Black History Month 2022 in Florida

 

Now that Black History Month is here, we finally have access to the Florida Government-approved history curriculum for Florida students to ensure no ‘divisive issues’ are present that might upset the little darlin’s:

1. It is unclear when black folks arrived in the U.S., except that it was definitely after White folks, who were totally here first, before anyone. No one knows exactly why black people came here, but many scholars believe they were tourists who got lost and decided to stay when they realized how much Freedom™ could be mined here.

2. Black people have made many contributions to American life in the following areas: Sports.

3. There are many famous black people who have lived in the U.S. such as:

a. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, who was a Christian and talked about God and was revered by many people, gave a speech about how no one should get ‘special treatment,’ was never given any trouble by anyone, and died peacefully in his sleep.

b. Rosa Parks, who led the reform of the Montgomery, AL mass transit system when she realized the unfairness of freeloading poor people getting to ride busses with gas paid for by the city, while other folks who owned cars had to pay for gas out of their own damn pockets like chumps.  

c. Jackie Robinson, who played in Major League Baseball for his entire career, was beloved and received standing ovations every game from White folks, used to have dinner with all the owners of the teams in their private boxes and often picked up the tab, because the owners were poor from paying him so much to play. Still, not as good as Babe Ruth. 

d. and others, who we totally know about, but don’t have enough time to cover in a month, which is all the time that we are allowed to spend talking about black people because of Democrat federal government regulations.  

* It is important to remind students that all of the above people had dinner at Mar A Lago with another famous black person, Fredrick Douglas, who was pals with REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT ‘honest’ Abe Lincoln (sometimes known as ‘the Donald Trump of the 19^th Century’). They all signed notarized statements that they support the REPUBLICAN party platform.

 

** If time permits, you may mention that millions of White people died at some point for the benefit of black folks, because their States’ Rights were being threatened (probably by Democrats pretending to be REPUBLICANS).

 

ALERT---- Any deviation from this curriculum will result in termination, investigation and a visit from Warlord Aidid DeSantis’ private Army.

An Historical Warning

 

Let’s be clear about one thing: Donald Trump is not Adolf Hitler. For one thing, he’s quite a bit dumber, much older, can’t give a proper speech to save his life, and has none of the traumatic events in his past that Hitler experienced as a young man that may have helped form him into what he was. 

Let’s be equally clear about another thing: they are both cut from the same cloth. The purposefully incendiary rhetoric, the vague promises of ‘action’ with no specific plan, the plentiful scapegoats on which to blame all the problems of the world. But above all, Hitler and Trump share these traits: the use of copious lies to not only obfuscate the truth, but to degrade listeners’ ability to understand that truth actually exists, and the one crystal clear message, “Only I can fix it.”

It is also the case that the fascistic, or if you dislike that term, authoritarian, takeover of the United States  will not happen the same way it did in 1930’s Germany, the main reason being that we have a different political system. But, to paraphrase something Mark Twain may or may not have said: History doesn’t repeat itself, but it sure as hell rhymes.

In 1932, no fewer than 2 different national elections were held in Germany, and then one last one in 1933, because of the way the parliamentary system was set up in the Weimar Republic. In each one the NSDAP or ‘Nazi’ party engaged in voter suppression by threats of violence and by deriding the system as ‘corrupt.’  They slowly gained a plurality in the Reichstag (parliament). Also, with the country (and the world) in the grip of an economic emergency, and having lived through a very recent world-wide viral pandemic, the Nazis used lies, division, fear of ‘socialism’ or ‘communism,’ the deliberate creation of chaos in the streets, and the idea of a savior to convince people “what have you got to lose?” In 1933, Franz Von Papen (who believed Germany needed a strong dictator), handed the Chancellorship to Adolf Hitler (one year after Hitler had declined a prior offer because Von Papen wouldn’t promise he could rule by fiat). Within a year, emergency powers had been declared, the NSDAP’s largest rival parties had been disbanded, and many of their leaders jailed. Full legislative power was given to the Hitler, and eventually, only the NSDAP remained. The rest, as they say, is history. 

