Give It Up, Chuck, and Save It

I'm not a monarchist. Seems to me Americans gave that up in 1776, and we've been none the worse for wear since (though this country is in bad, bad condition). Plus, I've always wondered what it would be like to be a "subject," which is the word used to designate citizens of monarchies. Subjected to what? (We've been subjected to ex- for four years. That's plenty enough.) But Great Britain and America have been excellent friends for almost the whole time after the War of 1812, so it's worth speculating upon the death of Queen Elizabeth II recently, given that she was so beloved by so many of the British. Her importance to them cannot possibly be equivalent to us, but importance nonetheless deserves to be reflected upon.

I'm not sure how much I care about the British monarchy, either, especially in the wake of having watched the cable series "The Crown." What it's supposed to represent, and what it actually does, cut to the essence of image and its maintenance vs. reality.

One of the best, and most recently shattered, examples of this was the dicey progression of then Prince Charles and his stunning wife, Diana, through a marriage that he didn't want but felt forced to accept by his Mr. Uptight father and then, due to jealousy, pretentiousness and disloyalty for which royals are known, made sure she didn't want it, either. Both acted unethically but within a kind of by-law that dictates that if you do that, you try very hard to make sure nobody in the public knows--except people do.

This time, though, having been one-upped by his recalcitrant wife and thus thoroughly embarrassed because the female took it upon herself to violate the Male Prerogative of having something on the side, Charles forged forward and broke up the hypocritical union. He quickly re-connected, or perhaps publicly connected so as to avoid all doubts, with the one woman he always clearly adored, Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Diana? She got around. One of those liaisons led to her very premature death, one that has been lionized and practically drowned in obsession--the 25th anniversary of which has just been observed.

When the basis of one's life and the solidity of one's future has clearly been shattered, when getting up in the morning becomes one's major challenge, one is likely to do some things that amaze and shock some and cause others to wink and grin gently, when feeling better in the short run wins all hands and feeling better in the long run can't be foreseen under any circumstances. When one is faced with survival, the survival mode is anything but normal and regular, conventions be damned. Maybe one gets over it, like Charles. Maybe one doesn't. Diana might have, but we'll never know.

But poor Charles. He's still attached to Diana as the bad guy, even though he tried to address the reality of the matter and set things straight, to do the right and honorable thing, not to maintain what others might call the right and honorable thing, except that the right and honorable thing doesn't always ring true and genuine, especially after having done what nobody thinks is right and honorable. Divorce has pain and inevitable labeling to it, normalized in western culture now to such an extent that it is no longer considered all that unusual--which may be the route that we've taken to decadence, whether we like it or not. We continue to go through the trappings of marriage and all its celebrations, hoping that all who have done so will fulfill its challenging hopes, but quite aware that they often don't.

Diana lives on in immortal legend, though she became just as guilty in proclivity to put her vows in some dusty room and help herself in deserved but very tricky revenge. But because she came off as much less the fuddy-duddy to Charles' traditional snootiness, she is practically worshipped now. Magazine publishers bring her back every so often to raise their coffers. She would have wrinkles by now, but nobody dares create a projection of that.

All this provides ready-made tarnish to the inevitable succession of Prince Charles to being King Charles III upon the passage of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, who (according to the TV series) stood to accept at least part of the blame, through inertia, for the aforementioned, doomed union.

Charles is doing his best to fall into the grooves that tradition and practice demand. Yet most people will view him in opaque terms. He is tainted regardless. He will do his best to rise above it, but that's not his call anymore. When one is out in front of the public, the public applies the label. That can be cruel, but it is nonetheless true.

This will hamper Charles like a leg brace, or an operation that didn't go entirely well. It can be viewed as not even his fault anymore, but it always can be referred to. He enters this batter's box with a strike against him.

