The World Cup? No Thanks. Not Interested After Qatar's Massive Abuses

The World Cup has to be the most corrupt sporting event ever created. Qatar has to be the pinnacle of it. So far.

Qatar, a very small country on the Arabian Peninsula, has an incredible amount of oil and natural gas resources and the money to show for it. It would be natural, then, for it to host the world's biggest showcase, the World Cup of football (we call it soccer). There were all kinds of intrastructure issues, but the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA) was assured that they would be overcome, given enough time to get prepared.

Work began in 2012. Qatar didn't have nearly the number of workers to build the necessary structures--a freeway and eight separate stadiums, for instance--so it had to import them from other lands, usually in South Asia, from places like Nepal, itself very poor. So they were. But the treatment they had to endure--and endure is the only word that can be used--mirrors the kind of slave labor that we forced captives to undergo in the years before the Civil War, perhaps even worse.

I learned this by watching an excerpt from the HBO show "Real Sports," still the pinnacle of sports journalism in this country. It completely disgusted me.

Besides the incredibly stifling heat, equalling anything Death Valley could offer--the summer temperatures getting regularly to 120 degrees--the workers were forced to live in conditions that soon became ridiculously squalid and filthy, without showers and few toilets. The men washed themselves with the water from the toilets. They may still be doing so.

They are prevented from going home, too. They can't quit. That's the definition of slavery. In was pointed out in the "Real Sports" report that they were paid, so technically, it's not slavery. Not true: In antebellum America, in our own slave times, a few of the slaves did earn some money. They tried to save it to buy their freedom. So no, the horrible wages the men earn does not excuse Qatar from imposing slavery upon them, not if they lack the freedom to spend whatever small amount of free time (they usually work 12 hours a day) they have.

Knowing that, I can't watch this display of taking advantage of thousands of others. If there was ever a reason to form labor unions, that's one right there. But who's going to have any energy to do so, working 12 hours a day for wages no better than the dirt they've overturned? Who's going to attempt to enter what seems to be a slickly-run society, but is in fact horribly repressive?

It's on now. The field has been trimmed to 16, including the U.S. All the news is about its advance, and the athletes, and the competition. Nobody else is reporting on the price paid by thousands to put this on. Qatar has done its best rope-a-dope in taking shots from inquiring media and dispensing them amidst the other outrages we have to put up with. No one will be prosecuted for any of these abuses. No one will absorb any responsibility.

To me, Qatar may be trying to blend into the vestiges of Western hospitality, but it's really all about displaying its decadence and massive neglect, which you can do when you have more money than you know what to do with. It's not worth it. I won't watch the world's greatest sporting event. I don't care.

It's another example of the vacuum of any kind of ethics that takes place when the show becomes of higher value than the effort it took to put it on. Qatar, to me, joins Saudi Arabia (in its subterfuge of the PGA Tour by massively financing the LIV Tour) in its enormous deception of hooking up with Western culture. It's trying to gain acceptance, leading to some form of tolerance for its brutal justice system which, by now and if it really meant to get "western," should be obsolete. Maybe it will by others, but not with me.

I spent last weekend binge-watching "The West Wing" reruns, propelling myself back into a world I thought was also once possible. Got a lot more out of it.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Randi Weingarten? Most Dangerous Person in the World? There's A New One

Who is the most dangerous person in the world? Vladimir Putin comes to mind for not only the vicious evil he's doing to Ukraine right now, but what he could do if he got really carried away.

Kim Jong Il? North Korea has just tested an intercontinental ballistic missile. Nobody who's interested in that can be labeled as anything other than deeply dangerous.

Mohammad Bin Salmon? His control of fossil fuels in Saudi Arabia, plus his ruthlessness in muscling up his power, demonstrated several times now, makes him a prime candidate for that title.

Xi Jinping? The military forces he controls, including a decent number of nuclear weapons, and tensions rising in Taiwan, might give him the edge.

