This July 4th Feels Wrong

What is July Fourth to a Progressive?

 

 

Americans are gearing up for the July 4^th holiday in various ways. For some it’s a way to express their patriotism; for others, a show of support for American troops or relatives in uniform. A hardy few want to revel in Donald Duck’s Trump’s warped view of American might and his lies about prosperity and global respect. I suspect, though, that most Americans simply see July 4^th as an opportunity to have a picnic, see fireworks, or–in that greatest of American spectacles–take advantage of retail sales.

My title is a riff off a famous 1852 speech delivered by Frederick Douglass titled “The Meaning of July Fourth to the Negro.” https://masshumanities.org/files/programs/douglass/speech_complete.pdf

Douglass reminded us that one’s standing in society is more important than bang-the-drum symbolism. I recognize that this July 4^th is the 250^th birthday of the United States. I recall driving to Boston to watch fireworks explode across the Charles and listen to the late Arthur Fiedler lead the Boston Pops in patriotic tunes. That was when Gerald Ford was president, and one year after the Vietnam War ended and Richard Nixon resigned as POTUS for his role in the Watergate coverup. (Let the last one sink in; even Nixon had more honor than the national embarrassment currently in the White House.) I was ready to celebrate after years of protest against the war. I was also glad to see the back of Nixon, though I felt a minor twinge of pity as he was clearly suffering from a combination of acute depression and alcohol abuse.

For the 250^th, I’m thinking of donning black mourning garb and lamenting America’s fall from grace. This year’s celebration will feature Kremlin-like military spectacles, White House bombast, and attacks on all I hold important and sacred. I’d not be surprised were molten gold to drip from Trump’s forked tongue. It’s this simple, I am a pacifist Quaker who believes truth matters, knows a conman when I see one, believe that starting wars to look strong is an evil act. Sending fishermen to their deaths and pretending they are drug smugglers is pathetic and immoral.

American might is a myth, as is Trump’s “leadership.” Some of what he says is risible; a lot of it is so dangerous that what Trump likes to call the “radical left” is not exaggerating in calling it fascism. During the Trump years I’ve made it a habit to vacation in New England, where sanity still reigns; Canada, where it never left; and Europe, which has an educated population that can detect BS. In New England, Trump is an annoyance in the way a carbuncle is an annoyance. We get grumpy because we can’t wait to have him excised. Canadians fear him because they think he’s after something and they are probably right; Canada has more than 20 percent of the world’s potable water. So does the U.S. but almost all of it is in the Great Lakes shared with Canada. Subtract the lakes, not coincidentally bordering blue states, and it drops to seven percent. Even deep aquifers are disproportionately concentrated in the Northeast, Middle Atlantic, and the Far West.

Most Western Europeans act as if Trump is irrelevant. Neither they nor Canadians hate Americans. They feel sorry for us and say so in private conversations. They can see that their countries have more services, a stronger infrastructure, better schools and, yes, more freedom. Aside from a handful of Baltic states with a history of authoritarian rule, few Europeans see the U.S. as enviable. Their primary fear is that military power is under the control of an impulse-driven manchild who confuses missiles with the size he’d like his phallus to be. Can you say Armageddon?

As for me, I’m tired of trying to explain things to hardcore Trumpanzees. I don’t think all of his supporters are uneducated hillbillies. Some dislike taxes and have made out well, the white working class correctly feels left out by Democratic technocrats, and some vote out of party loyalty. Perhaps the majority feel lost in modern America and fear for their futures. It’s not wrong, though, to see a large swarm of Trumpanzees as militaristic rah-rah boys, racists, end-of-the-world evangelicals, isolationists, misogynists, and losers. The hardcore is immune to reason and would turn back progress. On July 4^th I will mourn the loss of democracy.

RW

 

 

 

Trump is Courting Disaster

I planned to post this earlier but my first draft was as long as War and Peace. It’s still wordy, but it’s abridged.

Donald Trump’s ratings are in the dump, and you don’t need to be a genius to figure out that he’s not one! The war against Iran gives him a stage to play hero. It is, though, it’s a tragic comedy. He and I share one thing in common: Neither of us served in the U.S. military. Too bad the Orange Snollygoster didn’t study history; he’d know that reviews of his farce will not be good.

An advisor to Genghis Khan once said, “… one can conquer [China] on horseback, but one cannot govern it on horseback.” In modern terms this sagacious aphorism means that armed forces can conquer, but they cannot build stable nations. Victory parades–real or manufactured – are feel-good moments, but boots on the ground should march home once wars are over. Rebuilding is the work of financiers, planners, diplomats, and–above all else–honest indigenous leaders. An oft-repeated narrative holds that the United State “rebuilt” Europe and Japan after World War II. If you mean American dollars, yes. If you mean much beyond that, no! Don’t confuse what was made possible with American dollars and what was implemented by leaders and institutions.