There's a way he can salvage credibility, though, and restore some of the monarchy's dignity. Time and service will be one, and he will doggedly apply himself to it. But he's getting on, too, and the status of outliving one's enemies can't be guaranteed. The anti-monarchists will have fresh meat to chew, and the forces that dubiously introduced Brexit can be a mighty force if given a new grist for its mill.

So maybe he should do this: After, say, a year or two in which the presence of the British monarchy has been re-established and noted by both pro- and anti-mavens, he might want to abdicate the throne and give it to his first-born son, William, who seems to be perfectly happy with his beautiful wife, Kate, a traditional, unabashed mom, enjoying a relatively happy family life, and appears to be royal in all things he has done and will do with his calm bearing and ease of representation. It might be viewed as the restoration, if you will, of what anyone who likes that particular monarchy would be waiting for upon Charles' ultimate demise, but wouldn't otherwise get it for twenty years or more. William has only turned 40. His reign might be another four decades, maybe more.

Charles could cut a better deal than Prince Edward, the planned successor to the throne that opened up after George V's death in the 1930s. But he ran headlong at his American, divorced lover, determined to marry her, ran away from the throne because he knew what it meant and couldn't fight the feeling. Of course, according to "The Crown," he turned out to be a genuine Nazi sympathizer and overall leech upon many people's doings. I don't think Charles III would do that. 

But he might become something of a royal consort himself, kind of what lawyers of counsel become once their time has passed an nobody knows what else to do with them; they get the last phone call, but they do get one. Edward tried to do that, but upon his own invitation, which proved to be every bit the annoyance that had been predicted. Charles might insist upon consultation, but might also, with that sense of history, avoid meddling.

So Chuck, it's worth thinking about. In yielding the trappings of privilege (or at least the bulk of them), you might in fact be bringing a stamp of legitimacy upon the scars of what you earned in a street fight that has long since passed, but never forgotten. Okay, it happened. But okay, you hung in there and understand that only with a fresh start can your beloved monarchy have, or earn again, the luster you crave for it. You have a son who seems to guarantee the respect and honor that you can never completely regain. Better to step aside and watch it soar again, if it possibly can.

If a monarchy stands for anything, and I'm doubtful about that, it should stand for whatever it can claim to be good and decent. William's succession to a throne abdicated by Charles III might just do that. Worth a try, anyhow.

Sometimes, you have to give something up so you can go on, unburdened. Divorce is like that. Charles knows that, too. It's humbling, but it's also liberating and presents the possibility of a future one can be proud of. He should think about giving up something else that, in so doing, might more closely guarantee him an honored place.

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

Mister Mark

The Day I Met Bill Russell

I met Bill Russell once. I was bold and brave, and one had to be.

The stories about Russell being reserved and private were very true. I knew that as I approached him.

It was in an airport, I forget which one: They all blended together after a while. I want to say Oakland, but it might have been Orlando, on one of my NEA junkets to a meeting or conference or something. No matter. He seemed to be trying to make a connection. I saw that I had one moment to move in, and I took it.

Like so many others of our generation, I revered Russell. Who didn't? His basketball success with the Boston Celtics, unequalled then and now, and willingness to take his notoriety a step farther on social issues had made him an American icon.

He gave interviews sparingly, not to just anyone. He did a personal reflection article for Sports Illustrated, back in the day when it was taken far more seriously, saying that, for example, he didn't give autographs because he believed it was far more important to shake hands with someone to show by touching them that he cared about them. 

He also collaborated with Taylor Branch, the author of a famous trilogy of the civil rights movement, for a book called Second Wind. It was a memoir, a reflection, and a way of telling the world that life goes on for athletes who are no longer competing. It was very personal, unique and stated very eloquently at times. I thought it was excellent and inspirational.

And I thought it might be a good moment to tell him that some white guy had read it. It was one of those times when one gets into the amazingly right place at the right moment. Had I stopped to stare and admire him, that moment would have been gone.