Ex-? Well, not anymore. Not now, anyway. But he's running for president again, and should he regain power, nobody can possibly know the hijinks he can commit.

But Mike Pompeo, obviously testing the waters to see if enough members of the Republican Party can get behind a presidential run, has named someone else. In his deep, delusional analysis, the most dangerous person in the world is: Randi Weingarten.

Huh? The world? More dangerous than the abovementioned five individuals? He was perfectly serious. The president of the American Federation of Teachers, he said, was more dangerous than any of them.

Really? She can inflict more damage on our country than any of those other guys? How does that work?

He's put together a scenario that rivals anything I've seen for nonsense since QAnon. I wonder, in fact, if his comments aren't made directly toward them to gain a base for him. Crazy? Yes, they are. Yes, that would be. And yes, Majorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert were re-elected to their House seats.

But it follows a familiar pattern: Get out there ahead of everyone else, make outrageous statements that can't be disproven, and stand by while everyone (you hope) discusses it and drills down to no avail, one way or another. Then you come back with something else, other claims that you can't ignore. 

That's how you build attention. At least, that's how ex- did. How did that work for him?

But where did he get Weingarten's name from? How did he bestow upon her such gravitas?

I really have no idea. But as bombastically ridiculous as this is, I don't think it's too hard to speculate.

Consider what he added to this claim: "It's not a close call. If you ask, 'Who's the most likely to take this republic down?' it would be the teachers' unions, and the filth that they're teaching our kids, and the fact that they don't know math and reading or writing."

Pray tell, Mike, what is this "filth" of which you speak? Is it pornographic? Sexist? Misogynist?

He didn't say, but I'm betting that once again, it's a reference to that which has never been practiced: Critical race theory. Filth? Dirty? Disgusting? Or truths that would just as soon not be faced--ever?

Once again: Critical race theory is a phrase that, in 30 years of teaching history, never once crossed my desk or entered the conversation of any colleague or department meeting. Never. Critical race theory is not some conspiratorial, sneakily entered concept that somehow poisons the minds of young people. It's the idea that, if you're going to discuss the effects of race on our society--it's there whether you like it or not--it does you far more good to drill deep to totally "get it." 

The deeper you go, of course, the more insidious it becomes. Lots of white people don't like that, of course. They'd just as soon look past it. But filth? Disgusting? Au contraire--it's disgusting to refer to it as filth, when it's a serious, purposeful study in the terrible effects racism has had in seeping its way into so many things we routinely do and say on a daily basis.

Does that make America a bad place? It depends who you are. If you're Mike Pompeo, striving to be chief blusterer and exaggerator for a tragically misguided political party, then it's best to point out and cherry-pick circumstances where someone has said something disparaging toward America in some classroom. But additional insults, actually, aren't needed. We enslaved human beings for 250 years and let go of it only in our worst war in which more than half a million of our countrymen died. Then we manipulated our legal and cultural systems so that those who were enslaved continued to get the worst of it. It's all there in whatever textbook you want to choose. 

Mike Pompeo can't change that. It's extremely disturbing that he even wants to.

But not only that. He's dragged along by media, which prefers to rely on Randi Weingarten for cogent comments on educators and education, when in fact she leads a labor union with less than one-third the size of the largest in the nation. That's right--the AFT has something like 900,000 members. While that's fairly impressive, the largest teachers' union, the National Education Association, has more than three million. Three million.

The president of that group is Becky Pringle. I've known her for more than twenty years. While I haven't read anything she's said about critical race theory, it's probably tangential to what Weingarten said in response to Pompeo's empty attacks: "So Mike, let me make it easy for you. We fight for freedom, democracy and an economy that works for all. We fight for what kids and communities need. Strong public schools that are safe and welcoming, where kids learn how to think and work with others. That's the American Dream!"