As I said, it won’t happen exactly like that here, because our system and institutions are organized differently, and world circumstances are not the same; but the echoes are strong and getting stronger.

The Trumpist-Republican platform is a mass of seething vague promises of action, lies meant to sow discord, and threats of what will happen if Trump does not triumph. The Republican Party didn’t even create a new formal platform for the 2020 election; they simply said “refer to 2016,” as if nothing has changed in the intervening 4 years. But is has. Through both planning and sheer incompetence, Trump and his lackeys and enablers have weakened and undermined many of those institutions that made us different from Weimar. He has all but destroyed the professional civil service structure that is required for any true government to function; he has derided and degraded the very idea of service to the country as a whole, and equated personal loyalty to himself with patriotic duty.

He and his lickspittles have lied, constantly and egregiously, to everyone, then denied those very lies when they have been presented to them, even in recorded form. He has declared war against the independent and free press, calling them, explicitly, an “enemy of the people,” by which he means his enemy, because in Trump’s world, as in Louis the XIV’s, “L’etat C’est Moi.”

He and his family and friends have used the public coffers to enrich themselves in the most egregious ways, then waved their hands and said “nothing to see here,” while refusing the legitimate requests of all bodies tasked with executive oversight and checking such plutocratic excess. As such, he and his minions have blurred the lines between the personal and the public, making a mockery of federal law.

Like the NSDAP, Trumpists claim to be the party of ‘Law and Order,’ while flouting the laws themselves, with the Whitehouse chief of staff going so far as to declare that no one outside Washington cares about various federal statutes that make illegal the use of public funds and property for political gain, and utilizing the imprimatur of the symbols of government’s power and authority to show naked support for one political party (or, if we’re honest, support for one man.)

The flying of Republican and Trump banners on the White House grounds was akin to the display of the Swastika over the Reichstag in its temerity to place the coercive weight of government behind the effort to crown the man who would be king.

Like the Nazis, Trump has threatened the use of armed enforcers at polling places to intimidate his political opposition, and like all dictatorial personalities, has continually implied and stated that any result other than his own victory is illegitimate.

The Trumpist party has also carried on and expanded upon the recent Republican trend of ‘legal’ voter suppression, with de facto poll taxes just being upheld in Florida, and voter ID laws passed in many states to solve a non-existent problem by disenfranchising as many ‘illegitimate’ voters as possible; by which they mean, generally, urban voters of color.

He has encouraged baseless conspiracy theories in his supporters in an attempt to obfuscate and distract from actual issues and concerns of the public, and has specifically supported the use of violence against those protesting the excesses of his regime.

Hitler’s themes “Germany above all” and “returning Germany to greatness” are exactly the same as Trumpist slogans “America First” and “Making America Great Again,” and have the same goal: to frighten a cowed populace into supporting the only man who can defend them from that ‘other:’ the ‘untermenschen’ who would replace the upstanding (read: white) ‘patriotic’ citizen and destroy what are falsely claimed to be ‘traditional American values.’ Hitler also talked about traditional German values, and how men and women must be placed into their traditional ‘roles’ and not let them be undermined by ‘communist, globalist, and liberal’ threats.

This tweet from Trump:

“The Suburban Housewives of America must read this article. Biden will destroy your neighborhood and your American Dream. I will preserve it, and make it even better!”

Is the modern equivalent of this poster:

(Text tells Wives if they want to rescue their families, they need to vote for Hitler)

And, of course, now we have convicted felon and Trump whisperer Roger Stone, who would be in prison for his crimes except for the unilateral intervention of his ‘Law and Order’ loving Dear Leader, explicitly calling for martial law and an overthrow of the government if Trump should lose the election. This isn’t some nobody from the sticks of Alabama, but a former government official and close advisor to the so-called ‘president.’ Someone with whom Trump still communicates and can be swayed by.