The hell with it, I thought, not the first time I had said that to myself, taken a risk, and succeeded beyond what I had imagined. Sometimes, said Tom Cruise in the film "Risky Business," you just gotta say "What the fuck!" and make your move.

So as Russell started up some ramp on the way to his gate, I walked up to him. He hesitated but did not stop walking. I'm sure he was suspicious. He sure looked it.

"Mr. Russell?" I said. He looked at me, deadpanned. Some white guy he didn't know. Swell.

He was not pleased. Didn't I know? Nobody else had stopped him. I found it difficult to believe that nobody else knew that here was Bill Russell, for heaven's sake, the winner of all winners, crusader for civil rights, and not a soul seemed to know it. But maybe everyone else knew their boundaries better than I did. His dignity surrounded him like cellophane. But I had made up my mind to take the once-in-a-lifetime chance.

I introduced myself, as if he would remember, offering my hand. I said I was from Wisconsin. I told him that I had read Second Wind and thought it was a great book. I thanked him.

He raised his hand slowly and took mine, though not strongly. Perhaps it would have been more appropriate for him to offer his first. But I had remembered what he had said about the importance of shaking hands, and to overlook that would be perhaps insulting. 

He must have sensed the respect. "Thank you," he said. He sounded sincere. I bothered him no more. He walked on.

I thought that that was a lot to get out of him. I thought I had accomplished a great deal in that single minute. I had met one of the great legends of sport, of America. By sheer chutzpah, by friendly ambush, I had met Bill Russell. 

He actually spoke to me, too. Wow. I was proud of myself: I hadn't frozen up. I've met ex-presidents, and I hadn't been so nervous.

He is gone now, having left his enormous legacy that will only grow with time and tide. I admired the way he lived his life, aware of his celebrity status, at times eager to utilize it but unafraid to draw lines to keep away unwanted annoyances. In a way, I crossed that line that day, but he knew that I had done it with the best of intentions, a true admirer who just wanted to touch him for a moment.

We need, and have needed for some time, more Bill Russells. We need people who transcend the present, clashing moment and show us a way past it. By standing among us, this proud black man exuded the fierce determination of trying to find somehow, some way, for others not black to recognize latent equality--not just in the law, but in our hearts. If we do not see his equal for a while, it wouldn't surprise me in the least.

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

Mister Mark

A Deep Voice Is Stilled: Reynolds Honold

If you had heard his voice, it would have stayed with you: Deep, resonant, baritone. He didn't speak often, but when he did, Democrats listened.

That's how I'll remember Reynolds Keith Honold, who passed away the other day at 86. I can't say I was a great friend. I rubbed up against his influence more than twenty years ago, but when I did, he helped make the most of it.

In 2000, I was assigned the organizing of what apparently was supposed to be a pro forma arrangement to supply the Wisconsin Democratic Party with a decent number of delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Typical of me at the time, I got carried away.

Apparently, I was supposed to acquire a had-been list of former delegates, call them and ask if they wanted to do it again, and/or get substitutes if they said no. At least, that's what I've surmised at a downwind distance. Subtle, quiet, almost apologetic.

But I sensed that George W. Bush represented a much greater threat to public education than your typically clueless Republican candidate. He had already set a record for disingenuousness with his now classic phraseology, "no child left behind." He meant nothing of the sort. He wanted to eliminate the influence of the NEA on public education to the greatest extent possible, and introduce, wherever he could, the undermining, terribly damaging influence of privatization.

So, as a member of the NEA Board of Directors, I set out on a statewide visitation of WEAC's various Uniserv Board, speaking to and encouraging people to either try to become delegates themselves--it was far from automatic; in fact, very competitive--or to suggest potential delegates that we could contact.

The WEAC budget for all this was pretty fat, I thought, so paying me for mileage wouldn't dent much of it. In fact, one night I was even so bold as to rent a plane to hit meetings in both Rhinelander and Beloit, two locales which encompassed nearly the whole north-south traverse of the state. That raised a lot of eyebrows. But hey--the powers that were put me in charge. That's what they got. 

