Facebook is reeling under the strain. The Democrats are shouting at each other! They're sounding like....him!
As a late education professor at my college used to say to just about every philosophical issue: Well, yes. And no.
How short are our memories, anyhow? 2016 wasn't that long ago. And the Democratic presidential candidates have learned a few things just by watching. They're being played out on various stages, the most recent of which was last night in Charleston.
They understand full well, for instance, that whoever gets the opportunity to take on the Republican monster will need to deal with chaos. He's incredibly good at distracting attention and keeping us from focusing on anything because everything has become such a mess.
So the relatively (!) chaotic scene that the last two debates have displayed aren't a bad thing. In a sense, they're good, because whoever steps onto that stage with 45 will be treated to attack after attack, falsehood after falsehood, exaggeration after exaggeration, now at such a rate that it literally will be impossible to answer all of them or even keep up with all of them in whatever time-frame in which answers/reponses will be allowed in the debate format.
And if anyone recalls, the problem that most if not all of 45's Republican competitors faced from him four years ago was the shock factor from absorbing ridiculous statement after ridiculous statement, and being unable to put him in whatever place he deserved. Because it's nearly impossible, in the short run, to deal with anyone who understands not shame--because he has no sense of it--but only consequences. And with his minions providing him backing that consistently improved because he told them exactly what they wanted him to hear, consequences were few if any.
Besides, 45 wasn't about to give anyone the convenient bromides they'd been hearing for decades. He was giving them entertainment value along with grab-bag, radical policy initiatives based on a complete lack of understanding about governance that, as has been proven, have yet to be fleshed out. To his core issue, the one that represents red meat to the faithful: Not one new mile of the border wall has been built. People are still getting into our country by the thousands.
The increasing restrictions upon refugees are cruel and despicable. The only thing he's been able to do is keep immigrant kids from seeing their parents, a specter that quite honestly I'm amazed that the Democrats haven't continuously managed to exploit during each and every single debate.
Staying on point will be the first challenge. The present-day debates are giving us a chance to see who's best at it.
The second will be the ability to become as assertive in responding to what will be 45's personal insults and innuendoes, which will again come from an unscripted, seat-of-the-pants place that absolutely no one can possibly anticipate. It will be nearly impossible to prepare for such contingencies, since 45 himself won't even know when he'll spew them. Efforts to script him have nearly always fallen short, and is part of his appeal, which has never gone below 35 percent. I'm quite sure he has absolutely no reason to change his behavior because none has ever presented itself to him.
And I don't recall any single of 45's Republican opponents saying this single phrase with accompanying explanations four years ago: You're one to talk. That was partly because 45 had no previous political record and was as flaky as a box of Wheaties when it came to background; the other was, again, the breaking of the political cultural norm of staying away from certain undiscussibles on the debate stage, saving those for well-planted earned media, campaign ads or the buzz surrounding internet journalism.
Nobody knew what to do with yeah-so-what attitude, the brazenness not only of Planet Hollywood but the refusal of the minions to walk away from him. Now that Republicans in Congress have been found to support such thinking, a new kind of response is necessary--a far more basic kind of comment: That's not what a president should be doing. What should be obvious must now be stated unequivocally rather than keeping thoughts in the back of one's head like: I can't believe he doesn't get that.
It is happening, though. He is saying such things. They do have to stop and the Democratic opponent must adequately explain why.
The Democratic candidate has to be prepared to become really, really basic in pointing such things out; really, really matter-of-fact but quick on one's feet in remembering all the awful things he's said and done; and really ready to skewer him with fierce commentary when the time's right. That's a tall order.
So consider this as a kind of showdown practice to demonstrate the readiness of these competitors to face the ultimate charlatan, the mountebank of Mar-A-Lago. Because that's what he is. Facing him and holding one's own, regardless of his incompetence and cruelty, will make a winner quite the formidable person to deal with his- or herself. With existential threats all over the place, creating a different kind of strength out of this process is probably what's exactly needed.
Politics isn't an ice cream social. They're messy and bruising, even more so as one moves up the line. Those that aren't toughened by the experience are the ones who step aside. Watching that might be repelling, but it might also build confidence that, at this pivotal moment, we might be able to stop the leaking of this Ship of State's oil, do some badly-needed repairs, and sail on, sadder but wiser. At least then we'll be moving forward, neither backwards into an abandoned past of someone's imagination, nor reeling ahead within a phony construction of lies and innuendoes.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
Saturday, February 29, 2020
Friday, February 28, 2020
Danny and Me at Dinner: Pointed, Relevant Questions
Danny (an alias) sat across from me at dinner the other night. He was in no mood to mess around. He got right to what was on his mind.
That happens when you're eight. He'd just been through something, and wanted to know if an adult had had a similar experience.
So he asked me, right out of the blue: "Do you play a musical instrument?"
Because his mother, you know, had just taken him and his brother from their music practices to where we were, our church, for dinner and service. In an indication, perhaps, of what people are thinking in Milwaukee, in a day of reports on the jettisoning of coronavirus stoppage to yet another unqualified crony and a mass murder not four miles away, there were more people than seats provided for dinner. We were seated in the overflow area.
Not being one to deliver fake news or anything other than the flat-out truth, I answered his question: "No, I don't. It's one of my biggest regrets, though."
They're a couple of active little boys. Creative people are like that: They have energy that doesn't necessarily stop when their instruments do. I saw that when I had tried to pull up next to their mini-van in the parking lot. The boys had exited the vehicle, but instead of simply walking toward the back door, they felt they needed to show me their, well, gestations of something or other as I waited for their mother to beckon them. They were, in other words, being silly, which is what schoolboys do, not thinking that they needed to get the heck out of the way any second now so I could pull into the adjacent space.
I hadn't known they'd be across from me, but as long as they were, Danny must have figured, why not strike up a conversation? And why not discuss the very thing he was just finished doing? Seemed appropriate enough. See, this is why people who want to control even children's recess periods are so far off-base: All you have to do is go out onto the playground and listen. The kids will, in all likelihood, tell you what they've been learning. The endorphins manufactured by activity will deliver the message.
All this is good. Most of the time, the kids will let you know. Much, much better than not. Kids who are too quiet are kids with way too much on their minds and need a place to burn it off.
But we don't like that, actually. We want the kids to stay quiet so we can teach them. Would that we didn't have to, but there are too many of them and not enough teachers to be comfortable with just letting them be. Some people actually think that there's no real difference in the educational quality of increasing class sizes. Most of them are Republicans.
But it wasn't party affiliation that was on Danny's mind. Something else was. I asked him what grade he was in.
"Third," he said. And then, immediately without considering any consequences, without raising his voice, without anything besides a matter-of-fact, he added, "We have to take a test almost every day."
Looking back, maybe this was Danny trying to say that this was a new phenomenon in his schooling career, that for the first time, he'd been confronted by testing almost every day: Not the kind of test in an actual subject matter covered by a textbook, but the kind of testing someone else he'd never met and would never know had concocted for him and his classmates to tell, as if they ever could, whether he was learning something or whether the school and the teacher were teaching him anything. Maybe he was surprised by this, surprised enough to tell the first person he thought might be interested in hearing it. But he wasn't happy about it; he needed a place to burn it off. He didn't say it with a smile.
It was like he was posing another pointed question: How come we gotta do this all of a sudden? I didn't have an answer I knew would satisfy him.
Neither did his mother, seated between the two boys. "And they do everything on the computer now," she said. Statistics must be compiled. Algorithms must be justified. And prestige must be determined.
Mom just shook her head. I followed up with stories I'd experienced in Little Rock, where I saw 4th graders try to deal with whole mornings at their desks, not able to have recess or even bathroom breaks. Think that doesn't throw off test results? I posed to Mom. She got that immediately. Except for wrapping boxes for Amazon, maybe, when adults have to go to the bathroom, they go. No sense being a Spartan. Dry bed training ended long ago.
And Mom and I agreed that the catch-22 has been set into place, wherefore the preparation for taking the tests takes up so much time that the kids don't have enough time to learn enough to succeed at the tests they've spend so much time getting prepared for. So they get good at exactly one thing: The process of taking tests. That's it. That's the bulk of what they know the best. I said this to various groups when I was with the NEA leadership, making sure they got it--and that ended eleven years ago.
This is happening everywhere, but especially in public schools, where the numbers in this maddening system of check-and-recheck can't get beyond a certain competence because, of course, there just isn't enough time. So the naysayers, mostly Republicans, condemn the public schools and advocate for charters and vouchers so they can scrape off the kids who do the best on such tests and leave the others for the failing government schools, and of course drain the money away to further diminish their capabilities. The beatings will stop when morale improves.
So here's another kid, a polite young man, who wants to know things and is in a hurry to learn them because, at least up to this point, things had been fun, you know? But now this weird test-a-day thing seemed, well, in the way.
I wanted to tell him to hang in there, that some day he'd have a system that didn't demand such nonsense and would allow his teachers to really teach things they could have time for. But there would be no fake news in this conversation: More of it was on the way. More testing, less fun. It seemed like sabotage to do that right in front of his mother, who also knows this.
I hoped that Danny's inclination of musicality would keep his mind expansive and hopeful and above all inquisitive, that the awful system we've slid ourselves into wouldn't kill off yet another kid's advantages just from being a kid: discovery and wonder. Once one has it, one tends to keep it and keeps asking relevant questions. Once one loses it, once tends to hang over the bar on Fridays, bemoaning the schools that imprisoned him-her and the teachers that didn't really care.
Except they did. They, too, were imprisoned. And they had relevant questions, too, questions that others in charge, in legislatures, in think-tanks that turned all of them into widgets cranking out statistics instead of people hungry for knowing things about this amazing world of ours, brushed off as irrelevant. And so they, too, trudged on until they could see that the original purpose of enlightenment and all they had hoped to do had been compromised out of notice, and they could do what the kids can't do whenever they want: walk away.
I have one more relevant question: Why are there teacher shortages now? Maybe because everyone has to take a test every day. No other retired teacher I've spoken with has said anything other than, There's no way you could get me back into a classroom now, absolutely not. It didn't make us better than the ones we left behind. It just made us luckier.
Our educational system is running out of luck. Sooner or later, there will be a reckoning. You can't do all this on the cheap. You can't do it with numbers. Kids must be kept happy to learn or we will be a grumbling, victimized nation of discontents. It almost looks as if someone wants it that way.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
That happens when you're eight. He'd just been through something, and wanted to know if an adult had had a similar experience.
So he asked me, right out of the blue: "Do you play a musical instrument?"
Because his mother, you know, had just taken him and his brother from their music practices to where we were, our church, for dinner and service. In an indication, perhaps, of what people are thinking in Milwaukee, in a day of reports on the jettisoning of coronavirus stoppage to yet another unqualified crony and a mass murder not four miles away, there were more people than seats provided for dinner. We were seated in the overflow area.
Not being one to deliver fake news or anything other than the flat-out truth, I answered his question: "No, I don't. It's one of my biggest regrets, though."
They're a couple of active little boys. Creative people are like that: They have energy that doesn't necessarily stop when their instruments do. I saw that when I had tried to pull up next to their mini-van in the parking lot. The boys had exited the vehicle, but instead of simply walking toward the back door, they felt they needed to show me their, well, gestations of something or other as I waited for their mother to beckon them. They were, in other words, being silly, which is what schoolboys do, not thinking that they needed to get the heck out of the way any second now so I could pull into the adjacent space.
I hadn't known they'd be across from me, but as long as they were, Danny must have figured, why not strike up a conversation? And why not discuss the very thing he was just finished doing? Seemed appropriate enough. See, this is why people who want to control even children's recess periods are so far off-base: All you have to do is go out onto the playground and listen. The kids will, in all likelihood, tell you what they've been learning. The endorphins manufactured by activity will deliver the message.
All this is good. Most of the time, the kids will let you know. Much, much better than not. Kids who are too quiet are kids with way too much on their minds and need a place to burn it off.
But we don't like that, actually. We want the kids to stay quiet so we can teach them. Would that we didn't have to, but there are too many of them and not enough teachers to be comfortable with just letting them be. Some people actually think that there's no real difference in the educational quality of increasing class sizes. Most of them are Republicans.
But it wasn't party affiliation that was on Danny's mind. Something else was. I asked him what grade he was in.
"Third," he said. And then, immediately without considering any consequences, without raising his voice, without anything besides a matter-of-fact, he added, "We have to take a test almost every day."
Looking back, maybe this was Danny trying to say that this was a new phenomenon in his schooling career, that for the first time, he'd been confronted by testing almost every day: Not the kind of test in an actual subject matter covered by a textbook, but the kind of testing someone else he'd never met and would never know had concocted for him and his classmates to tell, as if they ever could, whether he was learning something or whether the school and the teacher were teaching him anything. Maybe he was surprised by this, surprised enough to tell the first person he thought might be interested in hearing it. But he wasn't happy about it; he needed a place to burn it off. He didn't say it with a smile.
It was like he was posing another pointed question: How come we gotta do this all of a sudden? I didn't have an answer I knew would satisfy him.
Neither did his mother, seated between the two boys. "And they do everything on the computer now," she said. Statistics must be compiled. Algorithms must be justified. And prestige must be determined.
Mom just shook her head. I followed up with stories I'd experienced in Little Rock, where I saw 4th graders try to deal with whole mornings at their desks, not able to have recess or even bathroom breaks. Think that doesn't throw off test results? I posed to Mom. She got that immediately. Except for wrapping boxes for Amazon, maybe, when adults have to go to the bathroom, they go. No sense being a Spartan. Dry bed training ended long ago.
And Mom and I agreed that the catch-22 has been set into place, wherefore the preparation for taking the tests takes up so much time that the kids don't have enough time to learn enough to succeed at the tests they've spend so much time getting prepared for. So they get good at exactly one thing: The process of taking tests. That's it. That's the bulk of what they know the best. I said this to various groups when I was with the NEA leadership, making sure they got it--and that ended eleven years ago.
This is happening everywhere, but especially in public schools, where the numbers in this maddening system of check-and-recheck can't get beyond a certain competence because, of course, there just isn't enough time. So the naysayers, mostly Republicans, condemn the public schools and advocate for charters and vouchers so they can scrape off the kids who do the best on such tests and leave the others for the failing government schools, and of course drain the money away to further diminish their capabilities. The beatings will stop when morale improves.
So here's another kid, a polite young man, who wants to know things and is in a hurry to learn them because, at least up to this point, things had been fun, you know? But now this weird test-a-day thing seemed, well, in the way.
I wanted to tell him to hang in there, that some day he'd have a system that didn't demand such nonsense and would allow his teachers to really teach things they could have time for. But there would be no fake news in this conversation: More of it was on the way. More testing, less fun. It seemed like sabotage to do that right in front of his mother, who also knows this.
I hoped that Danny's inclination of musicality would keep his mind expansive and hopeful and above all inquisitive, that the awful system we've slid ourselves into wouldn't kill off yet another kid's advantages just from being a kid: discovery and wonder. Once one has it, one tends to keep it and keeps asking relevant questions. Once one loses it, once tends to hang over the bar on Fridays, bemoaning the schools that imprisoned him-her and the teachers that didn't really care.
Except they did. They, too, were imprisoned. And they had relevant questions, too, questions that others in charge, in legislatures, in think-tanks that turned all of them into widgets cranking out statistics instead of people hungry for knowing things about this amazing world of ours, brushed off as irrelevant. And so they, too, trudged on until they could see that the original purpose of enlightenment and all they had hoped to do had been compromised out of notice, and they could do what the kids can't do whenever they want: walk away.
I have one more relevant question: Why are there teacher shortages now? Maybe because everyone has to take a test every day. No other retired teacher I've spoken with has said anything other than, There's no way you could get me back into a classroom now, absolutely not. It didn't make us better than the ones we left behind. It just made us luckier.
Our educational system is running out of luck. Sooner or later, there will be a reckoning. You can't do all this on the cheap. You can't do it with numbers. Kids must be kept happy to learn or we will be a grumbling, victimized nation of discontents. It almost looks as if someone wants it that way.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
Thursday, February 27, 2020
Auld Lang Syne: Its Real Meaning--Like New Year's Eve, With A Bit of A Chill
It is known as "sacred harp" or shape-note singing, and it is, apparently, an American tradition that brings communities (like church congregations) together to do four-part harmonies and which, or so said our facilitator, is making something of a comeback in Wisconsin. Members of my church tried it on for size after a recent service.
Suffice it to say that a quick education in shaped notes didn't immediately take, so I did what any other red-blooded, American non-musically trained person does: I faked it. Fortunately, I was sitting with the tenors (which I am, once in a while, if I get it right), so we had the task of actually singing the words and the actual melody (while the three other groups had various other challenges), which meant that eventually, we'd actually be singing the song itself while others arranged their voices in support.
No pressure there; plenty surrounded me to cover. We dived right in. We sang old songs with familiar melodies, except for "Amazing Grace," which never changes. I must say that the further along we got, the better we sounded.
We got to the last song, which, as a last song, made all kinds of sense: "Plenary," which goes to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne." Nobody sings the latter except at New Year's Eve, taking "a cup of kindness yet" and all that. Those lyrics salute the year that's passed, but "Plenary" reminds us of our common fate when something else passes: People. Here you go:
Hark! From the tomb a doleful sound,
Mine ears attend the cry,
Ye living men, come view the ground
Where you must shortly lie.
(Refrain) Where you must shortly lie,
Where you must shortly lie,
Ye living men, come view the ground
Where you must shortly lie.
Princes, this clay must be your bed,
Inspite of all your tow'rs;
The tall, the wise, the reverend head,
Must lie as low as ours.
(Refrain)
Great God! Is this our certain doom?
And are we still secure?
Still walking downward to the tomb,
And yet prepared no more!
(Refrain)
I guess that's why it isn't sung at New Year's Eve, huh? Everyone wants the next year to be a good one, but nobody wants to be reminded of that year where we will all, in the final analysis, be the same.
That last stanza chills. Nobody's really ready to go, are they? At least, not all of a sudden. We all want to have that death bed, that chance to sign off. But we simply don't know that unless we've had the good luck (and it is good luck, actually) to have been warned that something inside of us won't die and it's making sure that we will and not very long from now and we're at long last helpless to successfully intervene. Then, as they say, it becomes time to put one's affairs in order.
