Our quarter-millennium as a nation is fast approaching. The state of this republic is repugnant. The wrong people have control and, lacking confidence in the future as they should, are trying to once again game the system so they maintain it ad infinitum.
It's safe to say, lacking other evidence, that, though supportive, no one with any legal leverage to prevent another perversion of democracy reads this. Thus, I offer the following question: With 250 years passing and being unsure about how many years of this famed arrangement remain, how best to celebrate it?
One could simply sigh in relief, but that is normally reserved for having accomplished something that has drained lots of energy, like your kids graduating from high school without being held back or arrested for something, or from college without needling to file for bankruptcy. I'm not sure if that reaction's appropriate any longer. The republic, tattered and battered as it has been these past ten awful years, moves on--maybe not forward, but it is moving. Somewhere.
Exhaling implies a goal being reached. There ain't time for that any longer. Nor may it be for the rest of our lives. The present regime is bound and determined to see through all the reforms it says the country needs. From what I've seen, this is akin to an adolescent being grounded until age 18 for cutting the lawn the wrong way. It has coached its Supreme Court nominees to lie to cover up their absolute resolve to end abortion forever and ever, except mail-order drugs and driving across state lines can't be stopped (but watch them try). They also pretend that stopping minorities from voting was a creation of the Jim Crow years which, to them, have passed and no longer need monitoring.
All this implies that someone has decided to turn back the clock on America, as if that could be done. Not all the way back to 1776, but to the era when people didn't seem to worry much about inequalities that have been existent in America ever since then. Or, maybe, not as many people. Or, maybe, not as many people with access to media.
Which brings me to CBS and its abduction by various forces with massive money. Paramount has already cancelled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, trying to cover its tracks by claiming that it was losing too much money, as if the ultimate powers that be were also having a tough time getting dinner on the table.
There is also the rape and pillage of "60 Minutes" by reducing it to the hard-hitting impact of wet laundry against your basement wall. It will either land as an annex to "CBS Sunday Morning," a continuation of news so soft it rivals fresh bread dough, or "Fox News, Jr," which will look right past whatever mistakes the current regime has made or will make while attacking something, anything, that liberals have done or want to do. If it's anything different, let me know. I won't be watching.
Lesley Stahl, veteran, hard-nosed journalist that she is, is not above being as naive as Snow White. Someone got to her and convinced her that, Scott Pelley having been ejected like being in a burning jet fighter, she could go on without the show "dying" right in her lap.
Leslie: You missed the memo: The show has already been dying, not from what it has included, but what it has already excluded. Think back if you've been a fan these many years: When was the last time anything critical of either 47 or his wayward, awful, incompetent administration ever made air-time on that show?
Uh-uh. Bari Weiss buried that. And it will stay like "Saturday Night Live" declared Francisco Franco: Still dead.
CNN, having been purchased through the same hostile merger, will probably follow suit. Anderson Cooper might have thought that he would make a sideways switch by focusing his time exclusively to his show on that network, instead of doubling up and, with his "60 Minutes" reports, become at least the most watched, if not the best (though very good) TV journalist around. The day will come when we will also be absent from his reportage, along with Erin Burnett (who's also very good) and a few others. Will MS NOW need more than 24 hours in a day to absorb these stars? Stay tuned.
Really. Stay tuned, and see where all this ends up. Follow your favorites. Don't cave and become addicted to Tony Dokoupil or other insipid stand-ins. Am I asking for a total boycott of CBS? Hey, there are some Packer road games you might want to think about (home games are on Fox, and I don't stick around for the latest swill from Sean Hannity. Like, everrrrrr.). But maybe Amazon Prime will snap that up, too.
So take your pick. But if you want to be patriotic on this, our sestercentennial (yeah, I had to look that one up. Nobody'll use it ever again.), I have a suggestion to do the really cool, American things that people tend to overlook:
- Spend a day at a museum. Milwaukee has a pretty neat art museum, certainly one of the most uniquely designed in the world. If you don't live here, go to the one (like Chicago: outstanding) that's nearest;
- Go to the library. Avail yourself of their services. Ask about crazies that insist that libraries carry bad things for people who have no idea how to judge things for themselves (which are very, very few and far in-between), and of course read something it has (like, maybe, Fahrenheit 451) that might cause eyebrows to rise;
- Go to the theater, the nearest one to you. Immerse yourself in the grand manner of storytelling;
- Go to a concert by someone, anyone. If you know the words, sing along. Sing loud. Sing like you're free--because, of course, you are; and
- Watch public television. Continue your education that way. They have magnificent presentations and in-depth news analysis. Stay current, and keep your pocketbooks handy because they're going to run out of money in the not too distant future because the people in government power are paranoid morons.
Why all or any of this stuff? Because if you partake, you are participating in the culture. You are engaging in free speech because you are the absorber of that speech. All plays, films, books. essays, architecture, painting, sculpture and the like are statements of their creators.
Those statements are supposed to be protected speech--that is, no penalty can or should (probably the more important word) be assigned to it. And if you believe in it enough to absorb it and even comment to a friend or family member who might also be accompanying you, you are being an American because in essence, that's what America still is and still should be--a place where you can say whatever you want whether someone likes it or not.
One of the most brutal and repressive acts of the Nazis was the confiscation of important and brilliant artwork from whatever countries they conquered--not to destroy it, but to keep it for themselves in another act of condescension and pretension that they were the only ones who deserved to see it. And, of course, the muting of speech to protest those heinous acts. The 47-Republican efforts to hamper the development of public television, and its unnecessary domination of CBS--the network of Murrow, Shirer, Cronkite, Kuralt, Reasoner, and Pelley--is a slap at the idea of letting ideas free to settle as they please.
The purveyors of pseudo-freedom would like nothing better than to have the rest of network television under their thumbs. That may be out of our control, but doing the kinds of things I've mentioned above is also a comment--a comment that freedom to comment is more American than anything they may support in its stead.
Bari Weiss may not be taking her orders surreptitiously from 47, but I no longer trust that she's not. I will therefore steer clear of CBS as much as I possibly can; it provides no essential programming--not even the Packers; I can listen to the game on radio.
The best citizenry is still an active one: independent, creative, and sustaining. It is the best way to celebrate who we really are and the benefits thereof. What's more, you don't have to wait until the next election to take part.
Happy 250th. Carry on. See you at the museum.
Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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