I thought that this particular time had a great deal of importance attached to it. I wasn't, as the more cynical intraunion pols suggested, trying to feather my own nest and gain access to a future statewide position. At the time, I believed I had gained the pinnacle of my ascension by being elected to the NEA Board. (I would be wrong, but had no idea back then.) All I was trying to do was be sufficiently thorough so that nobody could complain that I hadn't put my best effort into it.

Anyhow, we made quite the dent in Democratic Party representation at the National Convention. In fact, we set a record of sending delegates that hasn't yet been surpassed. And that's how I met Reynolds Honold and his wife, Linda.

Linda was then the Executive Director of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, so I got a big foot in the door of access to the process of selection, both for me and others in my Congressional District (which is how the Democrats arrange selections). Reynolds stood by in support. I was swept up by the energy, and a couple of others were, too. WEAC had gained a solid representation in the 5th District, which included me.

Both Reynolds and Linda were easy to be with. They were assertive without being overbearing. They were there to help us. We circumvented, as it were, the proscribed method of getting oneself on the slate by cutting a union-based deal. Linda was at the center of it all. She must have sensed my determination and enthusiasm. Reynolds, influential as he was, had her back. The job got done.

The Convention, in Los Angeles, was one of the pinnacles of my (now that I look back on it) meteoric political rise. I got asked to be on a radio talk show, among other privileges. It was heavenly, like a dream. Other WEAC members, too, went on to be significant Democratic Party activists. It felt good to pay it forward like that. I had delivered a product to the mother union that would not be forgotten. That was what I was proudest of.

And that is what I mentioned when I stood in line to greet Linda upon her loss. I would have driven anywhere to pay my respects, but the wake was just at a church just a block from my apartment. "Funny, but I had thought about that," Linda said.

It was nice to be remembered, 22 years later. I will remember the Honolds, too, and that marvelous baritone. May Reynolds, a good man and a great Democrat, rest in peace.

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

Mister Mark

The 6-Year-Old on 8th and Locust

We've had a spate of good weather lately: Pleasantly warm, not a lot of humidity, mostly clear skies. The thing that the Midwest can provide in July.

I went to my chiropractor as I do occasionally the other day. Returning via freeway, I must get off on Locust Street, at the point at which, more or less, the rough part of town begins. Nonetheless, not two blocks from the exit ramp, a small grocery store maintains its business, pandemic or no.

It's at that store that, I stand to think, people buy a slew of bottles of Gatorade or similar fluids and try to peddle them for a slight profit, making the transaction in the 45 seconds or so that the light remains red. I say that without knowing for sure, for I've never made that purchase.

I have never seen a white person make those efforts, either. 8th and Locust is thoroughly The Hood, and nobody who looks like me would ever get caught buttressing their incomes on such an enterprise in such a location.

But I was impressed, then distressed, with who it was that approached my driver's side window that day. She couldn't have been six. Someone had put her up to taking that "shift," I suppose, while they went off and did, well, something else.

Yes. She was alone. No one to watch her. No one to take care of her. No one to spell her. There she was, the face of the awful franchise.

Is that the way six-year-olds are supposed to be enjoying their summer? They should be at the library, like some kids were at Zablocki Library on 35th and Oklahoma when I went to vote early. But those kids were white.

She should be on a playground. She should be playing hopscotch. She should be playing, not greasing someone's palm, for you know very well that whatever money she made during that stay, she would be allowed to keep little of it if at all.

I doubt that she did. It would get to be about 83 that day. It wasn't what we here in Wisconsin would call hot, which is somewhere nearing 90. I have lived in Arkansas and Texas, where 90 is not even worth a comment. The heat wave that envelops those regions has just been experienced and will soon return. Those people need Gatorade whenever and wherever they can find it, not Badgers in their air conditioned cars.