Having dodged a very close call myself not that long ago and given a sudden reprieve, I'm going to sing a little and write a little more and read a whole lot and maybe get chances to talk about it here and there. I'm going to do serious, original research and original research that isn't all that serious but is worth noting. I'm going to get with my family and whatever friends I have left and have a few enjoyable moments with them. If other good things happen, then great. The idea, I've concluded, is to leave room for those things and don't ignore them. They, too, pass by but once.
The end will always be at our shoulders. The trick is to live until you die. No need to fake that. Besides, five people at Molson Coors in Milwaukee left for work yesterday not knowing--prepared no more--that someone else, someone with horrible evil in his heart, would keep them from returning home ever again. That is a frightful randomness. No better reminder need be made.
Be well, be careful, and I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
Suffice it to say that a quick education in shaped notes didn't immediately take, so I did what any other red-blooded, American non-musically trained person does: I faked it. Fortunately, I was sitting with the tenors (which I am, once in a while, if I get it right), so we had the task of actually singing the words and the actual melody (while the three other groups had various other challenges), which meant that eventually, we'd actually be singing the song itself while others arranged their voices in support.
No pressure there; plenty surrounded me to cover. We dived right in. We sang old songs with familiar melodies, except for "Amazing Grace," which never changes. I must say that the further along we got, the better we sounded.
We got to the last song, which, as a last song, made all kinds of sense: "Plenary," which goes to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne." Nobody sings the latter except at New Year's Eve, taking "a cup of kindness yet" and all that. Those lyrics salute the year that's passed, but "Plenary" reminds us of our common fate when something else passes: People. Here you go:
Hark! From the tomb a doleful sound,
Mine ears attend the cry,
Ye living men, come view the ground
Where you must shortly lie.
(Refrain) Where you must shortly lie,
Where you must shortly lie,
Ye living men, come view the ground
Where you must shortly lie.
Princes, this clay must be your bed,
Inspite of all your tow'rs;
The tall, the wise, the reverend head,
Must lie as low as ours.
(Refrain)
Great God! Is this our certain doom?
And are we still secure?
Still walking downward to the tomb,
And yet prepared no more!
(Refrain)
I guess that's why it isn't sung at New Year's Eve, huh? Everyone wants the next year to be a good one, but nobody wants to be reminded of that year where we will all, in the final analysis, be the same.
That last stanza chills. Nobody's really ready to go, are they? At least, not all of a sudden. We all want to have that death bed, that chance to sign off. But we simply don't know that unless we've had the good luck (and it is good luck, actually) to have been warned that something inside of us won't die and it's making sure that we will and not very long from now and we're at long last helpless to successfully intervene. Then, as they say, it becomes time to put one's affairs in order.
Having dodged a very close call myself not that long ago and given a sudden reprieve, I'm going to sing a little and write a little more and read a whole lot and maybe get chances to talk about it here and there. I'm going to do serious, original research and original research that isn't all that serious but is worth noting. I'm going to get with my family and whatever friends I have left and have a few enjoyable moments with them. If other good things happen, then great. The idea, I've concluded, is to leave room for those things and don't ignore them. They, too, pass by but once.
The end will always be at our shoulders. The trick is to live until you die. No need to fake that. Besides, five people at Molson Coors in Milwaukee left for work yesterday not knowing--prepared no more--that someone else, someone with horrible evil in his heart, would keep them from returning home ever again. That is a frightful randomness. No better reminder need be made.
Be well, be careful, and I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
Saturday, February 22, 2020
He'll Be Bored. Then the Big Trouble Will Start. Three Institutions To Watch.
The big problem with letting 45 get four more years of rampaging through decency and good judgment isn't just that he'll devastate everything around him. The much more dangerous issue is that he'll get bored.
He'll sit there like Alexander the Great, in tears because he'll have no more worlds to conquer. It's then that he'll start fulfilling the scheming that he's doing this very minute.
He's out in front of us now, you know. He knows he can't be stopped until next January. The Democrats asked their Republican Congressional colleagues for a declaration of decency, and got it thrown back into their faces. The numbers don't work. End of story. I'm betting a few of them feel pretty stupid now, not that it matters.
As he begins to consider what he believes he could do, he gets more and more wound up and hysterical. He'll strive to make his minions exactly the same. If you can stand to watch any of it, take a minute to absorb not only what he's saying, but how he's saying it.
It's hard for most of us to imagine the nonsense that'll be spewing from his awful voice during the rest of the campaign--remember, we have eight more months, plus. But not to worry; as events in the news are posted, he'll twist them to get the faithful to think that the Democrats are to blame for all the bad news--every bit of it, including and especially whatever he's caused to happen himself.
He'll continue with the lies, half-truths and distortions. This is his fun tunnel now. He has until November to utilize it.
Anyone who doesn't get this now isn't listening, which might be what they've done all along. The rest of us will have to work our pants off to get the undecideds to think seriously and keep this monster from tearing everything else apart.
But if we can't, if we don't, he'll need to dominate something else. It's his nature. He can't help himself.
He'll lie to get people to look away from him, then undermine other institutions that we normally count on to advance our civilization. I have three in mind: birth control, journalism and education.
They are for people who think for themselves and want to. They are bastions of genuine liberalism--not leftist thinking, which is what right-wingers insist and hang upon as justification to undo them, but the ability and the willingness of people to engage in fact-finding; the joy of discovery, the fun of knowing what hasn't been known to this point.
Right-wingers--and there were plenty of them in Cedarburg when I taught there, dolled up in upper middle class garb though they were, disguising radicalism behind suburban backdrops, to give one example--are about control of information, not its expanse. They start with being scared of what's around the next corner. It's why the insistence of mainstream media as delving in 'fake news' is now the knee-jerk reaction of millions, and will remain that way as long as 45 has his finger on the tweet button. That's why creationism is still out there as a tired, regurgitated idea that simply doesn't wash. It's why sex education looms as dangerous and might lead to more sex--or even worse, a consideration of pregnancy termination as a sad but allowable part of world civilization that's been practiced for centuries, safely or not.
He'll put a stop to that, most certainly upon Ruth Bader Ginsberg's demise. She's in her high-80s now. She's fought off more than one cancer. Four more years on the Supreme Court is a lot to ask or even expect of her. He'll get that lock-down vote to throw abortion to the states, where it will be a free-for-all under Article IV of the Constitution, which says that states must respect the official rulings of other states. That can be twisted to mean anything that a particular state wants it to mean. That battlefield is being prepared right now.
It's all about giving quasi-religious fanatics what they want, even though he doesn't believe it himself. Wait and see: At least one woman who's had an abortion as a result of 45's attempted or unintended progeny will emerge. And it won't matter to them whatsoever. Nothing else has.
He'll create a significant deterrent to public education with a wave of propaganda that will encourage states to double down on charters. Instead of being someone to dispose of immediately, Betsy DuVos, obedient, religiously radicalized and devious--changing not a bit of her original personality--will be a far more familiar name than she is even now.
Being unable to completely control mainstream media or insult it into subjection, he'll also begin to lay the groundwork for his own media empire, even to include government in its disposal--a genuine propaganda wing, designed to facilitate the above two efforts. He'll use government funds to spread his half-truths, explaining it as the only antidote to the 'lies' that's been spread about him and, after all, the public deserves the truth, doesn't it?
All this will happen if he's re-elected. It will. Please, please believe this. It never feels good to think about things in these terms and I take no pleasure in it, but that's where he's going: greater and greater control of something, anything, so he can establish bragging rights about institutions that distribute information he doesn't like, facts that he can't deny though he sure tries to do so. That's where he's going, so everybody will agree with everything he says all the time.
He's that twisted. He's that jaded. He's that craven. He's that full of himself. We already know what's happened to those inside his circle who have called him on it: Insults, lies, firings, public humiliation. And he may also take us to war; we've been close enough to this point and none of it's been necessary.
We have to remember this when confronted with someone who still isn't sure what to do. This is the dystopian future we will have shoved down our throats.
This is what's at stake. In the meantime: Be creative. Keep discovering new stuff. Don't let this foul, horrible person disturb or diminish that in any way. Indeed, creativity is an act of defiance against this creep. Keep standing up for good and decent rights. And seriously consider getting out there and reminding people what's at stake.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
He'll sit there like Alexander the Great, in tears because he'll have no more worlds to conquer. It's then that he'll start fulfilling the scheming that he's doing this very minute.
He's out in front of us now, you know. He knows he can't be stopped until next January. The Democrats asked their Republican Congressional colleagues for a declaration of decency, and got it thrown back into their faces. The numbers don't work. End of story. I'm betting a few of them feel pretty stupid now, not that it matters.
As he begins to consider what he believes he could do, he gets more and more wound up and hysterical. He'll strive to make his minions exactly the same. If you can stand to watch any of it, take a minute to absorb not only what he's saying, but how he's saying it.
It's hard for most of us to imagine the nonsense that'll be spewing from his awful voice during the rest of the campaign--remember, we have eight more months, plus. But not to worry; as events in the news are posted, he'll twist them to get the faithful to think that the Democrats are to blame for all the bad news--every bit of it, including and especially whatever he's caused to happen himself.
He'll continue with the lies, half-truths and distortions. This is his fun tunnel now. He has until November to utilize it.
Anyone who doesn't get this now isn't listening, which might be what they've done all along. The rest of us will have to work our pants off to get the undecideds to think seriously and keep this monster from tearing everything else apart.
But if we can't, if we don't, he'll need to dominate something else. It's his nature. He can't help himself.
He'll lie to get people to look away from him, then undermine other institutions that we normally count on to advance our civilization. I have three in mind: birth control, journalism and education.
They are for people who think for themselves and want to. They are bastions of genuine liberalism--not leftist thinking, which is what right-wingers insist and hang upon as justification to undo them, but the ability and the willingness of people to engage in fact-finding; the joy of discovery, the fun of knowing what hasn't been known to this point.
Right-wingers--and there were plenty of them in Cedarburg when I taught there, dolled up in upper middle class garb though they were, disguising radicalism behind suburban backdrops, to give one example--are about control of information, not its expanse. They start with being scared of what's around the next corner. It's why the insistence of mainstream media as delving in 'fake news' is now the knee-jerk reaction of millions, and will remain that way as long as 45 has his finger on the tweet button. That's why creationism is still out there as a tired, regurgitated idea that simply doesn't wash. It's why sex education looms as dangerous and might lead to more sex--or even worse, a consideration of pregnancy termination as a sad but allowable part of world civilization that's been practiced for centuries, safely or not.
He'll put a stop to that, most certainly upon Ruth Bader Ginsberg's demise. She's in her high-80s now. She's fought off more than one cancer. Four more years on the Supreme Court is a lot to ask or even expect of her. He'll get that lock-down vote to throw abortion to the states, where it will be a free-for-all under Article IV of the Constitution, which says that states must respect the official rulings of other states. That can be twisted to mean anything that a particular state wants it to mean. That battlefield is being prepared right now.
It's all about giving quasi-religious fanatics what they want, even though he doesn't believe it himself. Wait and see: At least one woman who's had an abortion as a result of 45's attempted or unintended progeny will emerge. And it won't matter to them whatsoever. Nothing else has.
He'll create a significant deterrent to public education with a wave of propaganda that will encourage states to double down on charters. Instead of being someone to dispose of immediately, Betsy DuVos, obedient, religiously radicalized and devious--changing not a bit of her original personality--will be a far more familiar name than she is even now.
Being unable to completely control mainstream media or insult it into subjection, he'll also begin to lay the groundwork for his own media empire, even to include government in its disposal--a genuine propaganda wing, designed to facilitate the above two efforts. He'll use government funds to spread his half-truths, explaining it as the only antidote to the 'lies' that's been spread about him and, after all, the public deserves the truth, doesn't it?
All this will happen if he's re-elected. It will. Please, please believe this. It never feels good to think about things in these terms and I take no pleasure in it, but that's where he's going: greater and greater control of something, anything, so he can establish bragging rights about institutions that distribute information he doesn't like, facts that he can't deny though he sure tries to do so. That's where he's going, so everybody will agree with everything he says all the time.
He's that twisted. He's that jaded. He's that craven. He's that full of himself. We already know what's happened to those inside his circle who have called him on it: Insults, lies, firings, public humiliation. And he may also take us to war; we've been close enough to this point and none of it's been necessary.
We have to remember this when confronted with someone who still isn't sure what to do. This is the dystopian future we will have shoved down our throats.
This is what's at stake. In the meantime: Be creative. Keep discovering new stuff. Don't let this foul, horrible person disturb or diminish that in any way. Indeed, creativity is an act of defiance against this creep. Keep standing up for good and decent rights. And seriously consider getting out there and reminding people what's at stake.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
Thursday, February 20, 2020
The Farmers Are Right Back Where They Started: With A Need for Organizing
The farmers of Wisconsin are trapped. They must fight their own way out the way they did it nearly a century and a half ago.
A New York Times article (2/17) displayed the pathetic conditions of county roads in west central Wisconsin, particularly Trempeleau County. I can say without a question that, since I drove north of there to Lake Superior, across to Hurley, down U.S. 51 and across on Wisconsin State Road 29 three years ago, the conditions are similar if not worse.
Because there has been so little funding for them from either state or federal sources, the county's roads, those that farmers so greatly count on, have been crumbing beneath the enormously massive and heavy 16-wheelers with their grain and dairy products to market. The pavement simply can't resist the weight of the trucks and gradually cracks. Patchwork repairs are done, but they're unsuccessful warding off the inevitable.
Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers tried to get the Republican-controlled legislature, rife with gerrymandered districts, to take on an eight-cent-per-gallon state gas tax, but it wasn't having any. Evers campaigned to fix the roads that Mr. F. Gow (Most Recent Former Governor of Wisconsin) had pretty much completely neglected, but has been thwarted by a legislature of the opposite party that's now entrenched.
So they have nowhere to go with their grievances, at least not by themselves. If in fact these folks are 45 supporters, too, they aren't paying much attention. He doesn't give a hoot about them, either. He keeps telling them they're so wonderful but provides no tax support (remember, the rich get that). And the roads continue to crumble, making the big trucks go miles out of their way to pick up the grain and dairy necessary to feed the rest of us. In the long run, that raises the costs for everyone.
The farmers might have asked for help, but to this point, they won't get it from Republicans. What they need, right now, is organizing assistance. They need to act together to improve their economic circumstances.
They need granges. Granges were organizations of mostly grain farmers in midwest and western states, including Wisconsin, that began as the Patrons of Husbandry in 1877. They only lasted about two years because after they grew with enormous speed, they expanded too far and spent too much too soon. But while they existed, they made an impact upon state legislatures.
Ostensibly, they were formed to fight the monopolies that the railroads represented, especially those which had to go off the regularly-used tracks to pick up produce. The farmers involved were greatly overcharged; it was called short-haul discrimination. They applied pressure to state legislatures, especially in Illinois, where Springfield, the state capitol, was in the middle of farm country, far down the road from the metropolis of Chicago. That legislature finally passed a law that forced private corporations to act in the public interest, something unprecedented to that point in our history. The railroads sued in federal court, and in Munn v. Illinois, the granges won a decisive, if temporary, victory.
But the granges went bankrupt in 1879 because they tried to create their own farm machinery business. That took on still more big business, and they were doomed. Their legal guarantees lasted but a few years, since Republican President Rutherford B. Hayes, he who had been put in with a last-minute compromise in 1877 that nearly resulted in another civil war, made a few Supreme Court appointments that reversed attitudes toward economic regulation.
Wisconsin has its own Farmers Union in Chippewa Falls, a Potato and Vegetable Growers Association in Antigo, a National Farmers Organization in Fond du Lac, a Dairy Products Association in Madison, and a State Cranberry Association in Wisconsin Rapids. There are also groups representing cheese producers and cattlemen. I wonder if there's a cat-herding association, since getting all these folks on the same page would probably be equivalent to that. I'm not sophisticated about the politics regarding the interactions among these groups and their legislative support, but as an old union guy, I'm guessing it isn't simple.
This isn't being critical. It's an acknowledgment of the diversity of interests and therefore approaches that democracy arranges and sometimes demands.
Yet, they all need good roads to haul what they need and for others to pick up what needs hauling. They have their differences and, after having read a statement to the legislature last August on another topic, it seems that they can be easily set against each other. That's in the best interests of Republicans, who can then say that there's no consensus about raising taxes for better county roads for farmers.
The more people set upon each other, the less chance there will be for some kind of consensus. Yet, consensus is the lifeblood of democracy; you can't make it work without it. People like farmers, who are, after all, independent sorts of folks and take pride in that, don't like being told what their priorities are. But someone has to rally them to band together if the problems of the roads are to be successfully addressed--or at least a decent attempt is to be made.
It's awful to feel helpless against forces you can't control. But the roads need fixing beyond patchwork, and just one of the above-mentioned groups won't get it done by themselves. They have to unite, if only temporarily (which is how it's often done), to get their grievance addressed. They have to keep their sights on that single issue; then they'll have a chance of success.
Someone did that in the 1870s. Amazing the way things come back around. Just sayin'.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road--if the road's still there.
Mister Mark
A New York Times article (2/17) displayed the pathetic conditions of county roads in west central Wisconsin, particularly Trempeleau County. I can say without a question that, since I drove north of there to Lake Superior, across to Hurley, down U.S. 51 and across on Wisconsin State Road 29 three years ago, the conditions are similar if not worse.
Because there has been so little funding for them from either state or federal sources, the county's roads, those that farmers so greatly count on, have been crumbing beneath the enormously massive and heavy 16-wheelers with their grain and dairy products to market. The pavement simply can't resist the weight of the trucks and gradually cracks. Patchwork repairs are done, but they're unsuccessful warding off the inevitable.
Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers tried to get the Republican-controlled legislature, rife with gerrymandered districts, to take on an eight-cent-per-gallon state gas tax, but it wasn't having any. Evers campaigned to fix the roads that Mr. F. Gow (Most Recent Former Governor of Wisconsin) had pretty much completely neglected, but has been thwarted by a legislature of the opposite party that's now entrenched.
So they have nowhere to go with their grievances, at least not by themselves. If in fact these folks are 45 supporters, too, they aren't paying much attention. He doesn't give a hoot about them, either. He keeps telling them they're so wonderful but provides no tax support (remember, the rich get that). And the roads continue to crumble, making the big trucks go miles out of their way to pick up the grain and dairy necessary to feed the rest of us. In the long run, that raises the costs for everyone.
The farmers might have asked for help, but to this point, they won't get it from Republicans. What they need, right now, is organizing assistance. They need to act together to improve their economic circumstances.
They need granges. Granges were organizations of mostly grain farmers in midwest and western states, including Wisconsin, that began as the Patrons of Husbandry in 1877. They only lasted about two years because after they grew with enormous speed, they expanded too far and spent too much too soon. But while they existed, they made an impact upon state legislatures.
Ostensibly, they were formed to fight the monopolies that the railroads represented, especially those which had to go off the regularly-used tracks to pick up produce. The farmers involved were greatly overcharged; it was called short-haul discrimination. They applied pressure to state legislatures, especially in Illinois, where Springfield, the state capitol, was in the middle of farm country, far down the road from the metropolis of Chicago. That legislature finally passed a law that forced private corporations to act in the public interest, something unprecedented to that point in our history. The railroads sued in federal court, and in Munn v. Illinois, the granges won a decisive, if temporary, victory.
But the granges went bankrupt in 1879 because they tried to create their own farm machinery business. That took on still more big business, and they were doomed. Their legal guarantees lasted but a few years, since Republican President Rutherford B. Hayes, he who had been put in with a last-minute compromise in 1877 that nearly resulted in another civil war, made a few Supreme Court appointments that reversed attitudes toward economic regulation.
Wisconsin has its own Farmers Union in Chippewa Falls, a Potato and Vegetable Growers Association in Antigo, a National Farmers Organization in Fond du Lac, a Dairy Products Association in Madison, and a State Cranberry Association in Wisconsin Rapids. There are also groups representing cheese producers and cattlemen. I wonder if there's a cat-herding association, since getting all these folks on the same page would probably be equivalent to that. I'm not sophisticated about the politics regarding the interactions among these groups and their legislative support, but as an old union guy, I'm guessing it isn't simple.
This isn't being critical. It's an acknowledgment of the diversity of interests and therefore approaches that democracy arranges and sometimes demands.
Yet, they all need good roads to haul what they need and for others to pick up what needs hauling. They have their differences and, after having read a statement to the legislature last August on another topic, it seems that they can be easily set against each other. That's in the best interests of Republicans, who can then say that there's no consensus about raising taxes for better county roads for farmers.
The more people set upon each other, the less chance there will be for some kind of consensus. Yet, consensus is the lifeblood of democracy; you can't make it work without it. People like farmers, who are, after all, independent sorts of folks and take pride in that, don't like being told what their priorities are. But someone has to rally them to band together if the problems of the roads are to be successfully addressed--or at least a decent attempt is to be made.
It's awful to feel helpless against forces you can't control. But the roads need fixing beyond patchwork, and just one of the above-mentioned groups won't get it done by themselves. They have to unite, if only temporarily (which is how it's often done), to get their grievance addressed. They have to keep their sights on that single issue; then they'll have a chance of success.
Someone did that in the 1870s. Amazing the way things come back around. Just sayin'.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road--if the road's still there.
Mister Mark
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
What Baseball's About: Justice Enforced, One Way Or Another
I was once a sports columnist and with the Brewers but a few miles away, I was allowed to comment on the game of baseball freely. I enjoyed it, too. And this space hasn't paid much attention to it. But something's come up that's eating away at the very nature of the game, and the old sportswriter in me has to comment.
If you've been anywhere near the game lately, you know what it is: Cheating in baseball on a scale unimaginable until now.
That sad fact was revealed not long ago when the Houston Astros were caught cheating all the way through winning the World Series in 2017. It involved the 'inside' game of baseball, which has been going on for, probably, its entire existence.
Teams have been trying to steal the catcher's signs to the pitchers from the get-go. It gives everyone an advantage, though never a complete one. If you know what kind of pitch is coming, it'll give you an enormous advantage to hit it hard.
There are ways, and there are ways, though. For a runner on second base, a first- or third-base coach or someone in the dugout to see the catcher actually giving the signs and having figured out the pattern to subtlety signal something to his teammate at bat what's coming--well, that's the way it goes. The team on defense has been caught red-handed. Too bad for them.
That's considered within the realm of explainable and acceptable theft. But if the cheating extends to sources not actually playing--well, that's a crime that must be repaid.
Only recently has it been revealed that one of the great moments in all baseball history, the three-run homer hit by Bobby Thomson against Ralph Branca to give the New York Giants a come-from-behind victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers to cap a 13-game deficit in August and propel themselves into the 1951 World Series--12 days before I was born--was the product of direct cheating. The scoreboard at the Polo Grounds, the Giants' ballpark, was the old kind that posted scores by opening slots and sliding numbers into them. Those slots didn't have to be closed all the time. Someone sitting in those slots, probably with binoculars, signaled to Thomson that Branca was going to throw him a fastball.
We know the rest. Branca was forever branded a goat, Thomson a hero. Both are gone now, as are the most of the rest of those on the field except for instance Willie Mays, who was on-deck at the time. Justice will not be served. Not even the late Roger Kahn, who wrote for the New York Herald Tribune at that time, said he knew of the cheating. He recently died.
Know this: Had the Dodgers known that they'd been had by direct cheating, that the Giants got World Series checks that they could have had but didn't (albeit the losers' share, since the Yankees beat them)--a double play in the aforementioned situation, for instance, would have won the game and driven the playoff to a deciding third game--there would have been, well, a moment of payback. Maybe several moments.
Nobody would have needed to say anything. The next time Branca faced Thomson--they were in the same league, so the schedule would have provided the opportunity--he might have delivered a message that no one would have mistaken. That's what you can do with a baseball thrown ninety miles an hour or faster. Back in the day, it would have been seen as, well, the thing that must be done.
Maybe the benches would have emptied. Maybe it would have led to a beanball war. That's how things got worked out back then.
Such is the new dilemma faced by baseball. Upon knowing that the Astros used cameras to tell the signs and then a trashcan signal to alert their hitters and then won the World Series to boot, opposing players have felt free to comment, as well they might.
But here's the thing: "I'm sorry" isn't going to cut it. The Astros' players have tried that. Cody Bellinger of the Dodgers, the team Houston defeated in the Series, responded: Ain't good enough. Something else has to happen for us to consider this matter at rest. As the Atlanta Braves' Nick Markakis put it, reflecting no doubt the attitudes of others: "Every single guy over there deserves a beating."
But Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred is bungling this from the start. The people covering baseball in the press know--they know--what's about to happen: namely, that Astros players still with the club from 2017 will be thrown at. They're already sending out the alarm: Someone could get hurt very badly.
Yup. And a World Series ring means the ultimate to any player. Nobody else will ever know whether the Astros would have been good enough to win one on their own. Indeed, articles have recently run that have revealed that their cheating was something of an open secret among the players, and that former Astros players provided the Washington Nationals with counterintelligence about it as they entered the most recent World Series against Houston. The Nationals' pitching batteries then came up with a complex scheme of signs that couldn't be deciphered. They won the Series, but it took them seven games to do it.
Baseball has its own enforcement capabilities, and Manfred has announced that throwing at Astros players won't be tolerated. Going public about it is probably good public relations, but is inadequate in the actuality.
And that's because purposeful hitting of players isn't tolerated, anyhow. The pitchers are immediately ejected and sometimes the managers, too. It's the thing that can be done. But baseball has an underlying question: So?
Pitchers, and managers, are sometimes happy to sacrifice a bit of their now-enormous salaries to make the points they need to make. Without anyone saying anything, sometimes pitchers are expected to do it to maintain order and defend their teammates. There is an omertà among players: You don't reveal what's obviously in front of you. If so, you can't be trusted and maybe become a future target.
I've played the game, and this is something you don't want to take lightly. This stuff is dangerous. I've pitched at three different levels, and people know there's a difference between one that gets away and one that is the 'purpose pitch,' a.k.a. chin music. There is a way to 'come inside,' as players say, that keeps hitters honest. Hitting someone is part of the game as long as it's done honestly, which is to say rarely, without wicked intent. Getting close is usually the point; nobody wants to hurt anybody, not really.
Pitchers need to own the outside edge and that split second when the hitter's not sure where the next one will go. They 'come inside' to enforce that. But sometimes you overestimate, and when there's a response where someone gets one in the leg, well, mostly players shrug. It's a reminder. That's business. As a catcher--where I played most of the time--I never had the kind of conversation where a pitcher just knew what to do. I left that up to them. That's why it's almost never done: Responses are guaranteed.
The other thing about this can't be undone, either: Long memories that extend years. In the immediate future, teams facing the Astros might not be inclined to throw at them--which, in fact, gives the Astros the advantage since they now know that they can look for a pitch on the outside corner without being brushed back, nearly as good a benefit as knowing exactly what pitch is coming; pitchers who can't own the outside edge of the plate by coming inside won't be very effective, either. So they'll be obedient and nod their heads, probably through Memorial Day, when the pennant race renews itself and people's attentions are drawn away. Then it'll start.
Astros players will go down and the opposition managers will provide (in)sufficient excuses, as in sorry-not-sorry. There may be fights, and not the shoving-match scrums that are normally portrayed. There will be responses. People will get hurt, maybe badly.
Not only that, but a 2017 Astros player who's been traded or has signed with another team won't be forgotten, either. He'll be going down when the wrong pitcher faces the wrong hitter. It may take two or three years. But nobody forgets. Ever.
Firing the team's manager and the general manager was a good gesture by Houston ownership, as well as not allowing Carlos Beltran to take over as manager of the Boston Red Sox, but it won't accomplish the justice others seek. Rob Manfred just fed those fires by saying--and I can't believe a commissioner would be this stupid--that the World Series trophy was just "a piece of metal" and thus not that big of a deal to get excited about.
That'll just give other teams another punchline to throw in when Astros players get dusted or worse: Like your piece of metal? Bench jockeys will harass them endlessly. Left-handers with big, sweeping sliders will shout Don't tell me I can't come inside! when they 'lose their aim momentarily' and hit the right-handed-hitting Astro not in the back foot--which is where they often aim, but it rarely gets there because the catcher nabs it or the hitter can spin out of the way--but in the ribs. At that angle, it can't be dodged. Look for it oh-and-two, nobody on base. Here it comes.
The only way to make this right is for the 2017 Astros players left in the game to be suspended for a long, long time--perhaps half a season, something they'll feel in their pocketbooks. Would there be appeals? Of course; it would take a while to clean up this awful mess. After all, the basis of the game itself, the competitive nature, has been compromised. It's a matter of integrity. (Word is that the collective bargaining agreement would prevent such a solution. No, it wouldn't: Not with a memorandum of understanding. But that would take some stretching by both sides.)
But consider, if you will, the messes that will inevitably emerge upon what other players consider to be a lack of sufficient justice. Because justice will be enforced one way or another, formally or informally. We'll be watching to see which one it is.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
If you've been anywhere near the game lately, you know what it is: Cheating in baseball on a scale unimaginable until now.
That sad fact was revealed not long ago when the Houston Astros were caught cheating all the way through winning the World Series in 2017. It involved the 'inside' game of baseball, which has been going on for, probably, its entire existence.
Teams have been trying to steal the catcher's signs to the pitchers from the get-go. It gives everyone an advantage, though never a complete one. If you know what kind of pitch is coming, it'll give you an enormous advantage to hit it hard.
There are ways, and there are ways, though. For a runner on second base, a first- or third-base coach or someone in the dugout to see the catcher actually giving the signs and having figured out the pattern to subtlety signal something to his teammate at bat what's coming--well, that's the way it goes. The team on defense has been caught red-handed. Too bad for them.
That's considered within the realm of explainable and acceptable theft. But if the cheating extends to sources not actually playing--well, that's a crime that must be repaid.
Only recently has it been revealed that one of the great moments in all baseball history, the three-run homer hit by Bobby Thomson against Ralph Branca to give the New York Giants a come-from-behind victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers to cap a 13-game deficit in August and propel themselves into the 1951 World Series--12 days before I was born--was the product of direct cheating. The scoreboard at the Polo Grounds, the Giants' ballpark, was the old kind that posted scores by opening slots and sliding numbers into them. Those slots didn't have to be closed all the time. Someone sitting in those slots, probably with binoculars, signaled to Thomson that Branca was going to throw him a fastball.
We know the rest. Branca was forever branded a goat, Thomson a hero. Both are gone now, as are the most of the rest of those on the field except for instance Willie Mays, who was on-deck at the time. Justice will not be served. Not even the late Roger Kahn, who wrote for the New York Herald Tribune at that time, said he knew of the cheating. He recently died.
Know this: Had the Dodgers known that they'd been had by direct cheating, that the Giants got World Series checks that they could have had but didn't (albeit the losers' share, since the Yankees beat them)--a double play in the aforementioned situation, for instance, would have won the game and driven the playoff to a deciding third game--there would have been, well, a moment of payback. Maybe several moments.
Nobody would have needed to say anything. The next time Branca faced Thomson--they were in the same league, so the schedule would have provided the opportunity--he might have delivered a message that no one would have mistaken. That's what you can do with a baseball thrown ninety miles an hour or faster. Back in the day, it would have been seen as, well, the thing that must be done.
Maybe the benches would have emptied. Maybe it would have led to a beanball war. That's how things got worked out back then.
Such is the new dilemma faced by baseball. Upon knowing that the Astros used cameras to tell the signs and then a trashcan signal to alert their hitters and then won the World Series to boot, opposing players have felt free to comment, as well they might.
But here's the thing: "I'm sorry" isn't going to cut it. The Astros' players have tried that. Cody Bellinger of the Dodgers, the team Houston defeated in the Series, responded: Ain't good enough. Something else has to happen for us to consider this matter at rest. As the Atlanta Braves' Nick Markakis put it, reflecting no doubt the attitudes of others: "Every single guy over there deserves a beating."
But Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred is bungling this from the start. The people covering baseball in the press know--they know--what's about to happen: namely, that Astros players still with the club from 2017 will be thrown at. They're already sending out the alarm: Someone could get hurt very badly.
Yup. And a World Series ring means the ultimate to any player. Nobody else will ever know whether the Astros would have been good enough to win one on their own. Indeed, articles have recently run that have revealed that their cheating was something of an open secret among the players, and that former Astros players provided the Washington Nationals with counterintelligence about it as they entered the most recent World Series against Houston. The Nationals' pitching batteries then came up with a complex scheme of signs that couldn't be deciphered. They won the Series, but it took them seven games to do it.
Baseball has its own enforcement capabilities, and Manfred has announced that throwing at Astros players won't be tolerated. Going public about it is probably good public relations, but is inadequate in the actuality.
And that's because purposeful hitting of players isn't tolerated, anyhow. The pitchers are immediately ejected and sometimes the managers, too. It's the thing that can be done. But baseball has an underlying question: So?
Pitchers, and managers, are sometimes happy to sacrifice a bit of their now-enormous salaries to make the points they need to make. Without anyone saying anything, sometimes pitchers are expected to do it to maintain order and defend their teammates. There is an omertà among players: You don't reveal what's obviously in front of you. If so, you can't be trusted and maybe become a future target.
I've played the game, and this is something you don't want to take lightly. This stuff is dangerous. I've pitched at three different levels, and people know there's a difference between one that gets away and one that is the 'purpose pitch,' a.k.a. chin music. There is a way to 'come inside,' as players say, that keeps hitters honest. Hitting someone is part of the game as long as it's done honestly, which is to say rarely, without wicked intent. Getting close is usually the point; nobody wants to hurt anybody, not really.
Pitchers need to own the outside edge and that split second when the hitter's not sure where the next one will go. They 'come inside' to enforce that. But sometimes you overestimate, and when there's a response where someone gets one in the leg, well, mostly players shrug. It's a reminder. That's business. As a catcher--where I played most of the time--I never had the kind of conversation where a pitcher just knew what to do. I left that up to them. That's why it's almost never done: Responses are guaranteed.
The other thing about this can't be undone, either: Long memories that extend years. In the immediate future, teams facing the Astros might not be inclined to throw at them--which, in fact, gives the Astros the advantage since they now know that they can look for a pitch on the outside corner without being brushed back, nearly as good a benefit as knowing exactly what pitch is coming; pitchers who can't own the outside edge of the plate by coming inside won't be very effective, either. So they'll be obedient and nod their heads, probably through Memorial Day, when the pennant race renews itself and people's attentions are drawn away. Then it'll start.
Astros players will go down and the opposition managers will provide (in)sufficient excuses, as in sorry-not-sorry. There may be fights, and not the shoving-match scrums that are normally portrayed. There will be responses. People will get hurt, maybe badly.
Not only that, but a 2017 Astros player who's been traded or has signed with another team won't be forgotten, either. He'll be going down when the wrong pitcher faces the wrong hitter. It may take two or three years. But nobody forgets. Ever.
Firing the team's manager and the general manager was a good gesture by Houston ownership, as well as not allowing Carlos Beltran to take over as manager of the Boston Red Sox, but it won't accomplish the justice others seek. Rob Manfred just fed those fires by saying--and I can't believe a commissioner would be this stupid--that the World Series trophy was just "a piece of metal" and thus not that big of a deal to get excited about.
That'll just give other teams another punchline to throw in when Astros players get dusted or worse: Like your piece of metal? Bench jockeys will harass them endlessly. Left-handers with big, sweeping sliders will shout Don't tell me I can't come inside! when they 'lose their aim momentarily' and hit the right-handed-hitting Astro not in the back foot--which is where they often aim, but it rarely gets there because the catcher nabs it or the hitter can spin out of the way--but in the ribs. At that angle, it can't be dodged. Look for it oh-and-two, nobody on base. Here it comes.
The only way to make this right is for the 2017 Astros players left in the game to be suspended for a long, long time--perhaps half a season, something they'll feel in their pocketbooks. Would there be appeals? Of course; it would take a while to clean up this awful mess. After all, the basis of the game itself, the competitive nature, has been compromised. It's a matter of integrity. (Word is that the collective bargaining agreement would prevent such a solution. No, it wouldn't: Not with a memorandum of understanding. But that would take some stretching by both sides.)