This is the greatest threat to the world? This threatens whom? It only threatens those who choose to smear, like Mike Pompeo. It only threatens the clueless, like Mike Pompeo. But it also means that while ex- looks to be losing his personal influence, it doesn't mean that other Republicans won't keep trying to characterize unions and educators who choose to stand up for themselves as, somehow, threats to our society and culture.

It was that way when I traveled amongst union people at all levels, when I kept pointing out that that's what they had in mind from the start. It had to be enough of threat to the Cedarburg School District that they more or less forced into retirement when I tried to return after my stint on the NEA Executive Committee and try (as I would have) to give the kids an idea on what life in Washington, DC was really like. It's no different now.

That we dodged a huge bullet on November 8 and managed to retain a semblance of our democracy doesn't mean it still isn't being threatened. Keep your eyes on Mike Pompeo and see what kind of influence he'll have. It won't be pretty.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Not Delving Into Ex- Any Longer

There are a couple of books recently out that you might be interested in if you haven't read enough about ex-'s corruption, utter stupidity, bullying, and lies.

One is called Confidence Man, which has already gained notoriety because its author, Maggie Haberman, withheld some might-have-been important information before and during the 2020 presidential campaign, when it might have, but didn't, made some difference in the outcome. The other is called The Divider, by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, which dives into detail about ex-'s blunders while actually president.

You are welcome to read them. I won't be doing so. Oh, I'm not trying to withdraw from his utter ridiculousness, because I'm not sure who can. It's just that I know enough now. I've read five works that does plenty enough to tell me to wonder, really wonder, just how we could have selected such a horrible person to lead us.

After all, I read the news daily, and I already know just about all the awfulness ex- has been associated with. Refusing to read compilations of so much stuff that you simply can't keep up with it won't change my mind about how I regard him, much less whether, if I get another chance, I would vote for him. Those questions were settled in 2015.

The issue is, and remains, how and why Republicans find it difficult, if not impossible, to simply dismiss and ignore him and move on to someone with whom I'm probably strongly opposed, but who might have something of a clue how to actually govern in a way that doesn't reflect his endless need to get rich beyond nearly everyone's imaginings. Who accepts that this is a big country filled with people who need help. Who won't spend time assuming that disagreements on policy are personal affronts. Who actually understands and accepts the fundamental understandings under which our government must function.

You know, that kind of stuff. If we get four more years of ex-, we get revenge visited upon all those who would stand in his way of doing, well, damn near anything he wants, seeing as how the perfectly acceptable solution of impeachment and removal have already been tried twice, once even after he has left office, but both have been rendered useless. 

And, of course, Elon Musk, in his infinite wisdom, self-delusional and pretentious, has taken control of Twitter and put ex- back on. Ex- says he's not interested, but we will see. I'm on Twitter, but I think the better road is not to quit it but to take the higher one--to let ex- rant on about his blithering and do what people for some reason find it impossible to do--ignore him. Silence is the ultimate weapon for such a knucklehead: the silence of not caring, the silence of declaring whatever he's saying so unimportant that it doesn't deserve comment.

It's like having someone in the other room who you don't want to listen to. Just don't go there. Render him irrelevant. It's happening now, anyhow. Candidates influenced by him are starting to lose in significant numbers. I'm waiting for someone of enough significance to start calling him what he is and always has been: Loser. The one word he can't stand is exactly what he's embodied for this entire, awful span that we have allowed him to dominate.

Of course, commenting on why I would rather not comment on someone is its own comment, and feeds the onus behind it. So I'm done. I'd done unless he's nominated again, but that's a long way off. He doesn't deserve it. But then, he never has.

I feel better already. I've stopped caring, stopped spending money on those concerns. Maybe I'll stop thinking about him. That would be a new decoration of independence. Want to join me?

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

Election Deniers? Not This Time So Much

So many of the election deniers got beat Tuesday. That's a win for democracy that shouldn't be ignored.

But here's the other shoe dropping: Most of them didn't deny their own defeats. They conceded. They accepted.

