seat “Black Box”) had a play entitled “The Cake” and the Polo Grounds hosted an open-air golf cart drive in concert by Absolute Queen, a really good tribute band from Tampa. Meanwhile at the Sharon Morse theater, a state-of-the-art 1200 seat venue, David Foster and (wife) Kathryn McPhee were in concert. If none of those suited, there were live bands at all three town centers as there are every night from 5 to 9 pm.

        Of course, there numerous daytime things to do, from quilting guilds, discussion groups, clubs of all descriptions, to choral groups, various instrumental groups from brass bands to chamber orchestras (we have a ton of retired symphonic players here) drama clubs, continuing education courses, book clubs, various Trivia groups, and the list goes on.

A I reflect on my grandparents’ senior years, I realize how much has changed regarding the “place” of seniors in society and now that I am one, at age 79, I realize just how important remaining active and engaged is. The Villages actually revolves around that concept. And just for the record, in 11 years I have never been accosted by any roving gangs of sex mad grannies.            

General Nattering

 

        I am sick to the point of puke of the entire “influencer” concept. It is understandable when persons of actual education and proven experience gain the approbation and respect of peers. It is another when shallow, sallow, and callow teens sit in front of their webcam and somehow magically acquire knowledge and cachet with zero actual creds. It’s even sadder when a pre-adolescent says that they’d like to be “an influencer” when they grow up. How very Kardashian!

        There seems to have been a recent explosion of new monoclonal antibody-based drugs with certain common features. Among these features are:

        Many are claimed to be improved treatments for syndromes of actual ailments which now have new catchy acronyms, such as IBS, RA, SLE, PCOS, etc. (and I have heard sufferers flaunt the acronym as if it were the Red Badge of Courage) However, this more recently amounts to, in some cases,  the promotion or creation of a disease out of a non-pathologic physical condition accompanied by the promotion of “new” medications.

These “new” treatments (of Pharma and well compensated MDs choice) have been given “catchy” names with too few vowels and astronomical prices, and list of side effects which sounds like biological warfare. I don’t know how many of these end in “ezza” but it’s a bunch. Apparently “ezza” is an old Viking word for “Immortal, destined for Valhalla.”

        I am still trying to get my head around the idea that any sentient human with an IQ over “turnip” would actually believe that John F. Kennedy Jr. had faked his own death and planned to return to the site of his father’s assassination in Dallas. This seems sort of like Jesus coming back and choosing to do it on Calvary. Qanon espoused the conspiracy theory that Kennedy Jr. did not die in a plane crash after all and is set to be America's next vice president when Donald Trump is swept back into the White House. A fair-sized crowd actually gathered at Dealey Plaza on November 9^th. The late, late president’s son failed to materialize (surprise!). One assumes the assembled morons all later embellished their Facebook pages with “safe from Zombie JFK Jr.”

        Right off the top, I’ll cop to being a Sci Fi fan for most of my life. I also freely admit to buying my fair share of Batman and Superman comics as a youngster. I actually read the book versions of many classics, later to become movies, such as Dune, Martian Chronicles, The Martian, All the HG Wells books, etc. I also spent a fair amount of time laughing my ass off at a pudgy Adam West as Batman, even though it was obvious he was camping it up. Before that there was George Reeves trying to look like a Superman.

        One of the “fun” aspects of Sci Fi is the concept of suspended disbelief. Done right (“Alien,” “Blade Runner,” “Star Wars”) it can be brilliant. Done badly, (Plan Nine from Outer Space) it can be hilarious in its inadequacy. Yeah, I know, “So what?” So, I honestly believe that two semi-related phenomena have been created by Covid 19 and the social isolation it engendered.

        The first is the seemingly never-ending stream of Marvel and Marvel spinoff superhero films. I admit to loving the first several, but like even Butter Pecan ice cream, a constant diet of them (for me) leads to gradual lessening enthusiasm. The same is true (again, for me) of the Star Wars spinoffs. The first several were good but as “space westerns” there is a sameness of type which eventually palls.

        The second, is the increasingly escapist nature of mainstream network programming. “La Brea?” really? Sixty-five million years of evolution on hold down below Los Angeles? One imagines that actually living in LA might make this seem a palatable alternative to daily reality, but…! The number of shows centering on alternative realities continues to grow. Of course, if one has access to CGI T-Rexes and Pterodactyls as villains, such things as real plotting and dialogue are of secondary importance, I suppose. Remember, this is my opinion. If you like escapism, such as NCIS (which is pure fiction in every aspect), be my guest.

        After an average week of seeing the most outrageously false claimed debunked, it seems we might be better served if there was a bullshit chip implanted in on air personalities. Wouldn’t it be cathartic trio see Tucker Carlson scream in pain every time he told a demonstrable lie? This child of privilege has all the advantages attendant to being the son of a rich white man and his diatribes and so called “causes” seem aimed at assuring he always will and no one else should be so fortunate (white male Conservatives excluded of course).   

        What does Carlson actually believe? I use the term “believe,” although there is always the Rush Limbaugh factor which makes actual belief a distant second to the desire for shock effect and ratings. Belief or scam, he isn’t subtle about it. He argues that immigrants make America “dirtier” and “poorer.” He criticizes politicians for praising diversity and suggests that it weakens the country. He often portrays the rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6 in sympathetic terms while framing the Black Lives Matter movement almost exclusively in terms of violent unrest and civil disorder. He thinks white supremacy is a “hoax” and denounced President Joe Biden’s calls to fight it at the inauguration as nothing but a stealth plot to persecute conservatives. There is little doubt regarding his playing to the worst of us.

        Other prominent bigots apparently regard Carlson as their champion. He has received praise from Klansmen and neo-Nazis like David Duke and Andrew Anglin, the latter of whom called Carlson “literally our greatest ally.” Derek Black, the estranged son of a prominent white-nationalist leader, said in 2019 that his family watches Carlson to hone their messaging strategy. But in media circles, Carlson’s bigotry was often treated as a curiosity or an eccentricity in the early Trump years.

        So, what, if anything, makes Tucker Carlson different? To begin with, he’s a “born into it” lifetime member of the same “elite” that he frequently rails against. His father served as president of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and was the ambassador to the Seychelles. Carlson himself attended fancy East Coast boarding schools and colleges. He wrote for years for conservative magazines and more middle-of-the-road publications before turning to a broadcast career on CNN, MSNBC, and finally Fox. Carlson’s transition from the editorial safety nets of magazine journalism to unfiltered (read that as “unedited by his superiors”) and immediate live television exposed him as glib, smug, and not nearly as clever as he thought he was.

        One final example of just how morally bankrupt this man is: On an anti-mask mandate rant he actually said: “Your response when you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid at Walmart,” (he told viewers.) “Call the police immediately. Contact child protective services. Keep calling until someone arrives.”

        Joseph Goebbels would have been proud of that!

Stupid Governor Tricks

 

                              More Stupid Governor Tricks

 

        Our illustrious governor, Ron DeSantis has, according to our local paper, stated his desire to revive and reactivate a World War Two organization, generally called the “State Guard” which was primarily aimed at civil defense and the possibility of resisting attack from a foreign power.