But consider, if you will, the messes that will inevitably emerge upon what other players consider to be a lack of sufficient justice. Because justice will be enforced one way or another, formally or informally. We'll be watching to see which one it is.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
Monday, February 17, 2020
History, History, History: Why We Need It So Badly--A Student Figures It Out
The advice wasn't so amazing as much as it was something so many of us overlook about the educational process. Perhaps the source was just as amazing.
Not long ago, the New York Times had a Sunday feature about how history textbooks were written and for whom. Those in the profession have known for some time that a history textbook in Texas will include some of the same things that a California textbook will, but will also differ in interesting ways.
A number of teachers wrote back last week. Their reactions were predictable. One said--and this should always be remembered--that no matter how well it's written (and there are some that are really well done), no one who reads a history textbook should consider themselves "educated." It takes teachers who care to illuminate what they believe to be the most significant parts of any textbook to weave a greater understanding of our history in students' minds.
That, of course, is the challenge and the point at which no statewide or local school board or administrator can completely control. As I read textbooks, I knew I had to emphasize certain parts that I believed students should know. That's bias, and all teachers have it. Nothing will change that and can't change that. All that can be done is for the teacher to teach from fact to reach something approximating the truth, and that's how they should be judged.
The better goal is to first, make sure both sides of any issue are at least expressed with roughly equal thoroughness so the teacher doesn't necessarily sell either side short; and (assuming that standardized testing hasn't taken over, an assumption that's no longer obvious) write the kinds of tests that reflect what's gone on in the classrooms, reading the textbook assignments included. Thus does one "cover" the curriculum.
Nobody does that perfectly, because that would mean satisfying absolutely everyone. But an important component, one that's often overlooked, is to get students to think critically about what they're reading and what they hear. In our school system, where a bunch of subjects are paraded past them every day, the average history teacher fights for attention.
So you have to come up with different ways to deliver things. So, for instance: Why is the development of our government from colonially-based (up to 1776) to constitutionally-based (after 1787) like the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears (Hint: The answer involves the time not mentioned, in the middle; that's stage two)? If you can sell that, they have something familiar to connect with, and they might be able to understand it better--as in, the Constitution didn't just happen, it was part of a process of success and failure and settling on compromises (that word again!) so that we could move forward as a single country. Nobody really won; nobody really lost. That's how you govern.
(That is, if you want it to work. But you have to want it to work, not try to blow it up because it makes you feel uncomfortable, like 45 is doing and the Republicans are allowing him to. To him, the Constitution is a toy to be played with, not the basis of our law and jurisprudence. We are watching the results in real time.)
So you do that and hope they remember it. But nobody remembers all that; nobody reading this does. So what do you do? Give up on the process?
No. You do what good teaching always does: It assumes incompleteness from the start. You keep telling the kids that they're just touching on the surface, and for better understanding, well--they have to do what a journalist told a high school student to do.
A Connecticut high school girl wrote in to the NYT, too, and expressed some genuine exasperation (which, praise be, showed that she actually cares about her history). "How can I be sure that the information I am taking in is the correct history and not the version that leaves out massive chunks?" she asked.
That's an excellent question. The NYT gave the question to the author of the original article, Dana Goldstein. It didn't even know whether she would respond. She did.
Wait for it. She dispensed genuine wisdom. The answer's actually obvious, but normally results in whining, which teenagers are really, really good at doing.
"I'd suggest you choose a subject that interests you from your textbook--say, Reconstruction, or the Vietnam War--go to the library [omg!], and spend an hour [no texting, now] doing [gasp] your own research. Ask the librarian to help you.
"Find a recently published article in a scholarly journal [now this is getting ridiculous] on the topic. Pull a narrative biography of a historical figure off the shelf [what if it's heavy with no pictures?] and page through it.
"I guarantee you that you will emerge with new information and maybe even an entirely new framework for understanding the events in your textbook."
I don't mean to be unnecessarily sarcastic. But I was known for recommending additional reading to students and I would constantly get eyes rolled and groans--there he goes again--around the room. And here is a journalist telling a kid exactly what I told the kids for three decades: If you want to really understand something, you can't stop here. You have to go deeper, and there just isn't time for us to do so. But you know how to read, and you can enrich yourselves. You don't have to read everything. But you can read something.
And journalism is the gateway to history (which is partly why I sought a master's degree in journalism to augment my history teaching). It is the compilation of information in the short-run to give others the information base to re-develop and re-analyze for the long run. Recordings of what happened can always be added to and re-emphasized. Indeed, it constitutes history.
Does it make you money? Well, no, not by itself, unless you want to become a history teacher. But it impresses others. It gains you respect in conversations. It sometimes even gets you invited into them. And that, as much as money (sometimes more) is the great stuff of life: the development of the mind. History is so good at that. What you learn isn't always beneficial because it has to be directly connected to making you money, either.
It is also desperately needed right now, when we have a president who's not sure of the significance of Pearl Harbor; doesn't seem to know that Kansas City is mostly in Missouri, not Kansas; doesn't know that China and India share a common border, among several other things. He wanders around in a fog. He might as well be from the same kind of immigrants he's trying to stop, who probably don't have a clue (not right now, anyway) of the history of the country they're desperately trying to enter (and would, if they were allowed to and they subjected themselves to it, learn a lot about it through the naturalization process). If you don't use the education you have, you might as well not have had it at all.
We need elected leaders who know the basics about our history, who know how to weave them into their messages to help us feel grounded as Americans. For a sense of belonging involves where we've been as well as where we are and where we're going. And they are understood, most of the time, in exactly that order. Trashing what genuinely sincere news organizations collect as "fake news" does us absolutely no good but to try to divert attention to someone who actually knows very little but wants everyone to feel things he feels, whether grounded in fact or not.
That's why school districts insist on history education. That's why other publications reinforce that with articles that reference our history again and again. That's why not only knowing how our laws are made but the substance of the laws themselves are vital to our development as citizens.
And that's why, instead of just knowing answers, the Connecticut high school student gets what education's supposed to be about: the endless asking of questions. That's how teachers always know the smart kids: They're not just answer machines. They keep asking questions because they know that they'll never stop knowing, or needing to know.
If that girl does what Dana Goldstein suggested, she'll come out of it with one thing: More questions. But she'll also be impressed with herself because her knowledge will gain great leaps, and she'll also know where to find answers she will later want. That's a success that cultivates the soul. That provides self-confidence: I know stuff and that's cool. That's education.
We would be so, so far ahead if all of us kept that up. We still can. It's still possible. In fact, it's absolutely vital: In Texas, in California and right here.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
Not long ago, the New York Times had a Sunday feature about how history textbooks were written and for whom. Those in the profession have known for some time that a history textbook in Texas will include some of the same things that a California textbook will, but will also differ in interesting ways.
A number of teachers wrote back last week. Their reactions were predictable. One said--and this should always be remembered--that no matter how well it's written (and there are some that are really well done), no one who reads a history textbook should consider themselves "educated." It takes teachers who care to illuminate what they believe to be the most significant parts of any textbook to weave a greater understanding of our history in students' minds.
That, of course, is the challenge and the point at which no statewide or local school board or administrator can completely control. As I read textbooks, I knew I had to emphasize certain parts that I believed students should know. That's bias, and all teachers have it. Nothing will change that and can't change that. All that can be done is for the teacher to teach from fact to reach something approximating the truth, and that's how they should be judged.
The better goal is to first, make sure both sides of any issue are at least expressed with roughly equal thoroughness so the teacher doesn't necessarily sell either side short; and (assuming that standardized testing hasn't taken over, an assumption that's no longer obvious) write the kinds of tests that reflect what's gone on in the classrooms, reading the textbook assignments included. Thus does one "cover" the curriculum.
Nobody does that perfectly, because that would mean satisfying absolutely everyone. But an important component, one that's often overlooked, is to get students to think critically about what they're reading and what they hear. In our school system, where a bunch of subjects are paraded past them every day, the average history teacher fights for attention.
So you have to come up with different ways to deliver things. So, for instance: Why is the development of our government from colonially-based (up to 1776) to constitutionally-based (after 1787) like the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears (Hint: The answer involves the time not mentioned, in the middle; that's stage two)? If you can sell that, they have something familiar to connect with, and they might be able to understand it better--as in, the Constitution didn't just happen, it was part of a process of success and failure and settling on compromises (that word again!) so that we could move forward as a single country. Nobody really won; nobody really lost. That's how you govern.
(That is, if you want it to work. But you have to want it to work, not try to blow it up because it makes you feel uncomfortable, like 45 is doing and the Republicans are allowing him to. To him, the Constitution is a toy to be played with, not the basis of our law and jurisprudence. We are watching the results in real time.)
So you do that and hope they remember it. But nobody remembers all that; nobody reading this does. So what do you do? Give up on the process?
No. You do what good teaching always does: It assumes incompleteness from the start. You keep telling the kids that they're just touching on the surface, and for better understanding, well--they have to do what a journalist told a high school student to do.
A Connecticut high school girl wrote in to the NYT, too, and expressed some genuine exasperation (which, praise be, showed that she actually cares about her history). "How can I be sure that the information I am taking in is the correct history and not the version that leaves out massive chunks?" she asked.
That's an excellent question. The NYT gave the question to the author of the original article, Dana Goldstein. It didn't even know whether she would respond. She did.
Wait for it. She dispensed genuine wisdom. The answer's actually obvious, but normally results in whining, which teenagers are really, really good at doing.
"I'd suggest you choose a subject that interests you from your textbook--say, Reconstruction, or the Vietnam War--go to the library [omg!], and spend an hour [no texting, now] doing [gasp] your own research. Ask the librarian to help you.
"Find a recently published article in a scholarly journal [now this is getting ridiculous] on the topic. Pull a narrative biography of a historical figure off the shelf [what if it's heavy with no pictures?] and page through it.
"I guarantee you that you will emerge with new information and maybe even an entirely new framework for understanding the events in your textbook."
I don't mean to be unnecessarily sarcastic. But I was known for recommending additional reading to students and I would constantly get eyes rolled and groans--there he goes again--around the room. And here is a journalist telling a kid exactly what I told the kids for three decades: If you want to really understand something, you can't stop here. You have to go deeper, and there just isn't time for us to do so. But you know how to read, and you can enrich yourselves. You don't have to read everything. But you can read something.
And journalism is the gateway to history (which is partly why I sought a master's degree in journalism to augment my history teaching). It is the compilation of information in the short-run to give others the information base to re-develop and re-analyze for the long run. Recordings of what happened can always be added to and re-emphasized. Indeed, it constitutes history.
Does it make you money? Well, no, not by itself, unless you want to become a history teacher. But it impresses others. It gains you respect in conversations. It sometimes even gets you invited into them. And that, as much as money (sometimes more) is the great stuff of life: the development of the mind. History is so good at that. What you learn isn't always beneficial because it has to be directly connected to making you money, either.
It is also desperately needed right now, when we have a president who's not sure of the significance of Pearl Harbor; doesn't seem to know that Kansas City is mostly in Missouri, not Kansas; doesn't know that China and India share a common border, among several other things. He wanders around in a fog. He might as well be from the same kind of immigrants he's trying to stop, who probably don't have a clue (not right now, anyway) of the history of the country they're desperately trying to enter (and would, if they were allowed to and they subjected themselves to it, learn a lot about it through the naturalization process). If you don't use the education you have, you might as well not have had it at all.
We need elected leaders who know the basics about our history, who know how to weave them into their messages to help us feel grounded as Americans. For a sense of belonging involves where we've been as well as where we are and where we're going. And they are understood, most of the time, in exactly that order. Trashing what genuinely sincere news organizations collect as "fake news" does us absolutely no good but to try to divert attention to someone who actually knows very little but wants everyone to feel things he feels, whether grounded in fact or not.
That's why school districts insist on history education. That's why other publications reinforce that with articles that reference our history again and again. That's why not only knowing how our laws are made but the substance of the laws themselves are vital to our development as citizens.
And that's why, instead of just knowing answers, the Connecticut high school student gets what education's supposed to be about: the endless asking of questions. That's how teachers always know the smart kids: They're not just answer machines. They keep asking questions because they know that they'll never stop knowing, or needing to know.
If that girl does what Dana Goldstein suggested, she'll come out of it with one thing: More questions. But she'll also be impressed with herself because her knowledge will gain great leaps, and she'll also know where to find answers she will later want. That's a success that cultivates the soul. That provides self-confidence: I know stuff and that's cool. That's education.
We would be so, so far ahead if all of us kept that up. We still can. It's still possible. In fact, it's absolutely vital: In Texas, in California and right here.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
Sunday, February 16, 2020
A Crack in the Sanders Concrete: AOC Moves Inland from MFA
Alexandra Octavio-Cortez has been characterized as a real "lefty." To solidify that image, the Congresswoman from New York City has thrown in with the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders.
You know, that Bernie Sanders, who's been out there with Medicare For All, a.k.a. single payer health care, for some years now. He introduced it in the 2016 campaign, in fact, and hasn't backed off of it an inch.
He describes himself as a Democratic Socialist. In terms of most other Democrats, it's accurate. Not many of them hold tightly to the idea of a single-payer, national health care plan, completely assuming student debts, free college education, lowering the age to begin Social Security, and other economic ideas that put him out of the mainstream.
In other words, Sanders believes he can become the mainstream if only the country would let him. It inspires some and wears on others. And it looks like it hasn't worn completely well on AOC.
Just the other day, she put it out there that there were some pretty obvious political realities in taking such a firm, absolutist stand--namely that such a proposal as Medicare For All is DOA in any Congress that may emerge from the 2020 elections.
Such was reported by Paul Waldman in the Washington Post. And anyone who looks at Congress realistically will obviously conclude the same thing. The Democrats may hang onto a majority in the House this time around, and they yearn to control the Senate, too. If there's also a Democratic president, he or she would have to sail a more moderate tone on health care so as not to scare away those who might favorably consider a Congress and presidency that's completely flipped.
Would it mean that we're going the socialist route? People would reasonably ask. That's unlikely anyhow.
First, because not all Democrats are all that crazy about universal health care, and will be saying so in their House and Senate campaigns to get the edge on Republicans, who might just have been weakened by the revelations of the impeachment crisis and who will be echoing 45's bellowing of "socialist!" because they don't have anything else to say that makes the least bit of sense. Secondly, because since the Republicans have stretched the national debt to incredible lengths, a wiser stance to take would be to work to reduce that debt, stabilize markets, and bring a semblance of calm to a very frazzled country. An overriding concept of national health care wouldn't add to that attitude.
Better still to move toward the public option as an improvement to Obamacare. After all, Obama himself kept saying that his plan would need improvement but for now, it's better to have one than not.
But those deductibles are back-breaking. Congress and a new president would do well to consider how to arrest that trend instead of overturning the cart and starting all over again--which would also open the door to a re-introduction of Republican hijinks, bringing the pharmeceuticals back into the fray in an unsettling way.
Octavio-Cortez, having now been in Congress for the better part of a term and having been around conversations here and there, gets how such a strong plan like Medicare For All might never be taken seriously. So she's hedged a bit.
Actually, it sounds genuinely progressive but not cuckoo, as some might say. "The worst-case scenario?" she said the other day. "We compromise deeply and we end up getting a public option. Is that a nightmare? I don't think so."
Neither do I. It's a far better sell. Granted, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, to name two (with Michael Bennet being another had he but hung on, but 100% can only be divided so many ways) are far more tuned into such scenarios, partly because they know it sells better to the Democratic faithful who are nervous about keeping such an option open and sending 45 back to Mar-A-Lago, this time permanently. This might be a far better way to have both.
I'm as ready to attack the abuses of corporations as Bernie or anyone else. I'm also one who understands that, as opposed to 45 and his minions, government is about trying to get more than one party on board and about moving forward boldly where one can, incrementally where one must. Even AOC has figured that out.
It'll be interesting to see how Sanders reacts to that and whether he'll continue to welcome AOC on the campaign trail. The turning point, if there is one in this multi-leader campaign, is approaching with Super Tuesday less than three weeks away. Many of the states with primaries on that day are southern; the Democrats there don't usually stick out their necks and crusade for strong policy reforms. If Sanders wants to put them under his wing and get a delegate count that begins to look unconquerable, staying out on the edges might not be wise.
He has to have thought about that at some point. He might want to consider that if the public option might work now, Medicare For All might get some traction down the road. But it's too great a reach. Besides, 45 is already itching to lash out and attach "socialism!" to just about any Democrat who gets the nomination, as illogical as that may be. But logic never bothered him; raw emotion is where he lives. It may already be too late for a Sanders nomination and campaign to overcome that.
Still, for Sanders to begin to walk back his ironclad position of a public option toward something a bit more palatable for those still in the country's political mid-section, especially now that he claims a thin front-runner's spot, might provide the cushion he needs in case he has to stare down the ugly bully across the stage from him in a debate. You know, I've re-thought that position, and I think a public option would be an important step in the meantime. Something like that.
Some things have to take a back seat if we're to get 45 moved out of the way to provide a path for decent government again--at least, what's left of decent government after 45's damage has been assessed and addressed. That it has become an overriding priority is horribly sad. But by now, it can't be overlooked. It's good rhetoric to try to posit oneself on the side of policy initiatives being a major priority, but as 45 commits act upon act of vengeance for having escaped impeachment charges due to a squirming, intimidated Republican Senate, it's going to become crystal clear that to get anything remotely resembling good governance accomplished, his ejection is paramount.
I haven't heard any of the Democratic presidential candidates put it quite that way yet, but maybe their sights aren't fixed too far ahead of their headlights. When you run for office, that's not a bad attitude to have: a vision of victory, yes, but a need to always have one's eyes focused on the next thing, too.
I think Teddy Roosevelt said it: Keeping one's eyes on the stars, but one's feet on the ground. (Casey Kasem always signed off that way) Either way, the fleet of competitors has already narrowed. For the rest, the far turn isn't far off. If AOC has made the kind of adjustment that's pragmatic but winnable, maybe Sanders might find it possible as well. Otherwise, lukewarm support for a candidate wedded too closely to idealism won't get it done this time.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
You know, that Bernie Sanders, who's been out there with Medicare For All, a.k.a. single payer health care, for some years now. He introduced it in the 2016 campaign, in fact, and hasn't backed off of it an inch.
He describes himself as a Democratic Socialist. In terms of most other Democrats, it's accurate. Not many of them hold tightly to the idea of a single-payer, national health care plan, completely assuming student debts, free college education, lowering the age to begin Social Security, and other economic ideas that put him out of the mainstream.
In other words, Sanders believes he can become the mainstream if only the country would let him. It inspires some and wears on others. And it looks like it hasn't worn completely well on AOC.
Just the other day, she put it out there that there were some pretty obvious political realities in taking such a firm, absolutist stand--namely that such a proposal as Medicare For All is DOA in any Congress that may emerge from the 2020 elections.
Such was reported by Paul Waldman in the Washington Post. And anyone who looks at Congress realistically will obviously conclude the same thing. The Democrats may hang onto a majority in the House this time around, and they yearn to control the Senate, too. If there's also a Democratic president, he or she would have to sail a more moderate tone on health care so as not to scare away those who might favorably consider a Congress and presidency that's completely flipped.
Would it mean that we're going the socialist route? People would reasonably ask. That's unlikely anyhow.
First, because not all Democrats are all that crazy about universal health care, and will be saying so in their House and Senate campaigns to get the edge on Republicans, who might just have been weakened by the revelations of the impeachment crisis and who will be echoing 45's bellowing of "socialist!" because they don't have anything else to say that makes the least bit of sense. Secondly, because since the Republicans have stretched the national debt to incredible lengths, a wiser stance to take would be to work to reduce that debt, stabilize markets, and bring a semblance of calm to a very frazzled country. An overriding concept of national health care wouldn't add to that attitude.
Better still to move toward the public option as an improvement to Obamacare. After all, Obama himself kept saying that his plan would need improvement but for now, it's better to have one than not.
But those deductibles are back-breaking. Congress and a new president would do well to consider how to arrest that trend instead of overturning the cart and starting all over again--which would also open the door to a re-introduction of Republican hijinks, bringing the pharmeceuticals back into the fray in an unsettling way.
Octavio-Cortez, having now been in Congress for the better part of a term and having been around conversations here and there, gets how such a strong plan like Medicare For All might never be taken seriously. So she's hedged a bit.
Actually, it sounds genuinely progressive but not cuckoo, as some might say. "The worst-case scenario?" she said the other day. "We compromise deeply and we end up getting a public option. Is that a nightmare? I don't think so."
Neither do I. It's a far better sell. Granted, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, to name two (with Michael Bennet being another had he but hung on, but 100% can only be divided so many ways) are far more tuned into such scenarios, partly because they know it sells better to the Democratic faithful who are nervous about keeping such an option open and sending 45 back to Mar-A-Lago, this time permanently. This might be a far better way to have both.
I'm as ready to attack the abuses of corporations as Bernie or anyone else. I'm also one who understands that, as opposed to 45 and his minions, government is about trying to get more than one party on board and about moving forward boldly where one can, incrementally where one must. Even AOC has figured that out.
It'll be interesting to see how Sanders reacts to that and whether he'll continue to welcome AOC on the campaign trail. The turning point, if there is one in this multi-leader campaign, is approaching with Super Tuesday less than three weeks away. Many of the states with primaries on that day are southern; the Democrats there don't usually stick out their necks and crusade for strong policy reforms. If Sanders wants to put them under his wing and get a delegate count that begins to look unconquerable, staying out on the edges might not be wise.
He has to have thought about that at some point. He might want to consider that if the public option might work now, Medicare For All might get some traction down the road. But it's too great a reach. Besides, 45 is already itching to lash out and attach "socialism!" to just about any Democrat who gets the nomination, as illogical as that may be. But logic never bothered him; raw emotion is where he lives. It may already be too late for a Sanders nomination and campaign to overcome that.
Still, for Sanders to begin to walk back his ironclad position of a public option toward something a bit more palatable for those still in the country's political mid-section, especially now that he claims a thin front-runner's spot, might provide the cushion he needs in case he has to stare down the ugly bully across the stage from him in a debate. You know, I've re-thought that position, and I think a public option would be an important step in the meantime. Something like that.
Some things have to take a back seat if we're to get 45 moved out of the way to provide a path for decent government again--at least, what's left of decent government after 45's damage has been assessed and addressed. That it has become an overriding priority is horribly sad. But by now, it can't be overlooked. It's good rhetoric to try to posit oneself on the side of policy initiatives being a major priority, but as 45 commits act upon act of vengeance for having escaped impeachment charges due to a squirming, intimidated Republican Senate, it's going to become crystal clear that to get anything remotely resembling good governance accomplished, his ejection is paramount.
I haven't heard any of the Democratic presidential candidates put it quite that way yet, but maybe their sights aren't fixed too far ahead of their headlights. When you run for office, that's not a bad attitude to have: a vision of victory, yes, but a need to always have one's eyes focused on the next thing, too.
I think Teddy Roosevelt said it: Keeping one's eyes on the stars, but one's feet on the ground. (Casey Kasem always signed off that way) Either way, the fleet of competitors has already narrowed. For the rest, the far turn isn't far off. If AOC has made the kind of adjustment that's pragmatic but winnable, maybe Sanders might find it possible as well. Otherwise, lukewarm support for a candidate wedded too closely to idealism won't get it done this time.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
Wednesday, February 12, 2020
2024 and Beyond: Think This Is A One-Off?
As ferocious as this upcoming presidential campaign is destined to be--far worse than we've heard already--it's not too soon to look ahead a bit and think about 2014, regardless of whether 45 wins in November or not.
It's time to consider the coming junta of 45, Junior, to become 46. If you think he's not considering it, and that 45 isn't thinking about trying to grease the skids to provide it, you'd better pull back and think again--and consider a line of succession that, once established with Republican minions politely bobbling their heads--won't be easy to dislodge.
The two-term limit of the Constitution might just be too difficult for 45 to overcome. He's already planted the seeds of making some kind of effort to do so, but giving Junior a boost to succeed him might be the next best bet.
First, there would have to be some kind of pre-succession legitimacy foisted upon us. Junior would have to be appointed to some very noticeable, and very inherently or potentially powerful, government position to give him his chops in that arena.
Head of the National Security Council? Possibly. U.S. Trade Representative or some relatively non-impactful Cabinet position, giving him direct access to inside information and insider meetings? Why not? Or, perhaps, make up a position for him while dropping one staffed by someone who had crossed the caudillo. Just call it a non-Cabinet position, and he's home free.
And he wouldn't need Senate approval, either, like other Cabinet secretaries who have the word -designate next to their titles. 45 says it keeps them more answerable to him directly. Another reason may have occurred to him, too--to give Junior the keys to the car, pending election. Thus is dictatorship by administration.
The daffiness by which Junior might make additional decisions will only expose his critics to further abuse by Dad, who's used to working anyone over anyhow. It isn't as if Junior isn't good at it, either; he's one of 45's best insulter operatives. Either way, making ridiculous pronouncements and rulings would get him plenty ready to take over.
With the family name, why wouldn't he be a shoo-in by the time we get there? You can look at it one of two ways: Either 45 loses re-election, in which case his minions will be licking their chops for revenge; or he wins, in which case we xerox Haiti, Syria or Alabama with family successions.
Recent crowds for 45's speeches have welcomed Junior with chants of "46! 46!" Junior already has a book to his credit, bought in bunches by supports with deep pockets to keep it on the New York Times best-seller list (which must bring him and Dad great joy). So that box has already been checked.
Speading of families, Junior might do worse (though I can't see how) than to take on brother Eric as his running mate. Succession might be practically automatic by then. Think about that: the family in charge until at least 2040, assuming two terms for each.
Or, if Eric's too busy counting the money he's already made off of Dad's name in the White House in direct violation of the Emoluments Clause, Junior might lean toward Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who might easily be governor of Arkansas by then. She's positioning herself and, of course, writing her book. Different family--her daddy was governor during the Oughts--but the same whining, victimizing, twisted, quasi-religious attitudes.
On the other hand, there might be Ivanka to be the first woman president, and husband Jerod Kushner to continue the unabated arrogance for another sixteen years. I just wonder what it'll be like by then, since the country will never be the same demographically again. It'll be more than half non-white. Oh, the humanity! Oh, the family need to call it something else!
That'll take us to 2056. I'm likely to be dead by then. Or an ex-pat. Don't count either of them out.
Word is that 45's campaign will be spending one billion dollars to lather us with a disinformation campaign that will top all others, all-time (which sounds like 45ian hyperbole, but this time it's for real). Lies, lies, and more lies will be following at least every four years for the next five campaigns; if they work, they'll also be pounding away at us in-between, each and every single day.
This is what we have unleashed. This is what we will have to deal with. The battle won't be over by a long shot regardless of November's results. It will re-define the word relentless. Or, perhaps, torture.
Need another reason to win in November? What planet did you say you were from?
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
It's time to consider the coming junta of 45, Junior, to become 46. If you think he's not considering it, and that 45 isn't thinking about trying to grease the skids to provide it, you'd better pull back and think again--and consider a line of succession that, once established with Republican minions politely bobbling their heads--won't be easy to dislodge.
The two-term limit of the Constitution might just be too difficult for 45 to overcome. He's already planted the seeds of making some kind of effort to do so, but giving Junior a boost to succeed him might be the next best bet.
First, there would have to be some kind of pre-succession legitimacy foisted upon us. Junior would have to be appointed to some very noticeable, and very inherently or potentially powerful, government position to give him his chops in that arena.
Head of the National Security Council? Possibly. U.S. Trade Representative or some relatively non-impactful Cabinet position, giving him direct access to inside information and insider meetings? Why not? Or, perhaps, make up a position for him while dropping one staffed by someone who had crossed the caudillo. Just call it a non-Cabinet position, and he's home free.
And he wouldn't need Senate approval, either, like other Cabinet secretaries who have the word -designate next to their titles. 45 says it keeps them more answerable to him directly. Another reason may have occurred to him, too--to give Junior the keys to the car, pending election. Thus is dictatorship by administration.
The daffiness by which Junior might make additional decisions will only expose his critics to further abuse by Dad, who's used to working anyone over anyhow. It isn't as if Junior isn't good at it, either; he's one of 45's best insulter operatives. Either way, making ridiculous pronouncements and rulings would get him plenty ready to take over.
With the family name, why wouldn't he be a shoo-in by the time we get there? You can look at it one of two ways: Either 45 loses re-election, in which case his minions will be licking their chops for revenge; or he wins, in which case we xerox Haiti, Syria or Alabama with family successions.
Recent crowds for 45's speeches have welcomed Junior with chants of "46! 46!" Junior already has a book to his credit, bought in bunches by supports with deep pockets to keep it on the New York Times best-seller list (which must bring him and Dad great joy). So that box has already been checked.
Speading of families, Junior might do worse (though I can't see how) than to take on brother Eric as his running mate. Succession might be practically automatic by then. Think about that: the family in charge until at least 2040, assuming two terms for each.
Or, if Eric's too busy counting the money he's already made off of Dad's name in the White House in direct violation of the Emoluments Clause, Junior might lean toward Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who might easily be governor of Arkansas by then. She's positioning herself and, of course, writing her book. Different family--her daddy was governor during the Oughts--but the same whining, victimizing, twisted, quasi-religious attitudes.
On the other hand, there might be Ivanka to be the first woman president, and husband Jerod Kushner to continue the unabated arrogance for another sixteen years. I just wonder what it'll be like by then, since the country will never be the same demographically again. It'll be more than half non-white. Oh, the humanity! Oh, the family need to call it something else!
That'll take us to 2056. I'm likely to be dead by then. Or an ex-pat. Don't count either of them out.
Word is that 45's campaign will be spending one billion dollars to lather us with a disinformation campaign that will top all others, all-time (which sounds like 45ian hyperbole, but this time it's for real). Lies, lies, and more lies will be following at least every four years for the next five campaigns; if they work, they'll also be pounding away at us in-between, each and every single day.
This is what we have unleashed. This is what we will have to deal with. The battle won't be over by a long shot regardless of November's results. It will re-define the word relentless. Or, perhaps, torture.
Need another reason to win in November? What planet did you say you were from?
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
Tuesday, February 11, 2020
The Press Should NEVER Shut Up, Dr. Drew
Dr. Drew Pinsky just wants things to settle down. So do the rest of us, I'll bet.
He wants the press to "shut up" about what he believes to be insufficiently large numbers of people who have caught, and died from, the coronavirus. In terms of the totality of humanity, well, the numbers are small: 17,000 caught, 362 (as of yesterday) perished.
No biggie, right? Just calm down, right?
More information is always better than less. You can get upset by it if you want to. You can also ignore it if you want to. It's up to you. And it should be. That means you actually have access to it to make an informed decision about, say, traveling darn near anywhere now because anyone who's been to Wuhan, China, might just be carrying the virus with them and not know it.
You see, some of the other information that's been put out there by that cantankerous press that Dr. Drew's whining about is that you can carry the virus for up to two weeks and not have any symptoms whatsoever. That means that you've become a very nice incubation machine for spreading one hell of a disease around the entire globe.
Globalization does that, too. It means that pretty soon, anything you could be touching outside of your own dwelling might be infected.
That's just what people don't want: fear. They can get pretty paranoid.
But doesn't it depend on what they get paranoid about? And whether it should matter? Moreover, shouldn't we all have as much information as we can possibly get?
Where was everyone worrying about overexposure to information when the Ebola virus hit Texas five years ago? Seems to me the press got all over that, too.
The problem is not that it's over-reported. The problem is that it's an awful virus that's got an excellent chance of getting out of control. But Dr. Drew wants us not to worry until, say, that three-figured number of deaths hits--what, four figures? Five? Six?
When do we get your permission to get really worried, Dr. Drew? You're a member of the media, too--right? Didn't you tell the 'media' to shut up on a television show? That makes you a competing member of the media, trying to out-shout the voices which suggest that we start getting pretty worried about this.
All you have to do, Dr. Drew, is keep talking on your show. Your show. You know, the one you're quite privileged to have?
I don't want the press to ever, ev-er, stop telling us about this stuff. It's the same way I don't want the press to ever, ev-er, stop reporting the number of those military folks with brain injuries from the Iranian counterattack the other day.
The number of people injured, said 45, who can never be trusted about anything, was zero at first.
He lied. He always lies. We learned that, again, as if it needs to be learned by anybody anymore, when the total suddenly went to 33.
Then it went to 50. Then 64. And now, as of today, it's 109.
109 brain injuries. Shall we call that, too, a minor issue, Dr. Drew? I mean, nobody's died yet.
Have they? Or is that under-reported? I want to know more about those people: Where they are, how are they, and for heaven's sake, who they are. No names have been published. I can take one guess why--because they're not done counting the injured yet. 109 will grow. If it doesn't, I'll stand corrected.
You don't need my permission to get really worried about that, gang. You already should be. Nobody's on that story that I know of: Not CNN, not the New York Times, nobody. That secret's too well-kept, and that hurts all of us.
Because if we don't know and won't know numbers about who's hurt in this particular incident, we won't know how many people are sick from the coronavirus until it's way-way too late, until things are pretty much spread all over the country.
That's why you put the numbers out there right now, Dr. Drew. You create awareness. With awareness comes prevention. With prevention comes the arrest of the spread of what might be a disease that might kill thousands.
And with awareness of real numbers will come questions as to what our government's doing to get out in front of it, if it's still possible to do so. Which is why this can, and with this bunch of hoodlums will, be hidden until they're ready to release it: to create talking points and minimize criticism. They think they're good at it and they are, until actual facts are revealed. They'll lie about this, too, if they haven't already. Wait and see.
Look, Dr. Drew, you're a physician. You know more about this stuff than we do. And your voice is valued. Too. I can take your advice and trash the press, and assume that's a little too soon to get too excited, or I can conclude that you're the one who's a little slow on the take here, and that your elevated position might be better utilized at telling us what to do so we don't have to worry about it.
Running and hiding and wishing it would all go away just doesn't cut it. There's way too much of that going on right here and right now, which is an important reason we're in the fix we're in--and I don't mean about a disease, either.
Be well (Yeah, I know I always say that, but I mean it). Be careful (Ditto). I'll see you down the road (Hopefully).
Mister Mark
He wants the press to "shut up" about what he believes to be insufficiently large numbers of people who have caught, and died from, the coronavirus. In terms of the totality of humanity, well, the numbers are small: 17,000 caught, 362 (as of yesterday) perished.
No biggie, right? Just calm down, right?
More information is always better than less. You can get upset by it if you want to. You can also ignore it if you want to. It's up to you. And it should be. That means you actually have access to it to make an informed decision about, say, traveling darn near anywhere now because anyone who's been to Wuhan, China, might just be carrying the virus with them and not know it.
You see, some of the other information that's been put out there by that cantankerous press that Dr. Drew's whining about is that you can carry the virus for up to two weeks and not have any symptoms whatsoever. That means that you've become a very nice incubation machine for spreading one hell of a disease around the entire globe.
Globalization does that, too. It means that pretty soon, anything you could be touching outside of your own dwelling might be infected.
That's just what people don't want: fear. They can get pretty paranoid.
But doesn't it depend on what they get paranoid about? And whether it should matter? Moreover, shouldn't we all have as much information as we can possibly get?
Where was everyone worrying about overexposure to information when the Ebola virus hit Texas five years ago? Seems to me the press got all over that, too.
The problem is not that it's over-reported. The problem is that it's an awful virus that's got an excellent chance of getting out of control. But Dr. Drew wants us not to worry until, say, that three-figured number of deaths hits--what, four figures? Five? Six?
When do we get your permission to get really worried, Dr. Drew? You're a member of the media, too--right? Didn't you tell the 'media' to shut up on a television show? That makes you a competing member of the media, trying to out-shout the voices which suggest that we start getting pretty worried about this.
All you have to do, Dr. Drew, is keep talking on your show. Your show. You know, the one you're quite privileged to have?
I don't want the press to ever, ev-er, stop telling us about this stuff. It's the same way I don't want the press to ever, ev-er, stop reporting the number of those military folks with brain injuries from the Iranian counterattack the other day.
The number of people injured, said 45, who can never be trusted about anything, was zero at first.
He lied. He always lies. We learned that, again, as if it needs to be learned by anybody anymore, when the total suddenly went to 33.
Then it went to 50. Then 64. And now, as of today, it's 109.
109 brain injuries. Shall we call that, too, a minor issue, Dr. Drew? I mean, nobody's died yet.
Have they? Or is that under-reported? I want to know more about those people: Where they are, how are they, and for heaven's sake, who they are. No names have been published. I can take one guess why--because they're not done counting the injured yet. 109 will grow. If it doesn't, I'll stand corrected.
You don't need my permission to get really worried about that, gang. You already should be. Nobody's on that story that I know of: Not CNN, not the New York Times, nobody. That secret's too well-kept, and that hurts all of us.
Because if we don't know and won't know numbers about who's hurt in this particular incident, we won't know how many people are sick from the coronavirus until it's way-way too late, until things are pretty much spread all over the country.
That's why you put the numbers out there right now, Dr. Drew. You create awareness. With awareness comes prevention. With prevention comes the arrest of the spread of what might be a disease that might kill thousands.
And with awareness of real numbers will come questions as to what our government's doing to get out in front of it, if it's still possible to do so. Which is why this can, and with this bunch of hoodlums will, be hidden until they're ready to release it: to create talking points and minimize criticism. They think they're good at it and they are, until actual facts are revealed. They'll lie about this, too, if they haven't already. Wait and see.
Look, Dr. Drew, you're a physician. You know more about this stuff than we do. And your voice is valued. Too. I can take your advice and trash the press, and assume that's a little too soon to get too excited, or I can conclude that you're the one who's a little slow on the take here, and that your elevated position might be better utilized at telling us what to do so we don't have to worry about it.
Running and hiding and wishing it would all go away just doesn't cut it. There's way too much of that going on right here and right now, which is an important reason we're in the fix we're in--and I don't mean about a disease, either.
Be well (Yeah, I know I always say that, but I mean it). Be careful (Ditto). I'll see you down the road (Hopefully).
Mister Mark
Monday, February 10, 2020
Joel Packer, the Happy Warrior: Finally at Rest
When you saw Joel Packer at NEA, something big was happening. And usually, he was nearby.
It was February, 2009, during my last year on the NEA Executive Committee. We were going through the agenda of the regularly scheduled Executive Committee meeting, filled with mundane discussions and posturing as it usually was. In walked Joel Packer.
President Dennis Van Roekel knew where he'd been: The White House. This alone compared with the previous eight years was a thunderbolt of good news. The Bush-43 administration, rife with smacking us around with No Child Left Behind's attitude of the-beatings-will-stop-when-morale-improves, had been, well, let's say reluctant to meet with us because that would imply they actually wanted to cooperate--which they certainly didn't. (In fact, so full of themselves were they about 'knowing' that we were misusing our PAC money that the feds conducted an audit of our books in 2005. We gave them all the time and room they wanted. They found, as we had always insisted and contrary to whomever was filling their heads with such nonsense, that no union dues were spent on political action; it was PAC money alone, raised and spent separately, according to law. The auditors even said that after a while it was getting ridiculous. No arguments here.)
But now it was Barack Obama in the Oval Office, and the avenues of conversation had been re-opened. Joel announced that the NEA President had been invited to speak to the President that next morning. Adjustments were made: the appointment was set and our schedule shifted.
It was vintage Packer. He was as ubiquitous an NEA staff member as you could find, if indeed you could find him. I tried his office once. I have never seen piles of paper so high, balanced quite so well. It looked as if a hard sneeze might send those piles streaming right out the door.
But that's the essence of work in government relations, a.k.a. lobbying, a bit of which I did in Texas for another union. No shred of information can ever be cast aside as irrelevant. Nothing can ever fail to be traced to an earlier proposal, bill, or idea that might lead to a bill. It has to be somewhere. Throwing it away might be slamming shut a vital piece of legislation for the members, current politics notwithstanding.
He continued his peripatetic paths while the chief liaison to the Great Public Schools Action Plan, a catch-all for organizing on a grand scale. If anything, his territory widened. I wondered if he needed a bigger desk.
If there was a word for Joel, it was helpful. If he saw potentiality, he reached out to the one possessing it. In my early days on the Executive Committee, with knowledge of inner workings of the NEA building ever necessary but ever elusive, he included me alone on an insider listserv of information concerning Congressional staff connections on No Child Left Behind. But I made a rookie mistake and decided to share it with someone else. Those missives disappeared. Thus did I learn that lesson.
But the fact that for a few weeks I had been the only EC member on it, in my first year as raw as fresh-cut steak meant, and still means, a lot. He had clearly found a kindred spirit. Staff sometimes does that, and EC members get their savvy from such connections.
One of the best things about Joel was that, although he was the information and nerve center of much vital work at NEA, he never overplayed his hand. He never seemed to get out in front of his tasks and think of himself as above the fray or better than whomever sat next to him. But then, with that much responsibility, he often walked a narrow tightrope. Through it all, he never lost his likability. He always impressed me as being a Hubert Humphrey type: Always the happy warrior.
When I took a year to return to Washington to try to find work in 2013, Joel had moved on to work with a progressive public interest organization called The Raben Group. I met with him and he was as helpful as he could be, which wasn't much at that time since the sequestration had dried up a significant number of contract possibilities. But he also let me in on an interesting piece of image-readjustment: Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin wasn't quite the dolt he had originally impressed people as being. He was doing some important work. So I wasn't all that surprised when, in 2014, Obama appointed Johnson to be representative to the U.N. General Assembly. (That he is now a 45 sycophant, trying to dredge up dirt on the Bidens, doesn't add luster to Johnson's persona. though.)
He continued to move about within the broader educational community in D.C. He was a 'known name,' not easy to pull off in the snarky cauldron of the nation's capital. He may have been diminutive in stature, but stood tall with influence. Joel retired just a few years ago, and true to form, he and his wife Carolyn became internationally peripatetic. If you managed to friend him on Facebook, you saw that they were joyful world travelers.
So though it was a jolt, I also thought of it kind of fitting when I learned (thank you, Dennis Friel) that he had passed away in Santiago, Chile, on January 23. He had been on the move again, discovering as much of the world as he could.
Nobody needs to tell me that dying in one's 60s is entirely possible; I barely dodged that two years ago. But with Joel Packer's passing, you have to ask: Really? Did it have to be him? He and Carolyn deserved longer with the grandkids, more time to ramble the globe, making up for those extra hours he needed to help the NEA's success.
And yet, and yet: He died doing what he loved with the person he loved the most. Can there be a better epitaph?
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
It was February, 2009, during my last year on the NEA Executive Committee. We were going through the agenda of the regularly scheduled Executive Committee meeting, filled with mundane discussions and posturing as it usually was. In walked Joel Packer.
President Dennis Van Roekel knew where he'd been: The White House. This alone compared with the previous eight years was a thunderbolt of good news. The Bush-43 administration, rife with smacking us around with No Child Left Behind's attitude of the-beatings-will-stop-when-morale-improves, had been, well, let's say reluctant to meet with us because that would imply they actually wanted to cooperate--which they certainly didn't. (In fact, so full of themselves were they about 'knowing' that we were misusing our PAC money that the feds conducted an audit of our books in 2005. We gave them all the time and room they wanted. They found, as we had always insisted and contrary to whomever was filling their heads with such nonsense, that no union dues were spent on political action; it was PAC money alone, raised and spent separately, according to law. The auditors even said that after a while it was getting ridiculous. No arguments here.)
But now it was Barack Obama in the Oval Office, and the avenues of conversation had been re-opened. Joel announced that the NEA President had been invited to speak to the President that next morning. Adjustments were made: the appointment was set and our schedule shifted.
It was vintage Packer. He was as ubiquitous an NEA staff member as you could find, if indeed you could find him. I tried his office once. I have never seen piles of paper so high, balanced quite so well. It looked as if a hard sneeze might send those piles streaming right out the door.
But that's the essence of work in government relations, a.k.a. lobbying, a bit of which I did in Texas for another union. No shred of information can ever be cast aside as irrelevant. Nothing can ever fail to be traced to an earlier proposal, bill, or idea that might lead to a bill. It has to be somewhere. Throwing it away might be slamming shut a vital piece of legislation for the members, current politics notwithstanding.
He continued his peripatetic paths while the chief liaison to the Great Public Schools Action Plan, a catch-all for organizing on a grand scale. If anything, his territory widened. I wondered if he needed a bigger desk.
If there was a word for Joel, it was helpful. If he saw potentiality, he reached out to the one possessing it. In my early days on the Executive Committee, with knowledge of inner workings of the NEA building ever necessary but ever elusive, he included me alone on an insider listserv of information concerning Congressional staff connections on No Child Left Behind. But I made a rookie mistake and decided to share it with someone else. Those missives disappeared. Thus did I learn that lesson.
But the fact that for a few weeks I had been the only EC member on it, in my first year as raw as fresh-cut steak meant, and still means, a lot. He had clearly found a kindred spirit. Staff sometimes does that, and EC members get their savvy from such connections.
One of the best things about Joel was that, although he was the information and nerve center of much vital work at NEA, he never overplayed his hand. He never seemed to get out in front of his tasks and think of himself as above the fray or better than whomever sat next to him. But then, with that much responsibility, he often walked a narrow tightrope. Through it all, he never lost his likability. He always impressed me as being a Hubert Humphrey type: Always the happy warrior.
When I took a year to return to Washington to try to find work in 2013, Joel had moved on to work with a progressive public interest organization called The Raben Group. I met with him and he was as helpful as he could be, which wasn't much at that time since the sequestration had dried up a significant number of contract possibilities. But he also let me in on an interesting piece of image-readjustment: Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin wasn't quite the dolt he had originally impressed people as being. He was doing some important work. So I wasn't all that surprised when, in 2014, Obama appointed Johnson to be representative to the U.N. General Assembly. (That he is now a 45 sycophant, trying to dredge up dirt on the Bidens, doesn't add luster to Johnson's persona. though.)
He continued to move about within the broader educational community in D.C. He was a 'known name,' not easy to pull off in the snarky cauldron of the nation's capital. He may have been diminutive in stature, but stood tall with influence. Joel retired just a few years ago, and true to form, he and his wife Carolyn became internationally peripatetic. If you managed to friend him on Facebook, you saw that they were joyful world travelers.
So though it was a jolt, I also thought of it kind of fitting when I learned (thank you, Dennis Friel) that he had passed away in Santiago, Chile, on January 23. He had been on the move again, discovering as much of the world as he could.
Nobody needs to tell me that dying in one's 60s is entirely possible; I barely dodged that two years ago. But with Joel Packer's passing, you have to ask: Really? Did it have to be him? He and Carolyn deserved longer with the grandkids, more time to ramble the globe, making up for those extra hours he needed to help the NEA's success.
And yet, and yet: He died doing what he loved with the person he loved the most. Can there be a better epitaph?
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
Saturday, February 8, 2020
Rush Limbaugh: A Shoo-in for the Medal of Freedom
America is about freedom, or so it wishes to tell the world. The bottom line basis of that freedom is the right to say things.
Some people take that to extremes. They think they can say whatever they want to say about people, especially in the general sense, so they can insult lots of them without being sued. After all, if they didn't insult you in particular, you can't insist that your reputation was sufficiently sullied to recover damages.
If you consider this a skill, go right ahead. Actually, it's pretty easy to do. Let me help you: Right-wing commentators tend to have less brains that God gave a grasshopper and the sensitivities of a pack of hyenas.
See? No sweat.
There are plenty of right-wing commentators out there, so they can't touch me except to respond in kind about my lack of brains and sensitivity--which they are likely to do since they find it quite difficult to take it after giving plenty of it out. They combine the words bully and victim to concoct a hateful, repulsive daily sewage.
Some of them, the cleverest, are paid lots of money for this as long as they don't insult people too much so that their sponsors--who are the only ones who matter in all this--don't start losing sales through flash-boycotts.
But they skate on the very edge of the waterfall, so the Constitution remains a questionable bulwark of their awful craft. The late Don Imus crossed it a while back, referring to Rutgers women's basketball players as "nappy-headed ho's." He paid a huge price for it, his sponsors freaked out and he was forced to apologize.
The racial aspect of this is a sculpted, daily cheap-shot opportunity. Stereotypes won't die soon as long as these poison producers get airtime. Even mass murder can be supported. Alex Jones went on for a long time believing he had been constitutionally supported in his claims that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax, that it didn't happen, that the parents were out there to support gun control only.
Jones lost, but the money that the Sandy Hook parents had to produce to get him to court and face tough questions tends to discourage others who are humiliated thusly. He never apologized.
Never mind the money. For them, the essence of defeat for them is an apology. Don't expect them often from this bunch. The right to say insulting things comes right along with the refusal to say sorry. It's a sign of weakness, you know. Compassion nearly always is to these piranha.
Apologies, if sincere, mean that a wrongdoing has been recognized; that the harm is clear; and that it won't happen again if the apologizer can possibly help it. I'm reminded of the smarmy kids in some of my classes who, when asked to stop bothering someone, quickly respond with 'sorry', as if I would turn away from him/her and go on--until about 30 seconds later, when it would start again. I devised a response that would eliminate any further discussion: Don't be sorry, just be quiet. Rather than saying what was really on my mind, I don't believe you, my wish was to take the phoniness out of the issue.
Let us consider, then, Rush Limbaugh, who was awarded the Presidential (I loathe capitalizing it in this horrible case) Medal of Freedom by 45 at the State of the Disunion Speech this past Tuesday. It was the celebration of a career of abuse, supported by millions with weak self-esteem and are thus eager to bring someone down with them. This is quite a country for being the beacon of freedom. You'd think people would feel good about themselves living here.
But it's essential to this weasel and his presidential trash-alike that enough people don't. And for heaven's sake, don't lift them up and get them to feel better about humanity at large. That would be a happy thing. That would be verboten.
Like 45, they have to be unhappy about something. They need a gripe to get people fired up. Rush Limbaugh will create them until he dies.
Which, apparently, won't be that long. He has Stage 4 lung cancer. I'm sure that whatever family he has will miss him. I doubt very much that the country will. He has done little more for it than set people against each other from the pretense of inventing excuses to spin semi-truths into clever rejoinders to get dependent pawns to believe that someone had something coming to them.
As a matter of fact, isn't that exactly what 45 is doing? Isn't that what brings the dependents to his rallies? If he began saying nice things, would they even bother to stay? And if Rush Limbaugh began praising the people he trashed, would they stay tuned to his station?
In no small part, we are what we reward. I remember falling asleep on a couch and then awakening at 2 or 3 in the morning with this guy telling insults to what seemed to be pre-picked listeners on pre-taped shows, who laughed at him albeit nervously, not sure whether they should, not sure who the jokes were on. That was in the early '90s, when nobody could see Limbaugh coming in their rearview mirrors.
I didn't think so, either. I never thought the country would accept such nonsense. Not only has a significant part of it accepted it, though, it runs to embrace it. Here are a few of his real beauties:
It may not be the ultimate mockery, but it's close. Maybe Alex Jones will be next.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
Some people take that to extremes. They think they can say whatever they want to say about people, especially in the general sense, so they can insult lots of them without being sued. After all, if they didn't insult you in particular, you can't insist that your reputation was sufficiently sullied to recover damages.
If you consider this a skill, go right ahead. Actually, it's pretty easy to do. Let me help you: Right-wing commentators tend to have less brains that God gave a grasshopper and the sensitivities of a pack of hyenas.
See? No sweat.
There are plenty of right-wing commentators out there, so they can't touch me except to respond in kind about my lack of brains and sensitivity--which they are likely to do since they find it quite difficult to take it after giving plenty of it out. They combine the words bully and victim to concoct a hateful, repulsive daily sewage.
Some of them, the cleverest, are paid lots of money for this as long as they don't insult people too much so that their sponsors--who are the only ones who matter in all this--don't start losing sales through flash-boycotts.
But they skate on the very edge of the waterfall, so the Constitution remains a questionable bulwark of their awful craft. The late Don Imus crossed it a while back, referring to Rutgers women's basketball players as "nappy-headed ho's." He paid a huge price for it, his sponsors freaked out and he was forced to apologize.
The racial aspect of this is a sculpted, daily cheap-shot opportunity. Stereotypes won't die soon as long as these poison producers get airtime. Even mass murder can be supported. Alex Jones went on for a long time believing he had been constitutionally supported in his claims that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax, that it didn't happen, that the parents were out there to support gun control only.
Jones lost, but the money that the Sandy Hook parents had to produce to get him to court and face tough questions tends to discourage others who are humiliated thusly. He never apologized.
Never mind the money. For them, the essence of defeat for them is an apology. Don't expect them often from this bunch. The right to say insulting things comes right along with the refusal to say sorry. It's a sign of weakness, you know. Compassion nearly always is to these piranha.
Apologies, if sincere, mean that a wrongdoing has been recognized; that the harm is clear; and that it won't happen again if the apologizer can possibly help it. I'm reminded of the smarmy kids in some of my classes who, when asked to stop bothering someone, quickly respond with 'sorry', as if I would turn away from him/her and go on--until about 30 seconds later, when it would start again. I devised a response that would eliminate any further discussion: Don't be sorry, just be quiet. Rather than saying what was really on my mind, I don't believe you, my wish was to take the phoniness out of the issue.
Let us consider, then, Rush Limbaugh, who was awarded the Presidential (I loathe capitalizing it in this horrible case) Medal of Freedom by 45 at the State of the Disunion Speech this past Tuesday. It was the celebration of a career of abuse, supported by millions with weak self-esteem and are thus eager to bring someone down with them. This is quite a country for being the beacon of freedom. You'd think people would feel good about themselves living here.
But it's essential to this weasel and his presidential trash-alike that enough people don't. And for heaven's sake, don't lift them up and get them to feel better about humanity at large. That would be a happy thing. That would be verboten.
Like 45, they have to be unhappy about something. They need a gripe to get people fired up. Rush Limbaugh will create them until he dies.
Which, apparently, won't be that long. He has Stage 4 lung cancer. I'm sure that whatever family he has will miss him. I doubt very much that the country will. He has done little more for it than set people against each other from the pretense of inventing excuses to spin semi-truths into clever rejoinders to get dependent pawns to believe that someone had something coming to them.