Wouldn't they continue to object, especially if they lost? Wouldn't they see conspiracies anew? Shouldn't they?

Would seem to make no sense. Ah, but it does, if one understands that in politics, half is what's being said and half isn't. That oftentimes, one hides one's real motivation. Or, what may more be the truth, motivation is subject to speculation, anyhow.

Let's consider why those who so strenuously insisted that elections should be questioned, didn't question the count that defeated them:

• Political campaign posturing--It was the popular thing to say. Lining up with the rhetoric of election deniers, or at least election questioners, didn't take a lot of research. There were about three or four pet phrases that needed to be utilized. You spend just a minute on a campaign speech spewing them, and you're good to go.
• The lie repeated becomes the truth--There's nothing new about this. If circumstances dictate repetition, it becomes one's mindset. You look for corruption where there is none, and to say you're looking at it is all you need to convince some voters.
• They'll now say that it was true in 2020, but not in 2022, claiming credit for changes--I'm waiting for this one. They'll give their own party credit for 'cleaning up' the elections, especially after a Republican-controlled legislature passed measures suppressing minority voting.
• They desperately needed ex-'s endorsement--Or at least they thought they did. That, as it turned out, is starting to attach badly. Ask Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania, and Tim Michels in this state. Or Paul Ryan, who went out of his way to say what many should have begun saying long ago--that ex- is starting to become a "drag" on the Republican ticket. The Republicans expected to clobber the Democrats Tuesday. They did not. Enter Ron DeSantis?

And finally--

• The elections in question should never have been questioned in the first place because nobody tried anything edgy or illegal, and those that did got caught at the door, including ex- --and down deep inside, they knew it. It's not as if elections haven't been tinkered with in the past--both parties are guilty there--so bringing that up echoed a familiar refrain that takes time to decipher and by then, the cynicism has turned to genuine belief. (Plus ex- set us up for his victimization way back in 2016, if you recall.) Nobody remembers this, but there was a Senate investigation of illegal and improper activities in the federal elections of 1996. You can also study, say, what happened in 1876 and 1960. The 2020 election, as marred as it was by ex-'s attempts to sew chaos through the postal service and the rampant confusion of the pandemic, was one of the least corrupt, if not the least corrupt, in American history. As previously written here, the shadiness of the 2000 presidential results in Florida had its ripple effects in other states which did not feel like being as embarrassed as that state was--so they cleaned up their processes pro-actively.

We can only hope that that posturing will now fade away and become part of the past's rhetoric. It would serve to eliminate useless, reckless investigations that go nowhere--Michael Gableman, anyone?--and restore, to a certain degree, confidence that democracy really does work. No, it doesn't work perfectly, as various campaigns have displayed and continue to do so, But there is and will be, I predict, greater faith that one's vote really is opened when it should be and counted the same as everyone else's. That basic equality is one that modern technology helps us strive for and, one day, achieve. Beyond the maddening insistence upon that basic lie--one which ex- will repeat, of course, when he runs again; we will see how it now attaches--forces are still at work that will stop lies like the one we've had perpetuated before our very eyes. We all win then.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark

I Voted Yesterday. Here's How and Why.

It was a great day to walk, so I strode to the closest voting place I could find--maybe 15 minutes on foot. It's a secret ballot, of course, but that secret's up to you. 

To heck with that. I voted for Democrats down the line--for governor, for U.S. Senate, for the House of Representatives (so obscured has that race been that I didn't even know who Gwen Moore's opponent was--not that it mattered much), for Attorney General of the state, for Secretary of State (suddenly a crucial race), for state treasurer, and for state legislators in both houses. There is no longer any consideration of Republicans necessary or, in my mind, possible.

That is because they have largely given themselves to the hysteria, panic and mindless nodding that following ex- and his minions have caused. Election denial is bad enough. That doesn't quite get to the bottom of the now vast difference between the two parties, one that will not have enough time to heal, ever.