Like the NSDAP, Trumpists love nationalist populism, but hate democracy, because in a true democracy even those whom Trumpists deem unworthy get a voice. In the ‘Dusseldorf speech,’  given to German ‘industrialists (what we would now call CEOs and ‘entrepreneurs’)’ to win them to the Nazi cause, Hitler  said:

“For the greatness of a people is the result not of the sum of all its achievements but in the last resort of the sum of its outstanding achievements. Let no one say that the picture produced as a first impression of human civilization is the impression of its achievement as a whole. This whole edifice of civilization is in its foundations and in all its stones nothing else than the result of the creative capacity, the achievement, the intelligence, the industry, of individuals: in its greatest triumphs it represents the great crowning achievement of individual God-favored geniuses, in its average accomplishment the achievement of men of average capacity, and in its sum doubtless the result of the use of human labor-force in order to turn to account the creations of genius and of talent. So it is only natural that when the capable intelligences of a nation, which are always in a minority, are regarded only as of the same value as all the rest, then genius, capacity, the value of personality are slowly subjected to the majority and this process is then falsely named the rule of the people. For this is not rule of the people, but in reality the rule of stupidity, of mediocrity, of half-heartedness, of cowardice, of weakness, and of inadequacy.... Thus, democracy will in practice lead to the destruction of a people's true values. “ (emphasis added)

(Also note the invocation of “God;” like Trump, Hitler had little use for actual religion, but saw it as a tool to persuade the masses of the rightness of his cause.)

This is the Trumpist attitude. They can not (yet) state it explicitly, but it shows through in every action and political appointment, in every cover-up of political ratfuckery and sham investigation of political enemies, in every priority they set, and every meme they post. Whenever Trump refers to himself in superlatives, this is what he means. ‘The people’ are but the means to prop up the power and aggrandizement of those with the “very good brains,” “the best words,” those who consume only “the most beautiful pieces of chocolate cake.” In a word, they exist only to serve him. This attitude is evident even from his very early practices in the business his daddy handed him, as anyone who grew up in New York in the ‘80s can attest.

So, no, Trump isn’t Adolf Hitler, and the contemporary U.S. isn’t Weimar Germany. But we are not special. There is no ‘American Exceptionalism’ as the Trumpists would have you believe. No magic protects us from the fates that have befallen other nations. While our history and institutions are different, we are not immune to the rise of anti-intellectualist, nationalistic authoritarianism. And, we are at an inflexion point.

We can repudiate the Trumpists, and everything for which they stand, extirpate Trumpism root and branch from the body politic, and salt the ground so that it cannot henceforth grow.

Or, we can prevaricate like the Germans in 1932, and think, “it’s not that bad, he’s a little uncouth, but at least the trains run on time.”

And then, my friends, the Unites States we know will truly be gone. It won’t be Nazi Germany, but it will be an authoritarian hellscape, it will be of our own making, and in that way, it will be truly ‘American.’

Kim Davis and the 1st Amendment

As the howls of protest from the religious right echo throughout the Fox wasteland, let us be perfectly clear about one thing: if anyone has violated the 1st Amendment in this case, it is Kim Davis herself. By elevating her own peculiar religious beliefs above any other as part of her public duties, Davis has, de facto, established her particular brand of Christianity as the religion of Rowen County, Kentucky. Regardless of what the Christo-fascist "Liberty Counsel" will say, Davis has not been jailed because of her beliefs. She has been held in contempt of court for refusing to perform the duties that her job, and the oath she took when accepting that job, require. She, in traditional civil contempt parlance, has 'the keys to her own cell.' All she needs to do is promise not to interfere with her clerks performing their duties, and she is out. If she cannot do that, then she must resign.

Cries of 'religious liberty' are inapt. The guarantee of religious freedom, as with all rights granted by the U.S. Constitution, is not absolute. Just as one's freedom of speech does not cover falsely crying fire in a crowded theatre, one's religious freedom ends where the rights of others begin. A public official may not establish her own beliefs as the official policy of a governmental entity, regardless of how 'sincerely held' they may be. Contrary to the dogma of the religious right, no god's law trumps the law of the United States, because only civil law has any practical effect. Those who want to follow their deity's commands are welcome to do so in their homes and private lives, and in public, in so far as they do not affect the rights of others. When equality is threatened by religious zealotry, the law must step in to put things right. Society would crumble otherwise.