I found that unrelentingly sad. I wonder what that kid thought of her relatives, some of whom probably made her stand there. I wonder what she thought of white people, who seemed coldly uninterested in relieving themselves from the heat. I wonder if she thought that her race had something to do with it.

The discomfort from being approached like that sometimes causes people to take pity. Whatever. Their dollar bills have the same value. But just as many, seeing that potential motivation, are quick to reject any offers.

I thought of the film which I saw the previous week, called "Growing Up in Milwaukee," at Cedarburg's Performing Arts Center, after which I was invited to join a panel discussion, whether I really deserved to be there or not. It wasn't about the whole city of Milwaukee. It wasn't about a cultural milieu. 

It was about growing up, or growing up way the hell too fast, in the thoroughly black section of town, in which the previously mentioned street corner is in the very southeast region. It featured a close look at the lives of three black youth: one who wanted to get better but can't (for the moment) get out of 10th grade; one who got pregnant at 14 and had to give up the baby, but now wants to become a singer (she's really good); and one who wants to play basketball and will, but whether he can hang on to his eligibility is another matter. None of them had anything close to a normal, decent childhood. I had to wonder whether the little girl on 8th and Locust would join them in a world that defeated them before they really got started.

Like the other three, she's already trapped on that street corner in what would otherwise be the kind of summer kids dream of. It's not her fault, it's not her doing, but it sure as hell is her fate. How jaded would she be by high school age? How desperate will she be to get out of that situation, and make exactly the same mistakes as others have? Used as she is right now, will she be able to tell the difference when others wish to use her for other things?

Should I buy some Gatorade next time? I don't know. If I knew what it really meant, what I was really contributing to, maybe I would. But maybe I wouldn't. Maybe I would call the police instead for a fairly blatant case of child abandonment.

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

Mister Mark

As the New Dark Ages Begin

With three decisive, deeply penetrating rulings last week, the reactionary wing of the Supreme Court embarked us upon the new Dark Ages of America. We will now descend into a dystopia that we all saw coming, but were helpless to prevent.

Once with their hands on the mechanisms of access to power, the Republican Party threw off all pretenses of legitimacy as a harbinger of a certain kind of democracy. It is now angry at everything, desirous of everything, and ravenous in its intensity. It does not believe in democracy. It does not care.

People like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the ones with rational heads on their shoulders once connected with the Republican core, have seen and removed themselves from this horrible mentality of authoritarian bullying. But they are on the edges, the periphery. Yes, people once solid behind this cultishness are becoming somewhat shaky, but the 1/6 hearings will soon remove themselves from notoriety, and that will soon fade from view as having relative significance--that is, assuming the Justice Department does little to follow up. 

We don't know that yet, of course, and that is now our only hope--to rely on the last vestige of genuine detachment from partisanship. But that was arranged only by the victory of the last vestige of genuine interest in a just conclusion, run by an aging president who is being attacked from all sides, including his own, mostly for being a decent person and making decent decisions within a chaotic milieu foisted upon us by the deep and abiding corruption of the immediate ex-president, which continues unabated.

As he fades from view, the Democrats have little to replace him with. In the meantime, he must deal with three horrible mistakes that the Supreme Court reactionaries have dropped on his desk:

• Roe v. Wade's destruction--an absolutist's Garden of Eden. A feminist's nightmare.
• Strolling around with weapons if you want--Exactly the wrong stance at the wrong time.
• Open prayer to connect with religion on publicly-paid land--The ultimate twisting of freedom of religion to favor Christians alone, as if they were ever victims of anything.

He must also deal with the results of a horribly divided Congress, led by West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, a tease if there ever was one. He never wanted to do what Democrats do; he just wanted it all to go away. Finally, confronted with options that made perfect sense but which provided him no place to hide (an important component of much legislation for many legislators), he had to come out and say no. That he waited so long to do so can be hidden by posturing about knowing all options with the vagaries of the dance of legislation, but someone with his experience and knowledge knew very well what options he had to choose from. He just didn't want to do it.