        The article says (and I quote) “Governor Ron DeSantis, citing a ‘yeoman performance’ by the Florida National Guard says the state’s vaunted 12,000-member air and land forces need some backup.” This might make sense, except for the fact that he is referring to, and desires to fund, a state guard of two hundred volunteers who would supplement the state’s quick responses during hurricanes and similar emergencies. So, get this right: he says our 12,000-member guard would benefit from adding two hundred more volunteers. Translating DeSantis speak, this really means “I want to create an organization that cannot be federalized and is under my direct control.”  If that doesn't scare the **** out of you, it should.

         The end of the Cold War saw a significant decrease, in general, of interest in state defense forces. While state defense forces and civil defense organizations had been so closely linked that they were almost one and the same, there was widely seen no “on the ground necessity” for them any longer.   The attacks of September 11th, 2001, did generate some additional interest, even though emergency personnel of highly trained and organized police and fire departments did heroic service, and didn't need to refresh themselves on what was required in an emergency as almost certainly any state defense force would under the circumstances. There is also some general scrutiny from some in the U.S. military who actually question the training and equipment of such units and whether they simply provide an outlet for “warrior wannabes,” who might not otherwise qualify for service in the armed forces.

        The currently non-existent State Defense Force is a military entity described by the Florida Statutes as a state-authorized militia prepared to assume the state mission of the Florida National Guard in case all of Florida's National Guard units are federally mobilized and authorized by executive order when the situation requires. This implies that the only time activation of such a state guard would be valid when be in the circumstance that all 12,000 members of the Florida National Guard are otherwise occupied on federal orders. Presently only 450 members of the Florida National Guard are deployed or training outside the state. Make sure you understand the implication: our governor believes that although11 and a half thousand National Guardsmen are still within the state we desperately need two hundred more under the governor's control and outside federal regulation.

        A state guard might well have little or no actual military training and probably would see themselves as loyal to the governor, vice the federal government. Consider a recent New York Times report. The Times found that many senior officers of the New York guard had little, or no formal military training yet held, in some cases, the ranks of general. This harks back to the Civil War days when a senator could be a general simply for the asking. One former officer of the New York guard actually told a Times reporter, “If you’re friendly with the governor and you always wanted to be a general, you ask the governor to make you a general and "poof" you’re a Brigadier General."

        Reflecting on today’s political divisions among citizens’ points of view, I find it highly likely that those that volunteered for a state guard would be those who think it is their role to defy the federal government, not support it. Why do I feel that way? Simply because our governor, who wants to form this organization, has already defied government recommendations regarding masks in public, government regulations related to the safety of schoolchildren during the COVID pandemic and has tried to pass a law which while, on paper aimed at quelling violent protest, is so vague as to what constitutes “protest” that Mr. DeSantis could simply order almost any peaceful demonstration quashed.

         Thankfully, the initial appeal of this law found it to be unconstitutional; however if it goes to the Florida Supreme Court, DeSantis has friends there that might actually allow this bad legislation, even though the lower court’s 90 page ruling says, in part, the law is “vague and overbroad” and persons engaged in peaceful protest or innocently in the same area, if the demonstration became violent, could face criminal charges or even the death penalty (Florida, remember?) under the law.

        Lest you think even for a moment that no governor would do such a thing as misuse a state guard, consider this: in 1934, Louisiana Senator, Huey Long, actually had his political ally and pawn, the governor of Louisiana, mobilize  members of the Louisiana National Guard, armed with submachine guns, to raid establishments in New Orleans that he considered immoral. He gave orders to “shoot without hesitation” if resistance occurred. Gambling equipment was burned, prostitutes were arrested and were actually frisked, nude, in public, and $25,000 which today is equivalent to $376,000 was seized from private individuals and put into government funds at Long's disposal. Authorities in the city had requested no assistance and the Louisiana Attorney General declared Long's actions illegal, but “The Kingfish”, in a very Ron DeSantis type statement, simply said “Nobody asked him for his opinion.”  While it is true that this was misuse of the National Guard, it is a shining example of what a demagogue might do with an even less regulated state guard, and what action they might take undertake against their own constituency without authority.

        And, before you cite the Second Amendment and the words a “well-regulated militia”, you must understand that the founding fathers viewed most militia performances as anything but well-regulated or acceptable. First President and Revolutionary War commander George Washington, himself referred to the state militias as a “broken staff.” Additionally, from historical perspective, the Second Amendment was, as were many of the provisions of the Bill of Rights, added by James Madison after the constitution was ratified, generally at the insistence of rabid anti-federalists such as Patrick Henry.

        Following ratification of the constitution, the militia generally underperformed again in the War of 1812 and in the following decades many militia would show up for musters with broom-sticks or cornstalks instead of rifles. This did not happen in the Southern states of which, I remind you, Florida is one, because they needed the militia to enforce slavery. What? a governor mobilize a state security, force to suppress a portion of the population?  Never say never. And finally, consider that even an ardent believer in Federal power, Alexander Hamilton, grudgingly opined that he thought militias were valid entities because, of course, militias would be composed of “individuals the average citizen knows and trusts.” 

        Consider this: the legal team for 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse referred to him throughout his trial as a member of “the militia” and a “minuteman” as if he were part of the patriotic forces fighting the British at Lexington in Concord in 1775. This terminology, although archaic, is still far too common in “gun circles” and, with more radicals acting as if the U.S. Constitution has somehow deputized them to form unregulated paramilitary groups. What Governor DeSantis proposes is little more than his own private paramilitary group, free to operate completely outside of federal control. If you can think of a worse idea let me know.

CRT - Critical Real Thinking

 

 

CRT 

       I had decided with all the uproar over the teaching of critical race theory to weigh in on the subject. I then realized that CRT in and of itself means different things to different people. To history teachers like me, also a liberal, it means laying the facts of history out and teaching in the Socratic method, when possible, how to critically evaluate those facts and evaluate their impact on society.

        To others, teaching critical race theory carries the scary connotation of giving their children sufficient skills and critical thinking to possibly change their mind about the biases and bigotry they've been taught at home. This puts the educator in the position of having to critically evaluate how they present information. For me it was simple, primarily because I already taught by the Socratic method. Obviously, this is not new. In fact, the parables attributed to Jesus (many of which are actually Buddhist tradition), are exactly the Socratic method in action. First the story, then the question, such as “Who was truly this man's neighbor? Like modern educators, Socrates was criticized for teaching his students to think critically and evaluate based on facts and ultimately forced to drink hemlock and commit suicide. Fortunately, Socrates prize student Plato and, in turn, his prized student Aristotle, carried on the tradition of critical and analytical thought hundreds of years before Jesus was even born.

 

        I said that to say this: it is possible without throwing around trigger words like CRT to change the way people, especially students, think by simply teaching them to think in the first place. Before we ever heard of CRT, schoolboards in places like Kansas and Oklahoma were lamenting the inclusion of critical thinking skills into Common Core standards. It was almost as if they understood that teaching their kids to think rationally and critically might make them reevaluate what they've been sent to school believing, because they've been taught it at home. Many various religious observers have the same fear of the critical evaluation of dogma

        Much of what far too many Americans believe seems to stem from some mystical belief that everything we as a nation have ever done has been perfect, or at least better than anyone else has ever done. Of course, the corollary to that is that any other point of view is (insert trigger word here) Commie, Socialist, Liberal, etc.

         One of the differences when critical race theory is involved is that we forget, sometimes, that immigrants from central Europe and the Mediterranean were treated with significant bias and prejudice simply because of their origins or beliefs. At one point simply being Catholic and Irish was cause for such things as the Bible riots 0f 1844 in Philadelphia. The only “crime” of Irish immigrants was that they were Catholic, generally poor and in the mid-19th century, even considered as “non-white” in some circles. But, to the stolid Protestant nativists of Philadelphia, they were also Catholic and coming over in large quantities and that threatened their status quo as dominant ethnic group in the city. Quaker and pacifist, William Penn. would have been mortified. Anti-immigration/nativist Philadelphians killed a significant number of Irish before peace was restored, but as late as the late 1850s, many New York Times want ads contained the phrase “Irish need not apply”. Later, Italians were treated little better. Of course, both ethnic groups were quick to discriminate against Blacks, principally because discrimination based on pigmentation was so ingrained in the land of the “free”. The difference in pigmentation meant that, if so desired, a second- generation immigrant Caucasian could fit in because they looked like any other Caucasian. This removed the instant perceived stigma of skin tone.

        Historically, Blacks are not the only group to be blatantly socially disadvantaged based on color. This is another reason some fear CRT – because it may bring up formerly poorly known unpleasantness. Take Asians, for example. The case of The People vs Hall, an 1854 California case is instructive. A Chinese miner was shot by a White man (Hall) in front of three witnesses, also Chinese. The relatively new California code already stated that: “No Black, or Mulatto person, or Indian shall be allowed to give evidence in favor of, or against a White man.” On appeal to the State Supreme Court, two of the three justices allowed Mr. Hall to go free, writing, in part:  “The anomalous spectacle of a distinct people, living in our community, recognizing no laws of this State, except through necessity, bringing with them their prejudices and national feuds, in which they indulge in open violation of law; whose mendacity is proverbial; a race of people whom nature has marked as inferior, and who are incapable of progress or intellectual development beyond a certain point, as their history has shown; differing in language, opinions, color, and physical conformation; between whom and ourselves nature has placed an impassable difference, is now presented, and for them are claims, not only the right to swear away the life of a citizen, but the further privilege of participating with us in administering the affairs of our Government” 

        This anti-Asian sentiment recurred nationally in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and again, in 1942, on an even grander scale in the Internment and confiscation of property of American citizens of Japanese ancestry. Without any actual cause other than wartime hysteria and prejudice. German Americans were, of course, being white, spared such treatment, as pigmentation was the Golden ticket.

        Native Americans (I’m going to use “Indians” for brevity, But I actually prefer the term “First Nations” which Canada uses) have fought the same biases since 1607, when Jamestown was established. Their apparent crime in Virginia, and then later in Massachusetts and the rest of British North America, was being in the way. In New England, Indians fared a bit worse because of the religious fervor of the Pilgrims, themselves fleeing religious persecution, only to dish it out to the Wampanoags and other regional tribes. In fact, the first actual “Thanksgiving,” proclaimed in 1637, was an event announced by the governor of Massachusetts to celebrate the massacre of several hundred Native people from the Pequot tribe.

        An example of the way Indians were regarded even if Christian, was the Gnadenhutten massacre, where in 1782, a group of militiamen from Pennsylvania killed 96 Christianized (Moravian pacifist) Delaware Indians, illustrating their growing contempt for native people. The converted Delawares, who had been falsely blamed for attacks on white settlements, were ordered to go to the cooper (barrel maker’s) shop two at a time, where militiamen beat them to death with wooden mallets and hatchets.

        Later, at Fort Utah, Governor (actually de facto dictator) Brigham Young issued an order to exterminate the Timpanogos in Utah Valley. The Mormon militia approached the Timpanogos, telling them that they were friendly. The militia proceeded to line them up and execute them. Dozens of Timpanogos women and children were enslaved. Other examples of unprovoked armed brutality against Indians are too numerous to mention, but the curious reader might look up the Sand Creek, Washita, and Wounded Knee Massacres.

        In all, U.S. government would go on to authorize over 1,500 wars, attacks, and raids on Indians, the most of any country in the world against its Indigenous people. Not included as “attacks” is the systematic planned extinction of the Plains Indians’ primary food source, the American bison. By the close of the Indian Wars in the late 19th century, fewer than 238,000 Indigenous people remained, a precipitous decline from the estimated five million to 15 million living in North America when Columbus arrived in 1492. As an aside, every single treaty ever enacted between the native Americans and the US government has been broken by the government. Of course. Indians were even darker skinned than most Asians,

        I do not have the room to begin to describe all the atrocities committed against Black Americans, by US citizens and by their government. The distinct difference between Black Americans and other non-Caucasians is the fact that, for Indians, slavery, as such, was relatively limited and situational, while it was the raison d’etre for the involuntary forced immigration of Blacks to this continent. Black Slavery was initially based on the European assumption of the supposed innate inferiority of the Black man, compounded by greed and the lure of cheap labor, facilitated by the willingness of a small minority of Africans to sell their own into servitude. It was compounded by the early silence of the Church on the subject. Unlike most other forms of this vile traffic, Race, and by race, I mean pigmentation, not social position, or national identity, was the sole determinate.

        While the Government and a somewhat more enlightened portion of the populace have made efforts (and strides) in chipping at the wall of bias which still disproportionately hampers Black Americans, there are far too many who, through ignorance and familial tradition, see the bad old days as the nostalgic past. They, and to a lesser extent immigrant Hispanics, have become the external focus of much of the internal self-loathing of the MAGA crowd, who see an America where we are truly equal as brothers and sisters as threatening to their own misplaced sense of racial superiority. The fear of change compounded in many cases by religious extremism, eats at these folks like acid, so they oppose such initiatives as teaching CRT or critical thinking.

        Fortunately for those of us who know better, CRT is simply an acronym for what good teachers have done for years. And finally, in the interest of candid disclosure: as in any other movement, there is a danger of extremism which can cripple the achievable effort of more organized practitioners. The individual who hates an entire group because of the actions of some of its members is less effective than they might be otherwise. And that statement is operative in both directions. Telling an impressionable student that they are responsible for the condition of others they have never met, assumes, without proof, that the student has been fed a diet of racism and bigotry at home. While this certainly can be true, it is far from a universal condition, as some militant CRT advocates proclaim.   

        To posit that, as is stands today, America still struggles with racism, is undeniable. To further state that all Caucasians   are responsible for that sad state of affairs is hypothesis, conjecture without fact and not universally valid. In a succinct nutshell, institutional racism has affected every ethnic minority in America to some degree. Perhaps examining the mistakes and evils of the past with an eye to non-repetition is more valid than “paying the blame forward.”

        As for as the crippling effects of racism: “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” 

                     Mark Twain

       

Today's Headline

 

Headline in today’s Newspaper:

“Special Session on Mandates Begins Today”

        This should scare the hell out of every sentient, literate, Floridian (but it won’t). It won't scare most people simply because most people don't understand, or won't try to comprehend, the significance of state attempts to roll back, or simply ignore, federal mandates. Among other things, one of the goals of this special session called by, of course, Republican presidential hopeful, and current Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, is an attempt to accomplish several of the following legislative boondoggles.

        The first is an attempt to take away the rights of employers and businesses to require vaccination of employees to protect the health and safety of their staff and/or clientele. The second would prevent government employers from requiring workers to be vaccinated against COVID. The third, which is being hidden under the name “Reinforcing parents Bill of Rights” would prevent schools protecting student and staff with mask mandates. The fourth would prohibit the state surgeon general from forcing people to be vaccinated. However, since the state surgeon general is a pawn of the current governor that's of little concern.

        As if those weren’t bad enough, the last and most significant, and certainly most dire in its implications, is a move towards withdrawing from federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration oversight. This last should scare everybody. Here's the further description of this piece of work: “The lengthy process to move away from OSHA oversight is a desire of both the Florida House Speaker and the Senate President" (both, of course, Republicans). What this would do would be to set the precedent of the state overriding national interests and controls and the protection of the people of the state. One example might be removing safety requirements for pesticides used by agricultural workers. Another might be easing requirements for appropriate safety equipment to be provided by an employer. In other words, it could push the state’s work force back to the “bad old days” of the robber barons when employers treated employees like chattel instead of workers that were valued. Of course, since most state representatives and Senators are business owners and none of them truly “work” for a living, they don't care.

        In 1828 South Carolina in a hastily called state legislative session attempted to pass a bill nullifying the tariff of 1828 which they called the “Tariff of Abominations”. Andrew Jackson responded by threatening the use of federal troops to enforce tariff collection while clandestinely urging supporters in Congress to pass a greatly reduced tariff bill. What this accomplished was the end of a state's attempt to nullify, or void, a federal law, but it also established the precedent that a state cannot nullify a federal law. The last time I looked, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was created by federal law. If the state of Florida were to nullify the extent or level of control of OSHA within the state, why not just also nullify the Food and Drug administration's requirement that drugs be “safe and effective?” Why not nullify provisions of the department of agriculture's meat inspection act? We've already seen states attempt to bypass federal voting rights laws and those cases are currently in court. Ron DeSantis seems so desperate to look like a leader that he is treading on ground and espousing “slippery slope” principles already declared invalid almost 200 years ago. We deserve much better.

A Profound, yet Simple, Truth

 

This a repost of a recent Leonard Pitts Op-ed. I copied it so as to make it easily readable on-line. Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for the Miami Herald.

"If you want to leave, take good care, hope you make a lot of nice friends out there.” — from “Wild World” by Cat Stevens

       This is for those of you who’ve chosen to quit your jobs rather than submit to a vaccine mandate.

       "No telling how many of you there actually are, but lately, you’re all over the news. Just last week, a nearly-30-year veteran of the San Jose Police Department surrendered his badge rather than comply with the city’s requirement that all employees be inoculated against COVID-19. He joins an Army lieutenant colonel, some airline employees, a Major League Baseball executive, the choral director of the San Francisco Symphony, workers at the tax collector’s office in Orange County, Florida, and, incredibly, dozens of healthcare professionals.

        Well, on behalf of the rest of us, the ones who miss concerts, restaurants and other people’s faces, the ones who are sick and tired of living in pandemic times, here’s a word of response to you quitters: Goodbye. And here’s two more: Good riddance.

        Not to minimize any of this. A few weeks ago, a hospital in upstate New York announced it would have to “pause” delivering babies because of resignations among its maternity staff. So, the threat of difficult ramifications is certainly real. But on the plus side, your quitting goes a long way toward purging us of the gullible, the conspiracy-addled, the logic-impaired and the stubbornly ignorant. And that’s not nothing.

        We’ve been down this road before. Whenever faced with some mandate imposed in the interest of the common good, some of us act like they just woke up on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall. “There’s no freedom no more,” whined one man in a video that recently aired on “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah.” The clip was from the 1980s, and the guy had just gotten a ticket for not wearing his seatbelt.

        It’s an unfortunately common refrain. Can’t smoke in a movie theater? Can’t crank your music to headache decibels at 2 in the morning? Can’t post the Ten Commandments in a courtroom? “There’s no freedom no more.” Some of you seem to think freedom means no one can be compelled to do, or refrain from doing, anything. But that’s not freedom, it’s anarchy.

        Usually, the rest of us don’t agonize over your intransigence. Often it has no direct impact on us. The guy in “The Daily Show” clip was only demanding the right to skid across a highway on his face, after all. But now you claim the right to risk the healthcare system and our personal lives. So if you’re angry, guess what? You’re not the only ones.

         The difference is, your anger is dumb, and ours is not. Yours is about being coerced to do something you don’t want to do. Like that’s new. Like you’re not already required to get vaccinated to start school or travel to other countries. For that matter, you’re also required to mow your lawn, cover your hindparts and, yes, wear a seatbelt. So you’re mad at government and your job for doing what they’ve always done. But the rest of us, we’re mad at you. Because this thing could have been over by now, and you’re the reason it isn’t.

        That’s why we were glad President Biden stopped asking nicely, started requiring vaccinations everywhere he had power to do so. We were also glad when employers followed suit. And if that’s a problem for you, then, yes, goodbye, sayonara, auf wiedersehen, adios and adieu. We’ll miss you, to be sure. But you’re asking us to choose between your petulance and our lives.

And that’s really no choice at all."

Me: This is about as rational and succinctly stated as it gets. Bravo Mr Pitts!

Economics for Dummies Part One - Tariffs

 

Economics for Dummies, part one: tariffs

        I’m calling this “Economics for Dummies” because we continue to see ludicrous claims about things done by not only the last administration, but by most recent Republican ones. This included some which are so lunatic in nature that Adam Smith himself would have puked had he read them. Most who will actually read this already know better.

        I know, “So who was Adam Smith?”  Adam Smith was a British citizen who wrote and published, in 1776, what is considered by most literate humans to be  the first scholarly and researched book on economics, “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,” generally abbreviated as simply “The Wealth of Nations.”  It is the second most cited book in the social sciences published before 1950, behind Karl Marx's “Das Kapital.”

        To understand economics requires a bit of vocabulary. Smith lived in the period just prior to the American Revolution when economic issues were driving major political disagreements (as in fact they pretty much always have). In this case, it was primarily the American Colonists dissatisfaction with being on the “wrong end” of British Colonial policy, described in economic terms as Mercantilism, or the mercantile “system.” Economics and/or religious factional disputes, in one form or another, were also root causes of the almost constant tension between the colonial nations of Western Europe.  

        Mercantilism, and to large extent, Colonialism, was driven by circumstances primarily unique to long standing European nations which had the need for raw materials to continue industrialization and who were fast consuming those within their own continental boundaries.  A secondary issue was that colonies were regarded primarily as sources of these raw materials and markets for finished goods exported from the “Mother country.” In summary, wealth was supposed to flow from the colonies to the mother country.

        “The Wealth of Nations” attacks a major tenet of mercantilism: The idea that protectionist tariffs serve the economic interests of a nation (or indeed any purpose whatsoever) is disparaged, yet greed prevails.

         Tariffs, lauded and enacted by Trump and regarded as ludicrous by actual credentialed economists, exist principally to make foreign imports more expensive than domestic production, thus assuring domestic manufacturers of an “edge.”  Among his many intellectual failings was the fact that Trump enacted tariffs on some foreign import products not produced, or not at a remotely competitive price, domestically. He compounded this lunacy by insisting that “China will pay the tariffs.”  At this point his Treasury Secretary should have bitch slapped him.

        Trump undoubtedly has never heard of South Carolina's first threat/attempt at secession in 1828. The Tariff of 1828 was a very high protective tariff that became law in the United States in May 1828. It was called the “Tariff of Abominations" by its Southern detractors because of the effects it had on the Southern economy. It set a 38% tax on some imported goods and a 45% tax on certain imported raw materials. The tariff of 1828 raised taxes on imported manufactured goods from Europe. The South was hurt badly by these tariffs, because just as today, US importers added the cost of tariffs to the retail prices. This simply passes the cost of the tariff on to American consumers. Remember, the idea is to make domestic products more attractive to our own consumers. When US manufactures are far more expensive for whatever reason, the import even with tariffs added is still cheaper.

        A simple 1828 example: Shoes made in America at the time were generally produced as one offs in cottage industry settings, and almost exclusively in the North, as the South was cash crop, largely agricultural driven. Meanwhile Northampton alone, in England, had over one thousand shoe and bootmakers.

         A simple math example: Shoes made in New England shipped to Charleston were, let’s say $6 per pair, meanwhile shoes made in England, even with shipping, would sell at the Port of Charleston for $4 per pair. The obvious conclusion is that English shoemakers had an edge over domestic manufacturers, but to the agrarian South Carolinians it was simply a math exercise: “Buy British for 50% less” (and the quality was probably better.)       

     The Tariff of Abominations led to a near bout with secession in the South that could have destroyed the Union 30 years before the Civil War. South Carolina's state legislature actually passed articles of secession. Andrew Jackson publicly threatened the use of Federal Troops to enforce the tariff collection while clandestinely ordering “his men” in Congress to pass a new and much lower tariff bill. Presented with greatly reduced tariffs, S.C. relented. 

        The Trump tariffs do not and cannot “protect” American manufacturers simply because American consumers will still buy Chinese products at Walmart, even if the cost is a bit higher, because they are still either cheaper than such products made in America (if there are any, especially in the area of electronics). The far greater impact is on US manufacturers who “assemble” locally but use imported parts or raw materials such as steel. The importers' cost of Trump's tariffs on imported Chinese steel have simply been passed on to American consumers who buy products made from it in this country. China produces roughly twice as much Steel at lower prices than the US.

     The National Association of manufacturers estimates that the Trump Tariffs have cost the average American household an additional $850 or so each year since their inception, China has borne none of these financial burdens, rather Ford, Black and Decker and a host of others have simply upped their retail prices to cover their added cost due to tariffs.   

        The circumstances driving tariffs have varied with time. In 1776, England, themselves, produced no tea, but they had granted the British East India Company a monopoly on tea imports directly to the American colonies, That didn’t drive colonists to rebel, but the tax imposed on it (in essence a tariff) certainly did. (Can you say Boston Tea Party?) Of course, another issue was that while England granted no real citizenship status to most colonial “possessions,” they had appealed to Colonists as “Englishmen” to support the French and Indian war, promising to pay for it. When that proved impractical, in part due to continuing conflict with several European neighbors, England reneged, imposing “taxes” (really more tariffs) on the colonies. We all know (well, maybe Trump isn’t so sure) how that turned out.

        In fact, since 1776, economists have generally regarded protective tariffs as bad ideas and have proved it several times since in US history. One more example, then I’m done: In the early days of the Great Depression, as the US economy tanked, Congress passed, and Herbert Hoover signed, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill into law. The Smoot-Hawley Act increased tariffs on foreign imports to the U.S. by about 20%. This set off a domino effect of trade wars across the globe that resulted in a 66 percent decline in total world trade from 1929 to 1934.

         Not only did this trade-war environment exacerbate the already lackadaisical economic conditions of the Great Depression, but it also fueled the irrational despotism and militarism that preceded the outbreak of World War II. At least 25 countries responded by increasing their own tariffs on American goods. Global trade plummeted, contributing to the ill effects of the Great Depression. That is the result of economic ignorance and flamboyant efforts to look like a leader. As usual, many of those who supported the Hoover administration were victims of said incompetence. The harsh reality is that tariffs yield clear benefits primarily for the narrow interest groups that promote them.

        Would tariffs ever make sense? Perhaps as an “internal stimulant” to push industrial expansion in a nation with loads of all the natural resources to fuel it. No such developed nation now exists on earth. Raw materials are distributed with no regard to national boundaries. Artificial boundaries such as tariffs are of little use, and as in the case of the Trump tariffs and others before them, actually may well do harm to the larger economy. The annual Trump tariff cost to American households is an aggregate of about $130 billion (nine zeros!) 

 

 

So Wrong It's Not Even Wrong"

 

“So Wrong it’s Not Even Wrong”

“Dockworker salaries already average $171,000 a year.”

                Betsy McCaughey, Op-ed, 10/10/2021

        Wow, that’s really high wages, huh? In fact, the lying (more on that, next paragraph) shrew’s target in the editorial was, of course, Joe Biden. the Op Ed was a screed blaming Biden for the current dock issues on the West Coast. In McCaughey world, this really means she opposes the right of workers to organize and/or demand fair treatment. Of course, in supporting worker’s rights, Biden has no real dog in the fight which, if such “fight” even really existed,  would be a matter to be settled between port officials and their longshoremen, if either were actually to blame for the current “supply chain” situation.

        Ms. McCaughey is doing, as others have of late, a classic “shift the blame” for partisan reasons, cheap shot hatchet job. There is no truth to the claims, made by McCaughey and her ilk that, in some alternate reality scenario, the President is in any way responsible or even remotely involved in the current port cargo glut. No, not ever, just as POTUS is and cannot be responsible for fuel prices fluctuations.

        I led with the quote simply because it is, as Nobel Physicist Wolfgang Pauli once said of a truly horrid piece of student work, “so wrong it’s not even wrong!” (By which he meant that the alleged data was faked, and the conclusions based thereon were categorically wrong.) So, how does that relate to the McCaughey dock backup claims? First off, US ports usually don’t work around the clock as many other nations’ do. Why? Because the Longshoreman’s union is selfish enough to believe that they, like most other “shift work” employees, should receive a shift or holiday differential, which port operators simply don’t want to pay. And no, port operators are not remotely in dire financial straits. They can easily afford shift and holiday extras, but they just don’t want to.  

        Now to the big lie: Because I know how to research, vice simply believe anything I read, and because the $171,000 annual salary claim seemed grossly inflated, I looked up average longshoreman’s compensation for Pacific coast ports. The average Longshoreman salary in Long Beach, CA is $64,715 as of September 27, 2021, but the salary range typically falls between $55,374 and $73,992. The highest paid dock worker on the West Coast makes about $50,000 less annually than McCaughey cites as “average.”   

        McCaughey fails to mention that ports on New York and down the US east coast are in the same crunch. And, oh by the way their average annual salary is about $100k lower than the McCaughey quote.

Why is this really happening?  US major ports’ cargo traffic has been rising since the pandemic took hold because many of us, as homebound/distancing Americans, began ordering goods online, with a record number of ships waiting to enter ports at Los Angeles and Long Beach. Marine terminals and trucking companies have been unable to keep up with the volume, resulting in bottlenecks at ports and rail yards from California to New York.

        Here’s a quote from an actual knowledgeable port management expert:  "The pandemic has exacerbated a situation that’s been building for years, as growing consumer demand for imported products comes up against an aging supply chain", John McLaurin, president of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association, said in an interview with FactCheck.org. “We’ve never seen this amount of cargo, and at some point, you simply can’t violate the laws of physics. You can only move it so fast; you can only pile it so high, and then you just run out of space. We’re at that point, and we have been for a while.”

        The current administration has inherited that infrastructure with limited capacity. In truth, the Biden proposed infrastructure package includes billions of dollars in funding for port infrastructure, as well as money for rail, and the administration has formed a task force on supply chain disruption and named a “port envoy” to work to resolve the congestion at U.S. ports, Kabir noted. As for automation, some of which (in the interest of truth) the Longshoreman union opposes, the implementation of such shortcuts lies with Port Operators. Can they afford it? The port of Long Beach generates an average of $100 billion annually. You tell me.  

        When blaming unions and, by extension, President Biden, Betsy McCaughey is really blaming Franklin D. Roosevelt for Depression era labor legislation. As a PhD Economist she knows better, as an asshole far right sycophant, she simply doesn’t care.

Just Another Partisan Hack Union Hater

 

Just Another Partisan Hack Union Hater

        In a recent rightist op-ed diatribe, the well-educated, but prone to prevarication, Betsy McCaughey attacks the Biden infrastructure bill. It is worth recalling that Ms. McCaughey used the Big Lie to help scuttle the Clinton effort to reform health care in the 1990s. She wrote a long op-ed claiming that the plan would make it illegal for individuals to negotiate their own health care plans or pay their own doctors. This lie gained traction even though the proposed legislation contained a provision specifically stating that any such provision was illegal. She later, thanks to the newly gained notoriety, ditched hubby number one and married future Trump Commerce Secretary, millionaire Wilbur Ross. The Washington Post stated, "Her toothy good looks, body-conscious suits, Vassar BA and Columbia PhD reduced right-wingers to mush." (Probably not that hard).

         She became Michael Pataki’s Lt. Governor in New York, completely alienating him and his entire staff by the second year and, being “uninvited” to the ticket in 1998, ran against him as a Democrat, receiving only 1.56% of the general vote for governor. She then sued her (by then) ex-hubby (Mr. Ross) because he “only” spent $20 million on her campaign, instead of the $40 million they had “agreed” on. In later op-eds, she echoed the soon to be discredited Sarah Palin “death panel” claims about the Affordable Care Act. That’s enough. If you haven’t figured out that Betsy McCaughey is a political hack by now, stop reading.

        To be sure, the Infrastructure bill which, of course, the President didn’t personally write is, unfortunately, encumbered by some entitlement type issues which, while listed with expiration dates in the bill, may well, as these things frequently do, become permanent.         Examples include a $25,000 freebie to first time, low income, home buyers who stay in the house, etc., etc. It is a bit reminiscent of the Homestead Act. McCaughey’s complaint goes on, however, to whine that it’s really aimed at “diversifying the suburbs”.

        This sort of rhetoric is vintage far right drivel.  In fact, there are far more Caucasian families on welfare (about 40% of all recipients) in America than any other ethnicity. In states like West Virginia, where Senator Joe Manchin lives comfortably, deep in the pockets of Big Coal, far more of his constituents would benefit from such a program and the vast majority of those are white.

         Again, I am not sold on taxpayer dollars buying homes (or at least providing a hefty down payment on them) but I couldn’t care less who moves into my neighborhood. Pigmentation isn’t on my list of good neighbor attributes, but character is. Bigotry is a big downer, though. Now, if Tucker Carlson moved next door, that would be a disaster.   

        Another big issue for McCaughey is that where incentives are offered in the proposed legislation for homeowners who have energy efficiency upgraded (solar panels/ heat pumps, etc.) the bill requires that such work be done by union labor. Again, I think that is a bit restrictive since, in some, locales the local heating and cooling guy may be an independent dealer, may not be unionized, and may well be the only game in town.

        However, McCaughey jumps from this into a generally vicious anti-union diatribe. Now, as usual, here’s the history lesson:

        Ms. McCaughey would apparently (never having actually worked for a living) have us forget what the labor situation was in America before the union movement began. Workers were, in most, cases treated as chattel. This was only marginally better than in the UK, where until 1824, labor organization of working men was a crime. Employers like Ford, Big Steel and even worse, mine operators in Joe Manchin’s West Va. and Kentucky region treated working individuals as if they owned them. Ford employees on the factory floor were actually forbidden to talk with each other while working. In fact, in many cases, they learned to speak with minimal lip movement and referred to it as “Fordalization” of the face. Mine operators, many of whom lived in New York while selling coal mined in Appalachia, paid miners in “scrip”- paper chits only useable at a company owned store. When miners even spoke of unionization, thugs hired by the operators killed several leaders.  

        Even today, coal miners as a group can expect to lose about 12.6 years of life span compared to non-miners and this is better than in the 1930s.  Yet Manchin signs on to much of the anti-union rhetoric, as McCaughey does. Why? Because union workers with fair wages and adequate safety provisions get a larger share of the profits than powerless drones. Since becoming a Democratic U.S. senator in 2010, Manchin’s total coal stock related income has topped $4.5 million!

         I am not overlooking the fact that with unions, as any organization, (even Congress!)  there are potential abuses which make realistic oversight necessary. But factually, the industrial boom which followed WWII was actually almost as much a result of the Roosevelt era labor legislation which empowered workers to demand and obtain fair income which was, in turn, largely responsible for the increase in home ownership and movement into the middle class of the 50s and 60s. As other nations rebuilt, Japan and Germany among them, America’s monopoly in the mass auto market as well as other heavy industries faltered, and the Big Three US Auto brands and Right-Wing politicians, such as Joseph McCarthy, playing the “socialist/communist” card, were quick to blame labor.

         What usually falls through the cracks is that, for union retirees and active workers, much of the steadily increasing expense of unionized labor was (and is) extravagant health care coverage, negotiated in 1950, in the case of the United Auto Workers, when the corporations would rather throw money at Unions than address quality of work life issues. This is known as “welfare capitalism” and was actually invented by Henry Ford, who paid the (at the time) very high wage of $5 daily, expecting absolute obedience as the result.

      Blaming unions for what is a steadily increasing US health care cost debacle looks in the wrong direction. Don’t like escalating drug costs? Look to a gutless Congress where the Big Pharma lobbying bucks go.  Look to Joe Manchin’s daughter, who retired as CEO of Mylan Pharmaceuticals with $19 million as her final, salary. On her way out the door she also, by the way, increased the cost of potentially life-saving Epi-pens by 581%!

        Once upon a time patients could only see prescription drugs advertised to a greatly restricted degree and then only subject to FDA approval. Fast-forward to the 1980s: while Nancy Reagan was telling Americans to "Just Say No," to illegal drugs, the feds cozied up to the pharmaceutical industry, lobbied the hell out of legislators and as a reward got relaxed legal restrictions. Direct-to-consumer marketing, or what you know as "drug commercials," was first given the seal of approval in the US in 1985. Only we and New Zealand today are subject to such mass media scare come-ons.

         Unions are an easy target, and as auto makers (rightfully) complain about rising employee and retiree health care costs, it is essential to remember that most of these union perks were negotiated, well before the last 45-year steady increase in Health care, and especially prescription drug, costs. As a simple example: average worker earnings increased by 37% between 2000 and 2010. Over the same period, health insurance premiums increased by 114%. As a result, employee contributions to health care insurance increased by 147%. The Cost of living (CPI) increase over the same period was only 20.5%.  In plain terms, the average cost of health care nationally increased almost six times as much as the cost of living. While some of this increase was borne by employers, the expense to the average worker (increased co-pays and deductibles) increased by an even larger margin, a factor of 7.2!   

        So, while the McCaugheys and Manchins bitch about and finger point at Unions, much of which is related to increasing health care demands, they rarely, if ever, mention that the medical community, predominately Pharma and Insurers, especially Medicare Advantage plans, are far more culpable.  In fact, in 2009, the United Auto Workers took over most retiree medical responsibility and are doing a better job of it at lower costs, via the UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust, than the big three managed to do. Still, unions are subject to Republican scorn and blame laying, Why? Because unions tend to support Democrats. So, especially in the case of Betsy McCaughey, it’s simply her typical partisan carping. 

Cleese

 

                                Have to share this first off:

 

Ode to Sean Hannity

Aping urbanity, Oozing with vanity

Plump as a manatee, Faking humanity

Journalistic calamity, Intellectual inanity

Fox Noise insanity, You’re a profanity,

Hannity

John Cleese:

 

        In the almost unthinkable case that the reader doesn’t know who John Cleese is, he has been a diehard Trump and Trump enabler critic for the last four years, a Python, A knight who says “Ni,” an ascerbic innkeeper named Basil Fawlty, Tim the wizard, and the head of the ministry for the development of silly walks.

        Reading this, and laughing as I did, I was flooded with several thoughts at once (it could happen). The first was remembering being at weekend parties with Navy friends in the late 60s and early 70s. It mattered little whose house, what ranks/ratings were in attendance or what the occasion, but at 11:00 pm, the television was turned on and tuned to PBS to watch Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

        This would have been, as I said, the late 60s, very early 70s, and there was nothing even remotely comparable on American television at the time. the late Steve Allen and Ernie Kovacs had done some sketch comedy with zany premises, but neither were as outré and socially critical as the Pythons.

          Allen’s best shows ran from 1956 to 1961 and then in syndication several years later. The primary difference was that Allen, a genuinely funny man and TV icon, was always the host and left that role only briefly to do a sketch-based role. In the main, Steve was always Steve. To give props where they are due, he did have a cast of regulars, several of whom launched careers with his show. Allen was also a man who appreciated comedic talent and was the only mainstream TV host to give the stage to Lenny Bruce. For those who don’t remember, Bruce was the man who paved the way for Carlin, Pryor, Williams and many modern stand-up comics and paid for it with his life.

        Ernie Kovacs died in 1962 at just 42 years of age. In that shirt lifetime he, like Steve Allen, was a tv comedy pioneer. While he was still “the host.” Ernie did characters which were closer to the Pythons in outrageousness, and occasionally pushed the envelope in doing so. His gay poet, Percy Dovetonsils, was hilarious, but sexuality was never mentioned (standards and practices censors). His Nairobi Trio (three guys in ape suits) was also innovative. Kovacs did sketch comedy on the edge much of the time and was instrumental in beginning to change some of what was allowable and wasn’t.

        That aside, America had never seen anything quite like the Pythons. First off, none of them ever appeared in the show as themselves, and the characters they did appear as in the show, which was completely sketch based, were often caricatures of British “types”. While it took some American viewers some time to adjust to “local jokes” which were only local if you lived in the UK, there were plenty of sketches so brilliant that it didn’t matter what or where the settings or premises were.

        Only the Pythons could craft a sketch based entirely on Spam. (“We have spam, spam, spam, spam, eggs and spam”) American audiences were treated to mugger grandmothers in drag, blustering Army officers, philosophers playing soccer, dead parrots, cheese shops with no cheese, and a government bureau devoted to the development of silly walks. Although the Flying Circus as a TV show only lasted for four seasons, it remains in eternal syndication. What followed were a series of three equally brilliant movies and, thanks to Python Eric Idle, an equally entertaining Broadway musical as well. While each remaining Python is still active to some degree, Terry Jones and Graham Chapman are gone.

         That however is all preface to a question which arose (for no related reason) while I was cleaning cat litter pans shortly after reading Mr. Cleese’s poem. I found myself wondering how much, if any, influence the Pythons, which aired in the US until 1973, had on a young Lorne Michaels, when he pitched Saturday Night Live to NBC management. As I think about it, I believe that there must have been some significant influence.

        Prior to the SNL there were American shows which did sketch comedy, but not only sketch comedy.  More significantly, SNL, while showing all players in the opening credits, always had (has) them in character throughout the show. We never saw Dan Ackroyd performing as himself, but he cracked us up as Julia Child, Beldar Conehead, a Festrunk brother, or the Bass-O-Matic pitchman.

         Perhaps the only time real names were used was the “news” sketches, where real names were used, but still in character. Even the continuing inside jokes (Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead” and the entire “Buckwheat saga” have a Pythonesque tone. Of course, once SNL showed that off the wall comedy works and the networks figured it out, we soon saw In Living Color, Second City TV and others. However, Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam showed the way. And remember, always, “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!”                           

The Quagmire - 20 years after 9/11

 

        I will be traveling Saturday, September 11, 2021.  I will however, I’m sure, still reflect on the day 20 years ago when the minions of Al-Qaeda hijacked four US commercial aircraft and…., well, we all know the rest. The recent furor over US withdrawal from Afghanistan has, for me at least, made some related issues resurface.

                    First some inarguable facts:

·       Al Qaeda was (is) partially funded by Saudi money, specifically money from Bin Laden Construction which was allowed to get into the hands of Osama bin Laden, who in turn was in thrall to the extreme Wahabi sectarians in Saudi Arabia. Wahhabism is an Islamic revivalist movement that started within Sunni Islam, and it is associated with the teachings of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahab. It has been variously described as "orthodox", "puritan"; and as an Islamic "reform movement" to restore "pure monotheistic worship" by devotees. (think Westboro Baptist without the burkas) Its influence in the reason the Saudi “royal” family has backslid towards conservatism at home in an attempt to keep Wahabi support in the general populace.

     Bin Laden subscribed to the idea that western involvement in The Kingdom and the middle East in general was evil. His motivation was fanned by US support of Israel. This led to his 9/11 plot.

       Following the 9/11 attacks, even though he was Saudi, it is likely bin Laden realized that financial ties between the kingdom and the US, especially the Royal family’s fairly cordial relations with the Bush family, father and son, made it advisable to go elsewhere and where better than Afghanistan?·

       President G.W. Bush, after making the ludicrous claim in a nationally televised speech that “They hate our freedom” (instead of our presence in their region and long- term support of Israel) demands Afghanistan turn over bin Laden to the US.

·       Bin Laden was protected by the Afghans, who refused to release him to the US, even though there was no doubt he was the 9/11 architect.

·       October 17^th, US bombing of Afghanistan begins. The first wave of conventional ground forces arrives twelve days later. The Bush-specified reason for US presence was to "get" bin Laden, nothing more.

·       November, the UN votes to use international “peacekeepers” to help Afghan troops opposed to Al Qaeda and their new ally, the Taliban

·       December 2001: Bin Laden Escapes to Pakistan. After tracking bin Laden to the Tora Bora cave complex, Afghan militias engage in a two-week battle (December 3 to 17) with al-Qaeda militants. It results in a few hundred deaths and the eventual escape of bin Laden, who is thought to have left for Pakistan on horseback on December 16—just a day before Afghan forces capture twenty of his remaining men. Despite intelligence (monitoring of bin Laden’s unsecured radio transmissions) confirming bin Laden’s presence in Tora Bora, the assault was carried out poorly and too late by a ragtag Afghan contingent.  Some critics will later question why U.S. forces did not take a more assertive role in the engagement. It will later be revealed in a report to the Senate Intelligence committee that, then Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, after consultation with VP Cheney, ordered US commanders in the field who were eager to take out bin Laden to “stand down so we don’t offend our allies” The great mystery remains as to exactly which allies were being referred to. A cynical individual such as I might think he meant the Saudis.

        **********************************

       At this point, the US mission in Afghanistan and our reason for being there as declared by the President was over. US deaths beyond this point are attributable to attempts to shore up Bush 43’s reelection efforts for 2004. Instead, Bush would, in furtherance of his flagging “war leader” image, not only remain in Afghanistan, but on false pretense invade Iraq and engage in the “nation building” which his Vice President, Cheney, had warned his father, Bush 41, to avoid at all costs.

        As a result, 2,372 US servicemen died in the 18 plus years we slogged through an unwinnable war in a place known as the "Graveyard of Empires". The politics of Afghanistan is a quagmire of religious zealotry, tribal/ethnic conflicts and resembles central Africa more than central Asia. Add to this, the fact that the US found itself attempting to build a consensus government out of corrupt politicians, and in several cases, former drug lords. In one year, by actual calculation, 28% of the Afghan GDP was lost to graft and bribery! This became more pressing when Donald Trump contemplated inviting the Taliban to come to camp David, which would, in the eyes of many Afghans, legitimize them. This harebrained idea, by the way, was the last straw for Trump National Security Advisor Bolton, who resigned in protest.

        To end the bleeding, President Biden made a decision which, unlike Trump or Bush, was based on doing the right thing, not the popular one. Only Afghans can alter the course of their nation, and whatever that course becomes, it needs to be determined by those who must live with it, not an alien (in so many ways) foreign interloper.

  

9/11 commission

 

    The 9/11 Commission was established by Congress to “Prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks.” While that verbiage sounds reasonable, we must reflect that a Republican controlled Congress was establishing a process which could possibly (and as we now know, should) have resulted in some negative opinions of Republican Presidential actions before and after the attacks. Members were appointed by President George W. Bush and the United States Congress, which led to the criticism that the Commission was not independent. The Commission stated in its report that their "aim has not been to assign individual blame", a judgment which some critics believed would obscure the facts of the matter in a nod to consensus politics. Bulleted below are brief details of some concerns and why we didn’t hear them:

·       Members of the Commission, as well as its executive director Philip Zelikow, had conflicts of interest. There are numerous claims in print that Zelikow had far closer ties with the White House than he publicly disclosed and that he tried to influence the final report in ways that limited the Bush administration’s responsibility and furthering its anti-Iraq agenda.

·       Although he pledged to have no contact with either National Security advisor Condoleezza Rice or White House political director Karl Rove, his phone log revealed that Zelikow had at least four private conversations with Rice and appears to have had many frequent telephone conversations with people in the White House.

·       One Book on the subject reports that some panel staffers believed Zelikow stopped them from submitting a report depicting Rice's and Bush's performance as "amounting to incompetence or something not far from it".

·       While President Bush and Vice President Cheney did ultimately agree to testify, they did so only under several conditions, including being allowed to testify jointly, not under oath, no recording of any kind would be saved, and notes would never be made public, all these of course lead to “keep the stories straight and lie if you wish.”

 

·       NORAD  had maintained that that US air defenses had reacted quickly, that jets had been scrambled in response to the last two hijackings and that fighters were prepared to shoot down United Airlines Flight 93 if it threatened Washington, D.C., but in truth, audiotapes from NORAD's Northeast headquarters and other evidence showed clearly that the military never had any of the hijacked airliners in its sights and at one point chased a phantom aircraft—American Airlines Flight 11—long after it had crashed into the World Trade Center. Maj. Gen. Larry Arnold and Col. Alan Scott told the commission that NORAD had begun tracking United 93 at 9:16 a.m., but the commission determined that the airliner was not even hijacked until 12 minutes later. According to later testimony, the military was not aware of the flight until after it had crashed in Pennsylvania.

·       Finally, The National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, consisting of former FBI, NSA and other federal intelligence experts, claim the 9/11 Commission report was fundamentally flawed because the Commission refused to hear, ignored, or censored testimony about the many pre–September 11 warnings given to the FBI and US intelligence agencies. At the heart of a laundry list of claims was the continuing allegations by various senior military intelligence officers that a clandestine, highly classified cross-service, military program which we now know was called Able Danger (came out during commission testimony) presented warnings of Al Qaeda cells in the US and named some names including Mohammed Atta, the ringleader of the September 11 attacks. They alerted the CIA as early as January 2000, but were rebuffed by the CIA’s apparent concern that the military would “steal their thunder.”

 

·       Operation Dark Heart by Anthony A. Shaffer, released in September 2010, includes memories of his time reporting to the 9/11 commission about Able Danger's findings. The 10,000 copies of the books have not been released yet. The DOD's Defense Intelligence Agency reviewers identified more than 200 passages suspected of containing classified information. "Specifically, the DIA wanted references to a meeting between Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, the book's author, and the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow, removed". DOD took the highly unusual step of purchasing all available copies of Shaffer's book at a cost of $47,000 and destroying them to deny the public the ability to read the book.

 So, here we are, coming up on 20 years later. The fog of history has masked to great extent the Bush 43 administration’s failure to react to warnings including a Clinton Security brief to the Bush incoming department heads, largely ignored by Ms. Rice and her Boss, warning of a new threat – Al Qaeda.  Ms. Rice has diametrically contradicted herself in later years as to who knew what and what did they know? It isn’t pretty. The list of Q & A responses  Ms. Rice gave the commission, which she later controverted is too long for this essay, but can be read here: 

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/news/2004/04/08/719/claim-vs-fact-rices-qa-testimony-before-the-911-commission/

It is a veritable litany of Bush Administration incompetence.  Are we safer now than 20 years ago? One can only hope.