Further, the Liberty Counsel lawyers have danced along the line of ethical responsibility, and with this last phase, in my mind, jumped over it. They are using Ms. Davis' actual freedom as a revenue-generator, placing their client at risk for their own pecuniary gain. Any competent attorney knew she had no chance of winning at the federal appeals level. She should have been advised to either find a different job, or complete her legal duties as required. To encourage her to continue this case, as seems abundantly clear they did, is blatantly unethical. So, Davis is in jail because of her own inability to complete her duties, and the cynical machinations of a fringe group of religious zealots.

So, while you may disagree with the Obergefell ruling, you can not cry about the 1st Amendment in Davis' case. To paraphrase our chief justice, 'religious freedom has nothing to do with it.'

These Aren't the Drones You're Looking for...

Previously, I mentioned concerns I have with regard to drone strikes used as targeted assassinations against U.S. Citizens and foreign nationals abroad.  Mr. Obama has apparently mentioned these concerns in a Google+ chat he had with certain constituents last year.  Unfortunately, I did not see that chat, and have been unable to locate a complete transcript, so I am using news reports to determine what was said.

According to Yahoo! News, the president said that "it is not sufficient that citizens just take my word for it that we are doing the right thing."  He stated that there have not been strikes against a U.S. Citizen on U.S. soil, and that he has to "work with Congress ... so people understand what's going on, what the constraints are, (and) what the legal parameters are.”

This is a somewhat comforting assertion, but only in so far as it is followed through.  Even during the "Cold War,"  it was, at least officially, against U.S. policy to target political adversaries for assassination.  (Whether certain administrations actually followed this policy, including Kennedy, Nixon, and Reagan, is up for dispute,) But it seems, since 9/11, the U.S. has followed a policy that entails targeting of individuals who are citizens of countries with which we are not at war, for assassination, many times using the rather blunt instrument of unmanned drone strikes.

Regardless of what some would have us believe, this is not analogous to bombing of command structures of enemies during war time.  First off, no declaration of war has been made against any political entity.  Secondly, we have no reason to suspect, because we are not given any evidence, that any of these individuals pose an existential threat to our nation, or to the lives of its citizens. 

The 5th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads that :""No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger... nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." 

The first thing to notice in this language is that the term "person" is used, not "citizen."  One of the primary rules of statutory construction requires that we look at the plain meaning of the language used; especially when other words could have been substituted instead.  The 5th Amendment does not simply protect U.S. Citizens on U.S. soil.  By plain reading it applies to all "persons." 

Capital crimes are those that are eligible for the death penalty, which is essentially what we are discussing.  With the exception of members of the military in wartime, the government can not hold any person to answer for a capital crime without first getting an indictment against that person from a grand jury.  For those unfamiliar with grand jury process, generally, the prosecution presents its evidence to the grand jury, and the defendant need not be present, and in fact, while able to testify, generally is not able to fight the prosecution's case at this point.  The point of the Grand Jury is to determine if the government has sufficient evidence with which to charge the individual with the crime alleged. 

So, my question to the president would be, have all those targeted by the drone strikes been indicted for crimes they have been alleged to commit?  If not, what provision of U.S. law allows for the execution of these individuals, and what are the crimes for which they are being held to answer?

Note this does not even get into the questions of national sovereignty of other nations, or the likelihood of collateral damage against innocents with the use of such weapons. 

Salient Points Regarding Boston Bombing

As have many, I'm sure, I've been watching the news coverage of the search for the supected Boston Marathon Bomber, and I have a few points of concern:

One: when did describing something as a "bombing" become not shocking enough for newscasters? It seems that every reference to the incident that occurred Monday has to include some adjective, often repeated twice: "horrific," "horrendous," "heinous." Why can't it just be described as a "bombing?" That's how it would be described if it occurred in a different country, even if more poeple had been killed and more destruction wrought.