So we sit here with crippled methods of dealing with climate change, because Joe Manchin thinks he'll be re-elected if he stands like a rock and continues to promote his West Virginia constituents drilling into the rock for coal--a mineral we need to walk away from, and quickly. He won't. That won't do it. He figures to campaign as a moderate Republican, but that won't even do it, either.

But that is the detritus of the result of an evenly-split Senate and a nearly evenly-split House, of trying to get something accomplished when there are so many opposing forces about. It makes one wonder why Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, edging up on perhaps their last go-rounds as chamber leaders, don't just pack it up early and keep going right on vacation after the August recess.

Because it appears as if the forces of backwardness, of disingenuous "originalism," which is nothing more than an excuse to make laws and rulings that propel us into an abandoned past, are succeeding enough to grind everything to a screeching halt. That may be the best we can hope for--that things don't get worse.

But inflation is still with us. Ukraine hangs on with hope but fewer soldiers who need more advanced weapons, about which we can see more brinksmanship with a twisted, depraved Putin monster. And we sit in an increasingly hot summer with only hopes that things will get hotter. And, of course, we are only starting to see the awful results of the above awful rulings.

Going backwards isn't going to work. Trying to wish things would settle down isn't, either. Not now. Not in the new Dark Ages.

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

Mister Mark

Really? Cancel This Book? More Nonsense.

Back in the late '70s and early '80s, I taught a course named "20th Century Conflicts," about the diplomacy and wars of the 20th Century. That curriculum was about to expand as we went, of course, as we moved into the next century, taking on two more wars, one of which outlasted even Vietnam.

As we wound ourselves around World War II, we--that is, the Social Studies Department--decided to have some options about book reports we might want to have the students write about; not just any old thing, but something fairly germane to that war and things closely connected to it. So I thought that A Farewell to Manzanar was an excellent choice.

Short and simply written by Jeanne Wakasuki, it depicted her experience as a member of a family of Japanese-Americans incarcerated in an internment camp, the humiliation suffered by a group of true-blue, 100% Americans whose only crime was to look like the bandits who attacked Pearl Harbor and set us off to war with them. They were about as big a threat to our democracy and native soil as the bugs that bothered them in their tents.

The internees suffered a distinct lack of privacy, but they found solace in their mutual distress, as all prisoners do, justified in their imprisonment or not. The story ends kind of happily, of course, because it occurs to the government that not only will the Japanese Army not appear on American soil, but these harmless, perfectly patriotic people would not support them, as if they ever did. But the time lost to them, their once-thriving business and way of life, was pretty much irreplaceable.

That's partly why none other than Ronald Reagan, who otherwise started us down the path of national ruin, signed off on granting any of the survivors of Manzanar (located east of Fresno, California, on the edge of Death Valley, sufficiently detached from the Pacific Coast) and several other internment camps, one located as far east as Arkansas, $20,000 apiece in 1988. Of course, many of them had died by then, so the U.S. government got away with a bargain basement special. And $20,000 stretched out over 40 years really didn't amount to very much. But a Congressional committee that investigated the abuse concluded that it was racist, considering that the descendants of our other enemies, Germany and Italy, had not been similarly incarcerated.

So the gesture, the recognition of the unfairness and Reagan's official apology, was important. It was an admission that these people had been wronged. Unfortunately, the attitude did not live on. Overreaction to China's growing world importance, combined with the awful rhetoric of a stupid, racist ex-president, has resulted in some violent, unneeded confrontations in the streets of such cities as New York and Seattle, and injuries suffered by Asian-looking people who, like the temporary residents of Manzanar, are completely American and just want to live their lives happily and quietly.

Beyond that, the horrible influence of this awful man has led people at all levels of government to speak out against what they believe to be excessive diversity, as if such a thing could ever get excessive. Such people are in denial, again, because the numbers of non-white Americans are growing far faster than are the number of whites. It's like holding back a rockslide.