As a matter of fact, isn't that exactly what 45 is doing? Isn't that what brings the dependents to his rallies? If he began saying nice things, would they even bother to stay? And if Rush Limbaugh began praising the people he trashed, would they stay tuned to his station?
In no small part, we are what we reward. I remember falling asleep on a couch and then awakening at 2 or 3 in the morning with this guy telling insults to what seemed to be pre-picked listeners on pre-taped shows, who laughed at him albeit nervously, not sure whether they should, not sure who the jokes were on. That was in the early '90s, when nobody could see Limbaugh coming in their rearview mirrors.
I didn't think so, either. I never thought the country would accept such nonsense. Not only has a significant part of it accepted it, though, it runs to embrace it. Here are a few of his real beauties:
- "Citizen service is a repudiation of the principles upon which the country was based. We are all here for ourselves."
- The only way to reduce the number of nuclear weapons is to use them."
- "If you believe in God, then intellectually you cannot believe in global warming."
- "Women should not be allowed to be on juries where the accused is a stud."
- "Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women access to the mainstream of society."
- [Holding up a picture of Chelsea Clinton, then age 13] "Socks is the White House cat. But did you know there is also a White House dog?"
- "Have you ever noticed how the composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?"
It may not be the ultimate mockery, but it's close. Maybe Alex Jones will be next.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
Friday, February 7, 2020
The Boys of Summer: Roger Kahn and Me
It was the next to last day of the National Education Association Representative Assembly, July 2009. It would be my last RA.
There would be a moment reserved for me to get to the podium and say good-bye. I knew it would be emotional.
Some months beforehand, one of the other Executive Committee members wondered out loud, in front of others, whether I would cry at the end. I thought that to be crass, but behind the scenes, some of them could get that way. In a backhanded way, it was a challenge: Can you take it? Can you handle your final moments?
The thing is, I wondered myself. But I had the antidote: A recognition that life went on. (After all, it did and it has.) It would help me be brave. I had the phrase that told it. It had jumped into my head with superb timing.
It was from the book The Boys of Summer, by Roger Kahn, who died yesterday at 92. It has been heralded as the greatest sports book ever; one wonders, but it has to be in the handful mentioned in any conversation to that regard. I had read it long before.
It was during the last week of my college career. I had bought it used in Conkey's Bookstore in downtown Appleton, WI. The cover was already torn and there was an odd red ink marking in the top page border. I read it in waiting the few days for the graduation ceremony.
It was poignant and extremely moving. It was about many things concerning sports, but even more concerning life: How the famous deal with the end of fame and go on to other lives. It was a page-turner. Great players for the then-Brooklyn Dodgers and not-so-great players told of their transitions: people like Carl Erskine, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, Duke Snider, Carl Furillo, Gil Hodges, and the magnificent Jackie Robinson, whose journey just to get to a major league baseball field was revealed in expository writing that rivals Martin Luther King's in its power.
Whatever they had achieved, notoriety waned as soon as they walked away from Ebbets Field or Dodger Stadium for the last time. Kahn underlined the lesson that I too, learned: fame is fleeting. People tend to forget you as soon as you leave the spotlight. The challenge of being within it is matched, if not surpassed, by that of knowing that it will end.
Kahn wrote, too, of his own growing up and the meaning of baseball, and baseball writing, in his life. It was done with great sensitivity and deep respect. The passage of time and the release of fame has been recorded with little greater depth than in The Boys of Summer.
I thought it quite appropriate to quote from it, even though I didn't have it with me; not only because I had achieved some marginal amount of fame as a sports columnist in Cedarburg, WI, but because the timing couldn't have been better.
Here I was at the end of the time in which I had accomplished what would be my highest achievement: representing 3.2 million members here, there and everywhere; participating in vital discussions dealing with American public education; speaking to groups internally and externally, sometimes to great success. Never would I have such influence on so many people again, even for a few moments.
The phrase settled well as I typed it: And then it was time to start uphill toward another morning and another home. It was the text's final words. It beckoned me like a friend. It was exactly the way I felt.
It would be uphill indeed. There would be several more homes, how many I couldn't tell, to fit between my forced retirement from teaching and getting a leg up on Social Security--eight years in all. But after a metaphorical comment about how the NEA was now in a new 'season,' so to speak, I could be sufficiently buttressed in telling the RA how I felt.
So posthumously, I want to thank Roger Kahn for helping me raise myself through a tough moment. In a conversation with a member from Oregon several months later, he was kind enough to tell me that in twenty years, he hadn't heard a better farewell speech.
In no small way, reading Kahn's book at the conclusion of my college education helped propel me toward more sports writing--I had been the sports editor of the campus newspaper, the Lawrentian--and find value in that and in whatever I could lend to it, even while I taught high school full-time. The pluck I would build through the support and defense of my writings would hold me in good stead when it came to union politics and putting myself out there to crowds ever larger. It would get me used to absorbing Rudyard Kipling's refrain that success and failure are similar imposters and help me accept both of them in stride.
One more phrase from The Boys of Summer hit me in an opportune moment. I had seen it before because I'm getting daily missives from people who study and follow the writings of the Stoics. Their motto is Memento mori: Remember that you will die. Roger Kahn had written it reflecting the memory of his father, who helped him learn baseball.
I thought of that almost immediately after awakening from my heart surgery, where the doctor had repaired three major arteries, one of which he later said was 99% plugged; I had been literally at death's door. Remembering that one will die can be frustrating and depressing, sure. But as these modern Stoics remind us, it can also propel one to get everything out of life, squeeze every last drop, that one can. Then when the moment comes, one can move uphill to another morning and another home with as much satisfaction as one can muster.
Be well. Be careful. Memento mori. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
There would be a moment reserved for me to get to the podium and say good-bye. I knew it would be emotional.
Some months beforehand, one of the other Executive Committee members wondered out loud, in front of others, whether I would cry at the end. I thought that to be crass, but behind the scenes, some of them could get that way. In a backhanded way, it was a challenge: Can you take it? Can you handle your final moments?
The thing is, I wondered myself. But I had the antidote: A recognition that life went on. (After all, it did and it has.) It would help me be brave. I had the phrase that told it. It had jumped into my head with superb timing.
It was from the book The Boys of Summer, by Roger Kahn, who died yesterday at 92. It has been heralded as the greatest sports book ever; one wonders, but it has to be in the handful mentioned in any conversation to that regard. I had read it long before.
It was during the last week of my college career. I had bought it used in Conkey's Bookstore in downtown Appleton, WI. The cover was already torn and there was an odd red ink marking in the top page border. I read it in waiting the few days for the graduation ceremony.
It was poignant and extremely moving. It was about many things concerning sports, but even more concerning life: How the famous deal with the end of fame and go on to other lives. It was a page-turner. Great players for the then-Brooklyn Dodgers and not-so-great players told of their transitions: people like Carl Erskine, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, Duke Snider, Carl Furillo, Gil Hodges, and the magnificent Jackie Robinson, whose journey just to get to a major league baseball field was revealed in expository writing that rivals Martin Luther King's in its power.
Whatever they had achieved, notoriety waned as soon as they walked away from Ebbets Field or Dodger Stadium for the last time. Kahn underlined the lesson that I too, learned: fame is fleeting. People tend to forget you as soon as you leave the spotlight. The challenge of being within it is matched, if not surpassed, by that of knowing that it will end.
Kahn wrote, too, of his own growing up and the meaning of baseball, and baseball writing, in his life. It was done with great sensitivity and deep respect. The passage of time and the release of fame has been recorded with little greater depth than in The Boys of Summer.
I thought it quite appropriate to quote from it, even though I didn't have it with me; not only because I had achieved some marginal amount of fame as a sports columnist in Cedarburg, WI, but because the timing couldn't have been better.
Here I was at the end of the time in which I had accomplished what would be my highest achievement: representing 3.2 million members here, there and everywhere; participating in vital discussions dealing with American public education; speaking to groups internally and externally, sometimes to great success. Never would I have such influence on so many people again, even for a few moments.
The phrase settled well as I typed it: And then it was time to start uphill toward another morning and another home. It was the text's final words. It beckoned me like a friend. It was exactly the way I felt.
It would be uphill indeed. There would be several more homes, how many I couldn't tell, to fit between my forced retirement from teaching and getting a leg up on Social Security--eight years in all. But after a metaphorical comment about how the NEA was now in a new 'season,' so to speak, I could be sufficiently buttressed in telling the RA how I felt.
So posthumously, I want to thank Roger Kahn for helping me raise myself through a tough moment. In a conversation with a member from Oregon several months later, he was kind enough to tell me that in twenty years, he hadn't heard a better farewell speech.
In no small way, reading Kahn's book at the conclusion of my college education helped propel me toward more sports writing--I had been the sports editor of the campus newspaper, the Lawrentian--and find value in that and in whatever I could lend to it, even while I taught high school full-time. The pluck I would build through the support and defense of my writings would hold me in good stead when it came to union politics and putting myself out there to crowds ever larger. It would get me used to absorbing Rudyard Kipling's refrain that success and failure are similar imposters and help me accept both of them in stride.
One more phrase from The Boys of Summer hit me in an opportune moment. I had seen it before because I'm getting daily missives from people who study and follow the writings of the Stoics. Their motto is Memento mori: Remember that you will die. Roger Kahn had written it reflecting the memory of his father, who helped him learn baseball.
I thought of that almost immediately after awakening from my heart surgery, where the doctor had repaired three major arteries, one of which he later said was 99% plugged; I had been literally at death's door. Remembering that one will die can be frustrating and depressing, sure. But as these modern Stoics remind us, it can also propel one to get everything out of life, squeeze every last drop, that one can. Then when the moment comes, one can move uphill to another morning and another home with as much satisfaction as one can muster.
Be well. Be careful. Memento mori. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
Comity: It's Ebbing. You Can See It Now. It's Been Happening For A While.
It's not a word often used in conversations but it is the world that keeps conversations from spinning out of control, if not disappearing altogether.
That word is comity: the attitude of mutual respect for the right of someone else to say what's on their minds, as long as the words aren't meant to be, themselves, disrespectful. It keeps debates and discussions on legislative issues going. It fosters ways to compromise by keeping people in the room. And it brings people back to the same place the next day, unafraid that they'll either get insulted and/or that they'll need to insult someone back in justifiable response.
It is the very thing that saved the United States of America in 1787. Indeed, it's not ridiculous to say that it created the country that survived until it couldn't, in 1861, when comity, which had been slowly ebbing in the houses of Congress, basically disappeared amongst those with sufficient senses of victimization to stop coming altogether. Then guns settled it with hundreds of thousands dying.
Not for the first time, but for the first time to such an extent, the absence of comity was on display last night during 45's State of the Union propaganda package of lies. Bitterness lined the room; 45 had beaten the impeachment rap and entered filled with vindictiveness and spite. In a break with precedent, Speaker Pelosi refrained from gushing in her introduction of 45 and simply said, "Members of Congress: the President of the United States." Responding, 45 refused her handshake.
That's a new low, but there's plenty of room to descend. We're getting there now: Tim Ryan and Seth Moulton, two former presidential candidates (and who were both good but just don't have the chops right now) walked out of the speech. Pouncing on an obvious gaffe, the Democrats signaled "H.R. 3" to the podium when 45 said he'd sign a bill passed to control prescription drugs, since that was the topic of that bill except Mitch McConnell hasn't moved it off his desk yet (and maybe it isn't a gaffe; maybe and typically, he wants something that has his previous approval so he can claim credit for it). And of course, there was Pelosi's tearing up of the speech in plain sight after 45 had finished.
What was missing was the Joe Wilson, "you lie" insult thrown at Obama. There may be time yet to do that if the country messes up like the Democrats have in Iowa and puts this horrible mistake back in the White House for four more years. There will be thousands of lies until then, and untold thousands if extended.
The deterioration of comity, then, seems to have taken place here and now. But no: It's been happening for quite some time.
Ira Shapiro wrote of the decline of comity in the Senate in his work The Last Great Senate (2012). Shapiro, who spent twelve years in senior staff positions in the Senate, believes he can tell when it really began: Upon the election of Ronald Reagan and the upsets of several prominent Senate Democrats in 1980. It was then that the attitudes began to change:
In seeking an explanation for the Senate's precipitous decline, the evidence points unequivocally n one direction. Certainly, many times the actions of Senate Democrats, individually or collectively, have frustrated or disappointed supporters like me. I can also recall many instances in which Senate Republicans acted as superb legislators and statesmen. Neither party has ever had a monopoly on fine legislators. But overall, today's fractured and ineffective Senate is the product of the continuous, relentless movement of the Republican Party further and further to the right, accompanied by a fierce determination to defeat their Democratic opponents and an increase willingness by some to frustrate and obstruct the legislative process and the operation of government by whatever means possible.
These attitudes are sent down through the decades. After he was upset in his 2004 re-election race (by John Thune, who's still there), Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota wrote Like No Other Time (2006), in which he expanded on what Shapiro began to see twenty years earlier:
There is an element of coercion and fear used by certain Republican leadership that just doesn't exist on our side....I recall what one Republican House member told me: "They rule by fear and intimidation, and punish those who disagree."
That is not the Democratic way. We've chosen to lead by consensus rather than hear, even if it's sometimes harder to build consensus than to issue a dictate....
Most of the Republican hard core and their followers don't (encourage and embrace diversity). When President Bush (43) says, "You're either with us or against us," he's not just speaking to the world; he's articulating an attitude that permits the Republicans' view of our own society, and, within their party's core leadership, of themselves.
The Republican Party's hierarchy doesn't often appear comfortable with diversity, not when it comes to people and certainly not when it comes to opinions. Within the inner circles of the Republicans' higher ranks certainly within the leadership that controls Congress and the White House at the moment (remember, this is nearly twenty years ago now), they simply don't tolerate it....
The current core Republican leadership, from George Bush on down, not only runs internal affairs of its party, but would like to run the affairs of our nation with a 'with us or against us' attitude. This attitude reflects not only a lack of respect for dissent, but the forceful imposition of one's ideas on another.
Articles about the lack of comity in the Senate are legion: Just google it. In an article called "The Empty Chamber" in the New Yorker in August, 2010, George Packer echoes Shapiro in designating the Reagan Revolution and its insurgence of anti-government conservatives as being the cutting edge of "the Senate's modern decline." But it isn't that alone. Utilization of arcane Senate rules to hold up court nominations and insisting on declared but silent filibusters and delaying of committee hearings and legislative mark-ups haven't helped people get along. A three-day work week, at best, along with having to endlessly return to home states to do fund-raising, wrote Packer, has also kept Senators from opportunities to get to know each other better.
Edgy already, to add
The realization that one side has won a marginal, ethically vacant victory and must sit there and watch its so-called champion now unleash endless invectives on the people who in the name of justice tried to get rid of him will only deepen the divides already afflicting us. We enter this election season with distances only increased between us, and a president only too happy to widen them. If that cannot be successfully addressed in the U.S. Senate by what should be the finest political leadership we have, we are not in a good place and won't be for some time.
Get ready. This will not be fun.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
That word is comity: the attitude of mutual respect for the right of someone else to say what's on their minds, as long as the words aren't meant to be, themselves, disrespectful. It keeps debates and discussions on legislative issues going. It fosters ways to compromise by keeping people in the room. And it brings people back to the same place the next day, unafraid that they'll either get insulted and/or that they'll need to insult someone back in justifiable response.
It is the very thing that saved the United States of America in 1787. Indeed, it's not ridiculous to say that it created the country that survived until it couldn't, in 1861, when comity, which had been slowly ebbing in the houses of Congress, basically disappeared amongst those with sufficient senses of victimization to stop coming altogether. Then guns settled it with hundreds of thousands dying.
Not for the first time, but for the first time to such an extent, the absence of comity was on display last night during 45's State of the Union propaganda package of lies. Bitterness lined the room; 45 had beaten the impeachment rap and entered filled with vindictiveness and spite. In a break with precedent, Speaker Pelosi refrained from gushing in her introduction of 45 and simply said, "Members of Congress: the President of the United States." Responding, 45 refused her handshake.
That's a new low, but there's plenty of room to descend. We're getting there now: Tim Ryan and Seth Moulton, two former presidential candidates (and who were both good but just don't have the chops right now) walked out of the speech. Pouncing on an obvious gaffe, the Democrats signaled "H.R. 3" to the podium when 45 said he'd sign a bill passed to control prescription drugs, since that was the topic of that bill except Mitch McConnell hasn't moved it off his desk yet (and maybe it isn't a gaffe; maybe and typically, he wants something that has his previous approval so he can claim credit for it). And of course, there was Pelosi's tearing up of the speech in plain sight after 45 had finished.
What was missing was the Joe Wilson, "you lie" insult thrown at Obama. There may be time yet to do that if the country messes up like the Democrats have in Iowa and puts this horrible mistake back in the White House for four more years. There will be thousands of lies until then, and untold thousands if extended.
The deterioration of comity, then, seems to have taken place here and now. But no: It's been happening for quite some time.
Ira Shapiro wrote of the decline of comity in the Senate in his work The Last Great Senate (2012). Shapiro, who spent twelve years in senior staff positions in the Senate, believes he can tell when it really began: Upon the election of Ronald Reagan and the upsets of several prominent Senate Democrats in 1980. It was then that the attitudes began to change:
In seeking an explanation for the Senate's precipitous decline, the evidence points unequivocally n one direction. Certainly, many times the actions of Senate Democrats, individually or collectively, have frustrated or disappointed supporters like me. I can also recall many instances in which Senate Republicans acted as superb legislators and statesmen. Neither party has ever had a monopoly on fine legislators. But overall, today's fractured and ineffective Senate is the product of the continuous, relentless movement of the Republican Party further and further to the right, accompanied by a fierce determination to defeat their Democratic opponents and an increase willingness by some to frustrate and obstruct the legislative process and the operation of government by whatever means possible.
These attitudes are sent down through the decades. After he was upset in his 2004 re-election race (by John Thune, who's still there), Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota wrote Like No Other Time (2006), in which he expanded on what Shapiro began to see twenty years earlier:
There is an element of coercion and fear used by certain Republican leadership that just doesn't exist on our side....I recall what one Republican House member told me: "They rule by fear and intimidation, and punish those who disagree."