Second: Can we stop with the baseless speculation that these particular suspects were part of an "international terror cell?" There is absolutely no evidence, of which I'm aware, that these individuals were connected to any organization or group, especially Al Quaeda. One of the suspects is an American Citizen, the other a Lawful Permanent Resident. This is, by definition, a "domestic terror attack." Yes, they are of Chechnyan ethnicity. Chechnyan groups have no history of attacks on U.S. interests. In fact, the U.S. has, at many times, been sympathetic to Chechnyan issues due to Russian attempts to deal with Chechnyan seperatists.  This article in Salon now seems even more relevant: http://www.salon.com/2013/04/16/lets_hope_the_boston_marathon_bomber_is_a_white_american/

Third: In Texas, half of an entire town was destroyed, and at least 13 people killed in an explosion at a fertilizer factory that had not been inspected in 50 years, likely due to the Federal Government's lack of funding OSHA.  That incident was many times more "horrific" than the Boston bombing, both in loss of life and destruction of property.  And yet, the day after that "horrendous" event, when the Senate was questioning the nominee for Secretary of Labor, not a single question was asked about OSHA. Senators did ask about ridiculous conspiracy theories regarding the "New Black Panther Party." The news coverage on all networks, has been almost exclusively about the Boston incident. In Ohio, today, 4 people were found shot in the head in the basement of an apartment building.  That is the same number of people killed in Boston by these suspects. Yet, the entire nation is focused  on Boston.

As a nation, we need to get over our fascination with "terrorism." I guess it's because these actions are more like a Hollywood movie than industrial accidents or every-day gun violence. But the real threat to our country comes not from "terrorist" groups, but from our reactions to them.  When we begin to give this issue so much importance in our lives that all other, more serious threats to our society, such as rampant firearms use and the government's abdication of its responsibility to protect workers from unsafe work environments, specifically in dangerous industries, the terrorists win.

Even at its strongest, Al Quaida was never an existential threat to the United States. The only way they can take down our country is with our help.  And right now, we, as a whole, because of our reactions to these types of events, are the best friends Al Quaida could have.

M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i

Well, fellow Floridians, we may not know how to run an election, we have Rick Scott, Katherine Harris, the Koran-burning preacher, the Treyvon Martin case, and Jeffrey Loria, but we can thank our lucky stars for one thing: at least we're not Mississippi.

You've no doubt heard that the mighty Mississippi Government became the last state to officially ratify the 13th amendment earlier this month  (Interestingly, after an Indian immigrant saw the film Lincoln  and looked it up.)  Yes, it was a clerical mistake over something that doesn't make a practical difference, but still; 1995 when the legislature finally abolishes slavery?  And then they forget to file the paperwork? 

Well, on the heels of that, there's this stunning news.  Yes, a community newspaper gets enough hate mail, calls, e-mail etc. for filing a news story on the county's first lesbian wedding (that isn't even recognized by law,) that the editor feels compelled to defend it.  The wedding, incidentally, was between a woman and her partner who is undergoing treatment for cancer that may be terminal.  I'll let the editor of the Laurel Leader-Call say what I think is the takeaway from this:

"We have stories about child molesters, murders and all kinds of vicious, barbaric acts of evil committed by heinous criminals on our front page and yet we never receive a call from anyone saying 'I don't need my children reading this.' Never. Ever. However, a story about two women exchanging marriage vows and we get swamped with people worried about their children."
 

Stay classy MS!  Stay classy!

The State of the State of the Union

Last night, President Obama gave the requisite “State of the Union” address. While it wasn’t quite FDR’s “New Deal,” or LBJ’s “Great Society,” it proposed an array of specific policy initiatives on a variety of important issues, from infrastructure improvement to early childhood education, to the federal minimum wage, to deficit reduction. I had several issues with the specifics of the President’s plans, especially his pledge to be more “transparent” about how we conduct our foreign policy and the power of the executive branch to order the targeting of both American Citizens and foreign nationals for political assassination. President Obama offered no specifics about how this transparency would be accomplished, or what criteria are currently being used to sentence human beings to death by remote control without due process of law as required by the 5^th and 14^thAmendments to the Constitution. I also had some concerns about Obama’s pledge to use executive order to bypass Congress with regard to Environmental issues; although court decisions have more or less given the EPA (and therefore the executive branch) the power to enact “cap and trade” rules, it seems to me to be a better idea to use the legislative process.