In the meantime, references to that growth are resisted. Another example has taken place here in the Milwaukee area, in the Muskego-Norway school district. A book called When the Emperor Was Divine, much like A Farewell to Manzanar in its scope and topic, was screened by a school board committee for Advanced Placement students and sent back to the faculty for reconsideration.

The reasoning, if it can be called that, echoed those who support the stupid ex-president. One school board member even wanted to re-emphasize the mentality behind the internment camps--that is, the attack on Pearl Harbor, as a decent explanation for removing these innocent people from their homes and jobs, located on the West Coast, just in case an invasion came and they decided to treason themselves against their adopted country. Again, these Japanese descendants were loyal Americans. Many of them were just as angry that their former country had slammed the U.S. Navy in a devastating, surprise attack. 

Someone actually mentioned the "rape of Nanking" as a reason behind the internments. The two events are completely unrelated, unless you believe that normal, decent Americans would torture and kill other Americans the second their related barbarians hit our shores. That attempt to gin up paranoia, hopefully, got nowhere.

Actually, when finally given the opportunity, many of the Japanese-American men signed up to join the Army, which created a separate division of them, the 442nd, to fight against Axis forces in Europe. That division was the most decorated of all U.S. forces in the entire war. It was as if they somehow needed to prove themselves by fighting harder. One of those soldiers, Daniel Inouye, lost his arm before returning to serve Hawaii as U.S. Senator.

All of that seems lost in the current controversy. Another school board member complained that When the Emperor Was Divine contained "too much poetry," as if reading a book for an Advanced Placement course  needed to have text, text, and pure text. Advanced Placement texts are written with advanced language. They posit complicated thinking, combining issues and viewpoints in a challenging way that flings a high school student into collegiate-level considerations. A little poetry wouldn't hurt a thing.

Some overreaction does, though. Trying to foster "balance" in the study of a conflict like World War II doesn't really work that well. Instead, it encourages the notion that there's something sinister behind Asians as a group, and Asian-Americans specifically. That's crazy. The leadership of the Japanese, as the Germans and Italians who were in power at that time as well, were made up of fascists. They utilized racial prejudice to inspire their peoples to fight and kill others who weren't of the same ethnic makeup.

Fascism makes one cold to the other forms of humanity which are evident amongst it. It lowers the estimation of the possibilities of others. It dismisses them as unnecesary. Would you like someone to find you unnecessary?

What we should be doing is emphasizing that in our history teaching, if only for the certifiably (by now) clear reason that such thinking is gaining momentum not only here, but worldwide. There is only one place all that is going, and that is to another world war. And the weapons we have now are far more frightening and devastating as the ones we merely scratched the surface with back in 1945.

Reading more, not less, about injustices like the Japanese-American internment can only help students who will soon turn into the leaders of tomorrow. It's not about just getting through a course en route to graduation. It's about adapting a compassionate, supportive mindset that accepts all people as fundamentally equal regardless of skin color. That we still have a way to go before that happens indicates the scope of the challenge. The quibbling in the Muskego-Norway school district won't help it.

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

Mister Mark

The Supreme Court's Game of Pretend: Naivete All Around

Let's pretend, okay?

Let's pretend that the way to stop shootings on the street, random as they may be, is to guarantee that people can arm themselves wherever they are. Let's hope that all Americans arm themselves, maybe with concealed carry, so the bad guys can get theirs whenever they lurch over the edge. We should arm ourselves, you know, wherever we go. 

The knowledge, totally widespread, that people will now have that right should stop the bad guys before they try anything. Even if they do, the good guys with guns will know it and draw first, will not have their backs turned, will be able to recover from the first few seconds of surprise. And now that we have the permission, so many more Americans will do so.

Let's pretend, too, that since abortion is a supposed moral wrong, that all women will suddenly come to their senses and bring their fetuses to term as real babies. The reasons they might consider abortion, medical issues notwithstanding, will at once be relegated to mere immaturity and panic, not careful consideration and nights and nights of lost sleep.

Let's pretend that pregnancy automatically means giving birth. Let's pretend, too, that women who don't want to raise this new living thing in their arms automatically have a place to which to give it so that that messiness, that massive change in lifestyle, can be avoided.

We have a Supreme Court--two-thirds of it, at least--that believes all that nonsense, that plays that game of pretend. They live in a world that, maybe, one-third of Americans actually inhabit. But one-third distributed in a way that allows them to grab hold of power and hold it for the rest of their lives is enough; enough to wreak all kinds of havoc, which these two decisions, piled atop one another, will cause.

Not only do they not get out enough, they insist that that doesn't much tatter. Their right-wing advocates have won the day: We now have a country in which there will surely be more guns on the streets, leading to more deaths, not fewer, and the end of abortion in at least 13 states--leading to more deaths of women, not fewer.

This is naïveté' writ large. But I would be remiss if I didn't note the naïveté' of the other side of the aisle. 

Joe Manchin is disappointed. You know, disappointed that Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch said, 

clearly and definitively, that Roe v. Wade, which they both voted to overturn today, was "settled law" in their confirmation hearings. To anyone not paying attention, that was supposed to mean that they wouldn't touch its basic tenet that a woman had a reasonable right to choose what to do with her pregnancy, though that room had lost its size since its original establishment in 1973.

But it wasn't. Words can mean whatever someone can make them mean if someone gets the power to change the meaning. All the two shysters had to do is said "settled law," and technically, they wouldn't be lying. But there were no follow-up questions, to the extent that they wouldn't touch it at all, ever, and certainly wouldn't ever reverse it. 

So did they lie? Not out loud. But what they could have meant, probably did mean, was that Roe was "settled law" for now (back then), the same way that decent campaign finance laws were "settled law" back then before a different, but just as twisted, Supreme Court dropped Citizens United on us. All that did was bring on ex- and his band of far more developed shysters, the results of which the 1/6 Committee is doing a great job of exposing.

So, Joe: They lied. Lied by omission, lied because they had a chance to be totally disingenuous. They never wanted to keep Roe from the start. It was never second-guessed. 

And you're walking about stunned, even though their lying was preceded by their appointment by the liar-in-chief, who will, and does, lie to anyone so often and so blatantly that I wonder if he accepts any kind of truth that he hasn't mouthed himself.

But you left the door open. You, and the liberals in the Senate who heard what they wanted to hear and didn't want to cause more trouble, even when Kavanaugh clearly lied about his involvement in a drunken collegiate frivolity which, if admitted, would have defused the event and might have allowed clearer thinking about drilling down a little farther about what was really important.

And so they told what they told themselves was a white lie which has become a dark rabbit hole the depths of which we will soon learn will be debilitating and even violent. Radical reactionaries will seek to prevent any kind of end of pregnancy, even chemically-induced ones. And they will try to stop women who still seek such procedures from leaving the state in which they live to enter another where they can get treatment. 

Based on the above new ruling on guns, this repression cannot be a good idea. Somebody's rights will be determined by good aim and vigilantism on both sides of the ledger. The destabilizing effects of the deterioration of common recognition of someone's rights will be rocked to its very core.

That's just another game of "pretend." Let's pretend that nothing radical will come of this extremely radical set of rulings. Let's pretend that we can all keep ourselves in civilized restraint.

Oh, wait: We already haven't? People have already shot up grocery stores, churches, movie theaters and of course schools? Oh. Well, sorry. We'll try harder next time. Except now they'll have an even darker reason.

Too late now. And too late for millions of women. They got caught in the clutches of naïveté before these disastrous rulings, and conservative-reactionaries will get caught in naïveté afterwards. They really think they can get away with this without too much societal disruption. We will all see how wrong they are.

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

Mister Mark