The Republicans are profiles in cowardice. Nobody stands up to ex- anymore. But that's because most of those who vote Republican have drowned themselves in collusion and delusion. They go along to get along, but only with each other. No logic and certainly no facts will deter them.

They have even eschewed democracy. Election denial, based on foolish, paranoid notions of conniving that have never been proven, only alleged, stipulates that a democratic decision based on honest voting is no longer possible, except if Republicans win. That is not only stupid and crazy, it is evil. It opens the door to fascism. 

It is an ambush while we watch. It is Ron Johnson trying to deliver a motion to qualify phony electors right to the desk of the Vice-President as he prepares to count the actual, bona fide Electoral College votes on January 6, 2021, which will make Joe Biden president. It is Tim Michels saying that something went wrong with the ballot count in Wisconsin while being unable, even unwilling, to go to the trouble of proving it.

It is Michael Gableman--remember him? He will return if Michels is elected, you can count on it--trying to get the legislature to do something the law says it cannot do, which is to de-certify the election without presenting a shred of evidence as to why it should do so.

It is a compilation of lies that now have piled far too deep for anyone, much less Democrats, to take them apart. The way to win in Wisconsin is now, apparently, to lie and keep lying to outrun those who find the real facts. The lying side has more money, far more money, and can keep throwing it at us in the form of lying ads because of Citizens United and its insistence that anyone can fund anything without being detected.

Has anyone asked Tim Michels if he wants his daughter, to whose aid he came when she was a child--as if he's unique among parents, and note how late in the campaign they brought that forward--to have her right to choose revoked? But maybe he'll have plenty of money to handle that out of state, as opposed to many who do not and cannot. And what of the accusations that women in his business have been sexually harassed, with clear connections to neglect by his office? What steps would he take if his own daughter was victimized as such?

In any event, Michels is a hoodlum who worships at the feet of ex-, a gutless, phony tough guy, a carpetbagger with nothing but bags full of money. He says he doesn't care who he offends, but that only means Democrats. He will call ex- first if he needs advice. We will have a state with a shadow government, run by ex-.

Not to mention Ron Johnson, who already does worship this menace. Anyone who sought to get into the mix of disrupting the 2020 election enough to perhaps topple it lacks the guts to stand on his own. He wants to wipe out Social Security, too, because business owners like him want to stay and be as greedy as possible, even though they already have far enough money to handle anything, including any other elections that are contested. Of course he objects to hiring more agents for the IRS; that department was drained by ex- because they were assigned the tasks of getting the rich to pay what they deserve to pay. Of course he makes it sound like a threat to the average middle-class taxpayer. It is anything but that. It is assurance that the system gets closer to working the way it's supposed to.

This is beyond the continuous embarrassment that Johnson has caused this state. His bizarre pronouncements about Wisconsin business, his disgusting admonition for people who don't like the state's abortion ban to "just leave," echo Michels' insistence that offending people doesn't matter. He has managed to operate under the state's radar for 12 long, ridiculous years. I voted to get rid of him. I pray hard the state does, too. Not a minute too soon, either.

These are two campaigns that blend into each other, utilizing racist rhetoric to create a kind of mentality that Democrats do not share. Johnson's attack upon Mandela Barnes, the Democratic candidate running against him, that the perpetrator of the awful Christmas parade attack last year would have been released because Barnes wants to get rid of cash bail, isn't likely. But again, Barnes isn't hitting back. He's just accusing Johnson of lies, but is providing no solid facts against them. Johnson has erased a six-point deficit, and the race is too close to call now. Without solid facts, fear tends to take over. And Republican rhetoric is designed to stoke up fears and anger. I'm afraid Barnes has blown this golden opportunity.

Johnson is a mean and disgusting liar. He represents only himself. But he knows that in campaigns, winning is the point and truth takes the back seat. I strongly hope enough citizens of this state can still tell the difference.

One week to go. We will see just how crazy this state has gone. That the main races are close says something unto itself. But maybe some sanity will be left.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark