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Thursday, March 18, 2021

Kvetch As Kvetch Can


As Democrats work to govern, Republicans kvetch.



Other than cutting taxes for the richest among us, Republicans offer no - as in ZERO - policy proposals for solving the problems facing our country. In fact, they deny the very existence of real problems and instead spout debunked conspiracies to distract the public from their self-serving agenda.


Thursday, February 11, 2021

With Apologies and Thanks to Harper Lee


Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird is my all-time favorite novel. The lessons it teaches about prejudice and injustice in America are profound. They have shaped my political beliefs and idea of what justice is and what it is not.

In Lee's novel, a clearly innocent black man, Tom Robinson, is unjustly convicted by all-white jury members that are blind to their own racism. In a few days, it is expected that enough all-white Republican members of the United States Senate, equally blind to their own racism, will acquit a clearly guilty, racist, former president, Donald J. Trump. 

The parallels between the injustices in both the novel and expected acquittal have led me to rewrite Atticus Finch's summation to the jury in defense of Tom Robinson found in To Kill A Mockingbird for use as an appropriate summation by the impeachment managers to the U.S. Senate for the conviction of  Donald J. Trump.

In anticipation of the defense's most likely argument and expected acquittal of the former president at the end of his second impeachment trial, I have taken the liberty of borrowing and rewriting selected sections of Atticus Finch's summation to Tom Robinson's jury in Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird for the impeachment managers to use as a model.
The defenders of the former president, with the exception of six senators, have presented themselves to the American people, to this impeachment tribunal, in the cynical confidence that their lies would not be doubted, confident that a majority of Republican senators would go along with them on the assumption—the evil assumption—that all Democrats lie, that all Democrats are basically immoral beings, that all Democrats are not fit to hold positions of political power, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber.

Which, my fellow Americans, we know is in itself a lie as obvious as those told by the former president and the right-wing talking heads who support him and spread his lies. You know the truth, and the truth is this: some Democrats lie, some Democrats are immoral, some Democrats are not fit to hold positions of political power. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular political party. There is not a person in this chamber who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no person living who has never been tempted to put self-interest over duty. But there is one person not present here who built his entire career, including his recent, four-year term as president, on lies, immorality and self-interest. 

I’m no idealist to believe firmly in the wisdom of the framers of The Constitution and the impeachment process it contains— that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality. Senators, an impeachment tribunal is no better than each one of you sitting before me in this chamber. A trial is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the people who make it up. The Constitution to which each of you swore an oath tasks you with reviewing without passion the evidence you have heard, come to a decision, and convict Donald J. Trump. In the name of God, do your duty.

* * * 

This is the text of Atticus Finch's summation in To Kill A Mockingbird which I rewrote for the impeachment managers: 

“And so a quiet, respectable, humble Negro who had the unmitigated temerity to ‘feel sorry’ for a white woman has had to put his word against two white people’s. I need not remind you of their appearance and conduct on the stand—you saw them for yourselves. The witnesses for the state, with the exception of the sheriff of Maycomb County, have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption—the evil assumption—that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber.

“Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson’s skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you. You know the truth, and the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are not to be trusted around women— black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men. There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire.” 
“I’m no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system— that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up. I am confident that you gentlemen will review without passion the evidence you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this defendant to his family. In the name of God, do your duty.”

Friday, November 22, 2019

Education Left and Right is Education Right and Wrong


Frank and Ernest Comic Strip for November 22, 2019

The cartoon above is funny until you realize that it also illustrates the difference between public and private control of knowledge, positions respectively held by America's left and right-leaning political ideologies.

By logical extension and an awareness of current events, it also suggests that private ownership of knowledge can be, and is in fact used to undermine the rule of law and to rob the people if their constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms.

I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.
--Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820. ME 15:278

The most effectual means of preventing [the perversion of power into tyranny are] to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits, that possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes.
--Thomas Jefferson: Diffusion of Knowledge Bill, 1779. FE 2:221, Papers 2:526

Tuesday, September 3, 2019

More Accurate Than Nostradamus

Cartoonists of both the comic strip and editorial variety often make more accurate predictions of what lies ahead than those made by the celebrated French astrologer, physician, and reputed seer of the16th Century.

Walt Kelley's famous Pogo comic strip, published on Earth Day in 1971, foreshadowed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and the other man-made, ecological messes whic now befoul the planet.


Kelly, of course, had access to news reports on the growing trash problem, so his prescience was informed. Other cartoonists, however, had no idea that their cartoons would one day accurately presage the personality, behavior, and world view of the man-child who would become the 45th President of the United States.

Bill Watterson is one such cartoonist. His Calvin and Hobbes strip ran from 1985 to1995. Six-year-old Calvin can easily be viewed as a young Donald Trump. 







In contrast, Jeff Stahler is a currently active cartoonist, but today's Moderately Confused offering suggests that he may have been inspired by a video clip of an earlier Trump speech. 



But the prophecy prize goes to H. L. Mencken. David Horsey of the Los Angeles Times, who on November 9, 2016, added artwork and commentary to a 1920 Mancken quote, which laid bare the truth about Trump and his supporters before Trump was even born.

Here's the cartoon. To read what David Horsey had to say, click the link below the image.




No News is NOT Good News

I wrote the commentary below in 2005 as part of a conversation about how the press covers - or rather fails to cover - important issues facing our country.

I believe my assessment is as accurate today as it was then, with only a three-word revision needed. In the last sentence above my signature, "a Texas accent" becomes "an orange toupee." 😎

++++++++++

You ask, "Why on earth would the AP put out that the issues have been widely debated?" Allow me to offer an answer.

The AP, in lockstep with every other mainstream "news" organization, has succumbed to the notion that its job is to report how people "feel" about issues rather than to report the facts behind those issues, with the understanding that a well-informed populace will use those facts to arrive at intelligent conclusions and to make well-informed decisions.

Within this imbecilic news paradigm, investigative journalism consists entirely of telling us how many people disagree on either side of a given issue. That's very much like reporting on the number of angels capable of dancing on the head of a pin and just as useful. The leaders of such sadly uninformed society, of course, are those who convince a dumbed-down public that they speak with the authority of God.

Once this has been achieved, all who disagree become irrelevant because by their very disagreement they prove that they lack the faith necessary to do what's "right."

Why on earth would the AP put out such a statement? A better question would be, is it any wonder that a smirking clown with a Texas accent sits in the White House?

George A. Denino

++++++++++

The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.
--Harper Lee, writer (1926- ) "To Kill a Mockingbird"