That is not the Democratic way. We've chosen to lead by consensus rather than hear, even if it's sometimes harder to build consensus than to issue a dictate....
Most of the Republican hard core and their followers don't (encourage and embrace diversity). When President Bush (43) says, "You're either with us or against us," he's not just speaking to the world; he's articulating an attitude that permits the Republicans' view of our own society, and, within their party's core leadership, of themselves.
The Republican Party's hierarchy doesn't often appear comfortable with diversity, not when it comes to people and certainly not when it comes to opinions. Within the inner circles of the Republicans' higher ranks certainly within the leadership that controls Congress and the White House at the moment (remember, this is nearly twenty years ago now), they simply don't tolerate it....
The current core Republican leadership, from George Bush on down, not only runs internal affairs of its party, but would like to run the affairs of our nation with a 'with us or against us' attitude. This attitude reflects not only a lack of respect for dissent, but the forceful imposition of one's ideas on another.
Articles about the lack of comity in the Senate are legion: Just google it. In an article called "The Empty Chamber" in the New Yorker in August, 2010, George Packer echoes Shapiro in designating the Reagan Revolution and its insurgence of anti-government conservatives as being the cutting edge of "the Senate's modern decline." But it isn't that alone. Utilization of arcane Senate rules to hold up court nominations and insisting on declared but silent filibusters and delaying of committee hearings and legislative mark-ups haven't helped people get along. A three-day work week, at best, along with having to endlessly return to home states to do fund-raising, wrote Packer, has also kept Senators from opportunities to get to know each other better.
Edgy already, to add
- the stonewalling of Merrick Garland's Supreme Court nomination;
- the fiasco of Brett Kavanaugh's nomination hearings and the tokenism of the 'investigation' that followed; and
- 45's impeachment and the clear and unmistakeable abrogation of constitutional responsibilities, with excuses varying from marginal to absurd in panic-stricken efforts to avoid being called names by an awful, craven person--that "element of coercion and fear" mentioned by Daschle, now turned up white-hot; try Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown's op-ed in the New York Times 2/6/20--
The realization that one side has won a marginal, ethically vacant victory and must sit there and watch its so-called champion now unleash endless invectives on the people who in the name of justice tried to get rid of him will only deepen the divides already afflicting us. We enter this election season with distances only increased between us, and a president only too happy to widen them. If that cannot be successfully addressed in the U.S. Senate by what should be the finest political leadership we have, we are not in a good place and won't be for some time.
Get ready. This will not be fun.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
Monday, February 3, 2020
It Awakens Him in the Night. It Must Be Called Out. The Erosion Has Gained.
There is a retired pastor I've friended on Facebook (Hey, I need as much help as I can get). He enters occasional missives, much as I did before I went this route. He lives in Illinois. Some of them are brief and some of them aren't.
This morning's comment went on a while. It was 3 a.m. and he couldn't sleep. Something's been bothering him for some time now, something that also bothered me for a while but I have come to accept it, sad though it is.
"I have really been struggling of late with the stance that white evangelicals [this pastor's black] have decided to take in support of the evilness of this president," he wrote. Yeah, I know. It drives me and a number of people with similar religious feelings stone crazy.
I'll let him continue. "They have decided delibrately to close their eyes to the truth of who [45] is for the sake of some political, social, and economic advantage...The position they have taken goes against everything that is proclaimed by Jesus."
That's hit a number of us like a thunderbolt. We have sore necks from shaking our heads. Not only is 45 followed by a large number of evangelicals, he has recruited a pastor to, so to speak, keep track of them so their political support doesn't waver in this election year.
This evangelical pastor, named Paula White, preaches the so-called "prosperity gospel," advanced by more television-popular preachers like Joel Osteen, which says that God meant us to be wealthy and healthy. That means focusing on ourselves instead of others who need help and compassion. It means we can ignore the horrible crisis on our border. We can ignore those who truly need asylum, who are truly refugees, who truly see America as their last, best hope.
This approach lends itself into politics. If in fact religion is first and foremost about ourselves, it would stand to reason that it could be turned into a fulcrum of political support--that voting for a particular individual is divinely connected with God's initial will, that we take care of ourselves first.
45 has a grip on that like few ever have, as someone who takes care of himself first and only. Or perhaps he's just far more blatant about it like he's blatant about everything else, pretenses be damned (no pun intended). It's just flat-out hypocritical, though, and millions ignore it.
They ignore it because it fulfills their narrow political agenda: against abortion and same-sex marriage and in support of personal ownership of automatic weapons. 45 will heap support for those issues, too, not because he's committed to them--he's committed to nothing--but because it gets him votes and only because it gets him votes.
This spins his very existence in the White House as somehow divinely intended, as one of the former members of his Cabinet, the intellectual (?) Rick Perry, kept saying. Supporters view his previous transgressions against many others as simply a sign that God forgives: A sinner saved by grace.
Well, no: He's a sinner saved by conveniently popular positions embraced by people who have been told that their religion supports them. They need look or consider no farther.
His posturing, though, with White and other pastors are sure to reinforce the notion that he has embraced the Almighty as being the base of his attitudes. This will deepen evangelical support for him at a ferociously fanatical level. The emotionality of it is truly scary. He cares not for what any of it means.
The most important part of all this is not that others object--indeed, the popular magazine Christianity Today has called for his removal from office through impeachment proceedings, a stance brave though futile exactly because of the above attitudes--but that almost no Democrat running for president has yet called it out. Pete Buttigieg has, briefly, but only in response to an accusation by 45.
This reactive, defensive posture has informed progressives since the Reagan years, when the Moral Majority began rousting itself into political impact (another way in which Ronald Reagan ruined America). My experience as a union leader was touched by it when I spoke out against its influence in public schools. I did not gain support from fellow members. The running line was: If you go there, you will always lose. Leave it alone.
That was a collective and consistent mistake. By leaving it alone, by refusing to repeatedly reinforce the separation of church and state, Democrats have lost the high ground. Remember, this has been going on for at least forty years. It won't be reversed in a moment, or in one presidential campaign. It has been absorbed into enough of the body politic to be something of a virus, that emerges almost whenever called upon. It has eroded conversations that needed to take place and be maintained.
Lack of responses allowed Democrats to be cast as 'godless,' which was completely ridiculous. But silence implies consent, and trying to take the silent, high road got us kicked into the ditch.
That falls into line with my previous comments--namely, the Gallup poll that said that 38% of the adult population in this country cling to the notion that the human race has been around for less than 10,000 years, getting nowhere near what anthropologists have concluded (blog of 10/25/19) and that evolutionary theory has insisted. Trust me when I say this: 38% of the country was not taught that in school. You might say evolution wasn't taught well enough, or you might say that other factors, such as parents and churches, had their intended effect. But during the last forty years, at least 90% of the school population went to public schools, and those schools almost universally stayed away from establishing biblical interpretations of universal origins.
This rubs off on other established information that 45 has no need for or finds irrelevant: That India and China do actually share a common border, and Kansas City is mostly in Missouri, not Kansas. No Sharpie can change that. So in religion, too, things are what he says they are and the properly faithful (again, no pun intended) nod in agreement.
This has to be addressed in this campaign. It's one of the biggest reasons why I was hoping that Republican Senators would be truly able to take a step back and see what 45's been doing to us as a people. Problem with that is that people's votes determine whether the Senators get to cast them at all.
Very much too bad. I wanted Mike Pence to become president. Nobody on the Republican side has come right out and expressed blind religious fealty to 45 and all that that means--all the incredibly hypocritical nonsense that can be conjured from it. Pence is the center of all of it, manipulated by 45 as he was, too, and his emergence into the presidency would have forced him and those around him to come out and preachify their twisted, clinging shibboleths (real shibboleths, not the metaphorical ones) to the incredulous rest of us. For now they're still in the background, still operating slightly beneath the surface, where the politically faithful are happiest--to sneak religion into the conversation in the back rooms so it can't be sniffed out until those needing to commit to it are properly vetted and reminded in other, far more 'perfect' conversations.
Lacking that, a second 45 term will cast an iron grip on us from that standpoint. We will be openly 'encouraged' (one of those weasel words that means requirement by social strictures which are even more enforceable than legal passage) to infuse prayer and Christian beliefs into all of our politics, that one cannot exist without the other. That double-talk is complete nonsense, and it must be called out by the Democratic nominee. It must be confronted and made part of the official Democratic position of the campaign: a restatement of the vitality of the secular state before it becomes too late to reinforce it.
There is a risk there: that Democrats will be castigated as 'godless.' That, again, is an extreme and collective smear. But it has to be challenged. This gradual erosion of anti-intellectual, quasi-religious (which is what it should be called--flat-out phony) rhetorical reinforcement creates a damage that is impossible to fix in the short run, and encourages mindless acceptance in the long run.
Previous Democrats, running at all levels, have been able to slide by without specifically facing this phenomenon, but that time has passed. An absolute charlatan is utilizing the kind of thinking that people's personal savior used to get them to think about someone else for a change, and is showering them with the need, his need, to keep him in power--power for its own sake, power to betray all we have stood for for two centuries plus, in the very name of he who would completely reject such notions.
It has taken something as powerful as religion to ruin America, or at least to try to do so. Another preacher, the Reverend Barry Black, chaplain of the U.S. Senate, caught some attention when, at the start of Friday's momentous impeachment debate session (not a trial; sorry, no witnesses, no trial), he asked the Almighty to remind the Senators the biblical notion that they reap what they sow. My interpretation of that was: You may deny justice now, but you won't get it when you want it later, either. It can't be conveniently put off.
That might have been what bothered my Facebook friend the most: That we will pay for this twisted, politically-driven distortion of what was meant by the Sermon on the Mount (preached from the pulpit of the Presbyterian Church, USA, just yesterday), that it will come back to us in a form we never anticipated. The meek will still inherit the earth, but if we keep going down this road it will be only after what this government is supposed to mean and how it is supposed to be maintained has been eroded to such an extent that it's unrecognizable. Indeed, it will take a big step toward that fate on Wednesday, when the president will almost certainly be acquitted.
The descriptive word for that is anarchy, controlled only by extreme violence and a police state. We are closer to it than you think. If that keeps you awake at 3 a.m., too, where the unthinkable is now on the agenda, welcome aboard.
It's sad to preach fear into campaigns. But since the Republicans are getting so good at it, the issue needs no longer to be whether fear is appropriate. The only challenge now is what to make people afraid of. The results of forcing religion down people's throats is much more to fear that separating it from the affairs of government.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
This morning's comment went on a while. It was 3 a.m. and he couldn't sleep. Something's been bothering him for some time now, something that also bothered me for a while but I have come to accept it, sad though it is.
"I have really been struggling of late with the stance that white evangelicals [this pastor's black] have decided to take in support of the evilness of this president," he wrote. Yeah, I know. It drives me and a number of people with similar religious feelings stone crazy.
I'll let him continue. "They have decided delibrately to close their eyes to the truth of who [45] is for the sake of some political, social, and economic advantage...The position they have taken goes against everything that is proclaimed by Jesus."
That's hit a number of us like a thunderbolt. We have sore necks from shaking our heads. Not only is 45 followed by a large number of evangelicals, he has recruited a pastor to, so to speak, keep track of them so their political support doesn't waver in this election year.
This evangelical pastor, named Paula White, preaches the so-called "prosperity gospel," advanced by more television-popular preachers like Joel Osteen, which says that God meant us to be wealthy and healthy. That means focusing on ourselves instead of others who need help and compassion. It means we can ignore the horrible crisis on our border. We can ignore those who truly need asylum, who are truly refugees, who truly see America as their last, best hope.
This approach lends itself into politics. If in fact religion is first and foremost about ourselves, it would stand to reason that it could be turned into a fulcrum of political support--that voting for a particular individual is divinely connected with God's initial will, that we take care of ourselves first.
45 has a grip on that like few ever have, as someone who takes care of himself first and only. Or perhaps he's just far more blatant about it like he's blatant about everything else, pretenses be damned (no pun intended). It's just flat-out hypocritical, though, and millions ignore it.
They ignore it because it fulfills their narrow political agenda: against abortion and same-sex marriage and in support of personal ownership of automatic weapons. 45 will heap support for those issues, too, not because he's committed to them--he's committed to nothing--but because it gets him votes and only because it gets him votes.
This spins his very existence in the White House as somehow divinely intended, as one of the former members of his Cabinet, the intellectual (?) Rick Perry, kept saying. Supporters view his previous transgressions against many others as simply a sign that God forgives: A sinner saved by grace.
Well, no: He's a sinner saved by conveniently popular positions embraced by people who have been told that their religion supports them. They need look or consider no farther.
His posturing, though, with White and other pastors are sure to reinforce the notion that he has embraced the Almighty as being the base of his attitudes. This will deepen evangelical support for him at a ferociously fanatical level. The emotionality of it is truly scary. He cares not for what any of it means.
The most important part of all this is not that others object--indeed, the popular magazine Christianity Today has called for his removal from office through impeachment proceedings, a stance brave though futile exactly because of the above attitudes--but that almost no Democrat running for president has yet called it out. Pete Buttigieg has, briefly, but only in response to an accusation by 45.
This reactive, defensive posture has informed progressives since the Reagan years, when the Moral Majority began rousting itself into political impact (another way in which Ronald Reagan ruined America). My experience as a union leader was touched by it when I spoke out against its influence in public schools. I did not gain support from fellow members. The running line was: If you go there, you will always lose. Leave it alone.
That was a collective and consistent mistake. By leaving it alone, by refusing to repeatedly reinforce the separation of church and state, Democrats have lost the high ground. Remember, this has been going on for at least forty years. It won't be reversed in a moment, or in one presidential campaign. It has been absorbed into enough of the body politic to be something of a virus, that emerges almost whenever called upon. It has eroded conversations that needed to take place and be maintained.
Lack of responses allowed Democrats to be cast as 'godless,' which was completely ridiculous. But silence implies consent, and trying to take the silent, high road got us kicked into the ditch.
That falls into line with my previous comments--namely, the Gallup poll that said that 38% of the adult population in this country cling to the notion that the human race has been around for less than 10,000 years, getting nowhere near what anthropologists have concluded (blog of 10/25/19) and that evolutionary theory has insisted. Trust me when I say this: 38% of the country was not taught that in school. You might say evolution wasn't taught well enough, or you might say that other factors, such as parents and churches, had their intended effect. But during the last forty years, at least 90% of the school population went to public schools, and those schools almost universally stayed away from establishing biblical interpretations of universal origins.
This rubs off on other established information that 45 has no need for or finds irrelevant: That India and China do actually share a common border, and Kansas City is mostly in Missouri, not Kansas. No Sharpie can change that. So in religion, too, things are what he says they are and the properly faithful (again, no pun intended) nod in agreement.
This has to be addressed in this campaign. It's one of the biggest reasons why I was hoping that Republican Senators would be truly able to take a step back and see what 45's been doing to us as a people. Problem with that is that people's votes determine whether the Senators get to cast them at all.
Very much too bad. I wanted Mike Pence to become president. Nobody on the Republican side has come right out and expressed blind religious fealty to 45 and all that that means--all the incredibly hypocritical nonsense that can be conjured from it. Pence is the center of all of it, manipulated by 45 as he was, too, and his emergence into the presidency would have forced him and those around him to come out and preachify their twisted, clinging shibboleths (real shibboleths, not the metaphorical ones) to the incredulous rest of us. For now they're still in the background, still operating slightly beneath the surface, where the politically faithful are happiest--to sneak religion into the conversation in the back rooms so it can't be sniffed out until those needing to commit to it are properly vetted and reminded in other, far more 'perfect' conversations.
Lacking that, a second 45 term will cast an iron grip on us from that standpoint. We will be openly 'encouraged' (one of those weasel words that means requirement by social strictures which are even more enforceable than legal passage) to infuse prayer and Christian beliefs into all of our politics, that one cannot exist without the other. That double-talk is complete nonsense, and it must be called out by the Democratic nominee. It must be confronted and made part of the official Democratic position of the campaign: a restatement of the vitality of the secular state before it becomes too late to reinforce it.
There is a risk there: that Democrats will be castigated as 'godless.' That, again, is an extreme and collective smear. But it has to be challenged. This gradual erosion of anti-intellectual, quasi-religious (which is what it should be called--flat-out phony) rhetorical reinforcement creates a damage that is impossible to fix in the short run, and encourages mindless acceptance in the long run.
Previous Democrats, running at all levels, have been able to slide by without specifically facing this phenomenon, but that time has passed. An absolute charlatan is utilizing the kind of thinking that people's personal savior used to get them to think about someone else for a change, and is showering them with the need, his need, to keep him in power--power for its own sake, power to betray all we have stood for for two centuries plus, in the very name of he who would completely reject such notions.
It has taken something as powerful as religion to ruin America, or at least to try to do so. Another preacher, the Reverend Barry Black, chaplain of the U.S. Senate, caught some attention when, at the start of Friday's momentous impeachment debate session (not a trial; sorry, no witnesses, no trial), he asked the Almighty to remind the Senators the biblical notion that they reap what they sow. My interpretation of that was: You may deny justice now, but you won't get it when you want it later, either. It can't be conveniently put off.
That might have been what bothered my Facebook friend the most: That we will pay for this twisted, politically-driven distortion of what was meant by the Sermon on the Mount (preached from the pulpit of the Presbyterian Church, USA, just yesterday), that it will come back to us in a form we never anticipated. The meek will still inherit the earth, but if we keep going down this road it will be only after what this government is supposed to mean and how it is supposed to be maintained has been eroded to such an extent that it's unrecognizable. Indeed, it will take a big step toward that fate on Wednesday, when the president will almost certainly be acquitted.
The descriptive word for that is anarchy, controlled only by extreme violence and a police state. We are closer to it than you think. If that keeps you awake at 3 a.m., too, where the unthinkable is now on the agenda, welcome aboard.
It's sad to preach fear into campaigns. But since the Republicans are getting so good at it, the issue needs no longer to be whether fear is appropriate. The only challenge now is what to make people afraid of. The results of forcing religion down people's throats is much more to fear that separating it from the affairs of government.
Be well. Be careful. I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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