What concerned me more, though, is the Republican response to the State of the Union which was presented by FL Sen. Marco Rubio. As a FL resident for 16 years, I have become accustomed to Rubio being a dynamic speaker, and although I often disagree with his positions, I also often admire his ability to articulate them with a rational yet passionate delivery. I was sorely disappointed in Mr. Rubio tonight, as his “rebuttal” was a simple rehash of GOP talking points, with no character or any specific policy initiatives. In fact, listening to Republican speeches these days has become akin to the old “Frankenstein”Saturday Night Live routine: “Taxes Bad!!!!” “Government Bad!!!” “Guns Good!!!” What was especially striking to me was Rubio’s hypocrisy with regard to social program spending. The GOP Platform is clear that it opposes Federal Student loans (yes, it advocates Federal insurance of private loans, which is its own can of worms). In Rubio’s response he stated that he couldn’t have gone to college without Federal Loans. He also stated that both his parents benefited from the Medicare system. And yet… These are all the things that Mr. Rubio’s party are eager to cut to ensure that taxes are not raised on the richest segment of the nation. What Mr. Rubio is essentially saying is, “Now that my loans are paid off, (a few months ago, apparently,) no one else need benefit from these programs. Medicare is good for my parents, but there’s no reason anyone else should benefit from that program.” And Republicans wonder why average Americans aren’t getting their economic policy?

Another issue is the current Republican effort to suppress the voting rights of minorities and those of lower socio-economic status. This is especially important in my state of Florida, because the GOP Governor, Rick Scott, and the GOP Legislature has done as much as possible to make it as difficult as possible for those in certain areas (read: areas that tend to vote Dem.) to cast their ballots. They have done this through a combination of gerrymandering, punitive “voter ID” laws, creating obstacles for former prisoners to have their franchise reinstated, and the elimination of as many early voting days as possible. This is not only a problem in FL, but around the country, as bills are pending in PA to change the electoral law to divide electoral votes amongst districts, rather than awarding them to the winner of the aggregate state vote, because the Republican-controlled legislature has managed to draw districts in such a way that GOP Candidates would almost always come out of the state with more electoral votes.

These strategies are all reminiscent of the “poll Tax” and“literacy requirements” of Jim Crow days calculated to suppress black votes. Generally, the reasons given have to do with “voter fraud” issues. Except that voter fraud has not been a major issue in any United States Election. There are more UFO sightings every year than allegations of voter identity fraud. When the State of Indiana was asked to defend its voter ID laws by a court, it could not cite a single instance of voter identity fraud in its history. This is the definition of a“manufactured crisis.” These laws are not necessary to protect the democratic process; in fact, they are cynically calculated to usurp that very process.

Mr. Rubio’s response did not even mention the issue of correcting the system of elections in the U.S. that forces some individuals to wait in line, in some instances for 6 hours, to cast his or her vote. This, of course, is likely because these difficulties tend to crop up in urban areas where the majority of voters have a tendency to vote Democrat. (In FL, the problems in the Miami area can be directly traced to the elimination of extra early voting days, and more stringent ID requirements enacted by the Republican administration.)

There is no doubt that the end of the President’s speech was a calculated bit of “political theatre” meant to appeal to the emotions of people with regard to gun violence and voter suppression. As much as I would prefer that was not the strategy to be used, the underlying issues are very real, and until the GOP can come up with some sort of actual common-sense policy that would address them, they have little reason to object. 

So, it appears the State of the Union is business as usual, with the President articulating specific policies to address the problems facing the country, and the opposition party simply objecting to everything, without any substantive ideas of their own.This is a pity, because our republic works best when good ideas are forthcoming from both sides of the aisle.