The American government embraced men like Atlee and Churchill in Britain, General de Gaulle in France, Adenauer in West Germany, Nehru in India, and a chastened Hirohito in Japan. They were needed to execute postwar initiatives such the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the gold standard, the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs, and the United Nations. Democracy? The United States has long been inconsistent on that score. We even smuggled ex-Nazis out of Europe to work on military projects. Some erstwhile leaders were weak, plutocrats, or unsavory tyrants: the Saud family in Arabia, the Shah in Iran, the Hashemites in Iraq, Ben-Gurion in Israel, Chiang Kai-Shek in China, King Sihanouk in Cambodia, Syngman Rhee in Korea, Fulgencio Baptista in Cuba….

With the exceptions of Britain and Japan, most of those mentioned above proved to be intransigent or catastrophic. China quickly fell to Mao Zedong, who became a communist after the U.S. refused to support him; ditto Fidel Castro! Charles de Gaulle quarreled with virtually everyone and demanded that Vietnam be returned as a colonial possession; Nehru insisted India would follow a Third Way that was neither Western nor communist; and Germany was cut in half. Others made no pretense at being democratic: Baptista, antisemitic Palestinians, Ben-Gurion’s perpetual warfare policies in Israel, the robber baron mentality of the Saudis and Hashemites, radical nationalists in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

Korea was the first mess. Rhee was an authoritarian leader who bilked South Korea after the wartime trusteeship dissolved. North Korea became communist and the Korean War (1950-53) saw a loss of over 730,000 Korean and 36,500 American lives. It took until 1987 for U.S. ally South Korea to cast off authoritarian rule.

Modern scholars view Korea as a dress rehearsal for the disastrous Vietnam War (1955-75). It collapsed the French government and wasted billions of U.S. dollars and left three million Vietnamese and over 58,000 Americans dead. The U.S. tried to remake the South in its image, including relocating 4.3 million Vietnamese into “strategic hamlets” provisioned with US goods. The war tore apart U.S. society and ended when communists overran South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Whatever the U.S. was selling was soundly rejected.

Since the end of World War II Korea and Vietnam have been the template for force-feeding democracy and the American Way of Life. The bulk of U.S. military interventions have been utter failures. We’ve sent troops to Africa–especially Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, and Somalia–dozens of times. I’m not seeing any democracies popping off that list. If we move to the Middle East, we’ve sent combat troops to Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, and Yemen. Afghanistan holds the dubious distinction of being America’s longest war. Before we went there the Taliban ruled. After the dust of 20 years of warfare settled, the Taliban rules. Does anyone remember Arab Spring, which was supposed to be a flowering of liberal democracy? Where?

Maybe you’ve read about the botched Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 or the 1973 removal of the elected Allende in Chile in favor of the despot General Pinochet. But did you know we’ve sent combat soldiers to Central and South America 41 times. We’ve taken out leaders in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, not because they threatened American shores, but because, like Allende, we didn’t like their politics. Tell me what good it has done for the DR or basket-case Haiti. Did you know we’ve been in Peru, Brazil, Lebanon, and Venezuela three times? Yet, the only conflict the U.S. military has “won” in terms of improving standards of living is Grenada, though the Massachusetts State Police could have taken Grenada.

Donald Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize; that’s unlikely given his meddling in the Gulf of “America,” threats to Denmark over Greenland (!), the war against Iran, his incursion into Venezuela, and bombings of Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, Somalia, and Yemen. Since the end of World War II, approximately 105,000 U.S. personnel have died overseas. Yes, 90% perished in Korea and Vietnam, but what’s the final toll of lives lost (including suicides), PTSD cases, and money spent for counterproductive results? Is it any wonder that the United States has slipped to #14 in global quality of life ratings? But you know that when you go to the grocery store or fill your gas tank!

 

Winter Blahs and Musings

When I lived in northern Vermont, winter shocked and amused me. Who knew that antifreeze could freeze? Somehow, in my late-20s and early 30s it seemed romantic when chimney smoke made a right hand bend because it couldn’t cut through the layer of cold air hovering 50 feet above the chimney. I recall cross country skiing and being surprised that I could be sweating in -10 Fahrenheit.

 

I moved to Western Massachusetts before I turned 40 and it felt like Miami. My best friend Dominique and I  used to sit outside of our favorite cafes in winter back then. Our personal best was slurping java and slinging BS when it was + 17 degrees. Now I wonder, at what age do we begin to feel the pain of cold weather. I see young ‘uns  pop into Woodstar Café in shorts or tiny skirts when it’s in the 20s and think, “Are they nuts?” From the comfort of a warm seat inside, of course, where BS is still slung.

 

Winter and I are no longer friends, but I can’t remember when that happened. I’ve become bear-like it my desire to hibernate. When my alarm rings to alert me I am joining friends for coffee at 8:30, I roll over and think, “It can’t possibly be 6:45 already.”  Then I begin to contemplate how cold and dark it is outside, and how much I love my pillow.

 

Winter is good for musing; I’ll give it that. I’ll bet you wonder what I think about on cold day. Maybe you don’t, but I’ll to tell you anyhow. Here’s a sampling from the past week. Such heavy thoughts often inspire a nap.

 

·      How is it that squirrels disappear from my lawn for days when it snows, but show up minutes after I refill the bird feeders?

 

·      How can the worst coffee in the world call itself Seattle’s Best?

 

·      Shouldn’t there be a law against calling something the best, greatest, finest, boldest, or improved? I’ve never once been asked to weigh in on such momentous assertions. Have you? 

 

·      I don’t know why the USA is so resident to switching to the  metric system. Is there an American alive that can’t tell the difference between a one liter and a two liter bottle of Coke? Besides, I much rather say I’m 160.02 cm tall than 63 inches.

 

·      Before Trump decides to take over Greenland, the Orange Tub should consider that Ozempic is made in Denmark.

 

·      I have four guitars and a ukulele. When I shuffle off this mortal coil I’m sure some wag will conclude I collected strings and straps.

 

·      Speaking of mortality, isn’t it bad enough that we have think about it as we get older? Must we put up with other stuff related to aging—like dry skin, rashes, wonky knees, and losing height? Plus, we develop personal quirks.  Mine is that the neural pathways connecting my hands and my brain apparently have been severed. If I pick up something and put it down, I’ve no idea where I deposited it and only the vaguest memory of having handling said object. I recently “lost” my favorite coffee thermos. I located it in the garage where I must have set it down to do something else.

 

·      Oh yeah, there’s memory. I have an idea for a TV show. Ask yourself, “What is the point of a TV show?” If you guessed anything as naïve as quality entertainment, you’re not even in the ballpark. It’s selling commercials, of course.  A show called Senior Jeopardy would rake in profits. You take three oldsters and ask a question. Cut to the Jeopardy thinking music and then to three minutes of commercials. Then, return to the contestants to reveal their answers. First one to three wins. They might have to extend the broadcast to an hour for that to happen, but experience tells me that Americans will happily sit through the same brain cell-slaying commercials forever as longs as they don’t need to get up from the sofa. 

 

 

 

·      My only useful musing involved Mark Carney. Who’s he? The Prime Minister of Canada. He spoke to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week. So did Trump, who gave an embarrassing speech about taking Greenland, crypto currency, and military might. I doubt he understood what Carney said. Here’s the speech: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mark+carney Gee, I wonder it’s like to be led by someone smart?

 

 

Rob Weir

 

 

What Will Kill Americans in 2026

 

 

Newest Health Warnings

 

Various health specialists–including those from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Doctors Without Borders, Doctors With Shiny Silver Discs Around Their Necks, and the three people not yet fired at the National Institutes of Health–have issued their annual Report on American health. Here are the top things that will kill Americans in 2026.

 

1. Topping the list is being shot while attempting any sort of conversation with a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. President Donald Tramp has issued a blanket immunity for all I.C.E. officers who have responded with lethal force. Threats include unfriendly stares in supermarkets, signs at places of worship, mothers sitting in their personal vehicles, and homes devoid of MAGA regalia. The presumption is that all I.C.E. personnel are protecting national security and the dead had it coming.

 

2. Measles: Health and Human Experiments Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. is adamant that vaccinations have killed 9 billion Americans in the past week and he’s doing his best to protect the 11 toothless idiots who think vaccinations are dangerous.

 

3. Classroom Slayings: Insisting that people not guns, kill people, President Tramp has ordered mandatory firearms training for all students and school employees. Doctors warn that young kids love bang-bang sounds, that grade schoolers are notoriously poor shots, and by Friday most teachers are ready to murder someone. They further warn that support and janitorial staff are very likely to frag principals, supervisors, payroll managers, and kids that walk over freshly washed floors.

 

4. Mumps: See Two above.

 

5. Combat Deaths: President Tramp is furious he didn’t win a Nobel Peace Prize and has announced plans to declare a Fourth Reich to foist “peace” on the rest of the world. This will involve forced conscription, as an anonymous Tramp D.O.D. official reported that he was “furious” that the U.S. military’s 1.3 million armed personnel were unable to subdue and attack force of four kayakers and a dozen spear fishermen during America’s aborted assault on Greenland. Tramp also announced plans to invade Malta, Gibraltar, Lichtenstein, Andora, and Kiribati as phase one of building the Reich. Some of those countries are alleged to be supplied with robust sticks and “big honking rocks.”

 

6. Hair Dye Poisoning: President Tramp has decreed that all American women will be required to be blonde. Given that Tramp has already dismantled “needless regulations,” doctors warn that several million MAGA women won’t be smart enough to figure out that they are not supposed to drink the hair dye.

 

7. Pogroms: Tramp has proposed a “culling of the herd” hunting season against all Leftists. Details are still being formulated but leaks to the “failing New York Times”  (circulation 11.8 million) claim that the following U.S. citizens are “hiding behind the failing U.S. Constitution” and hence subject to culling: people of color, children born in the U.S. to non-citizens, naturalized citizens who break any law (including littering), non-beef eaters, abortionists, women not wearing government-issued red cloaks, non-Christians, and “radical insurrectionists.” The last group will include: anyone to the left of Stephan Miller, Muslims, non-Republican Jews, anyone wearing Birkenstocks, Californians, Greenpeace supporters, New Englanders, “Save the Whales” communists, and non-heterosexuals. 

 

8. Being pressed to death: In his zealous quest to sleep with more women than Bill Clinton, President Tramp intends to classify any women having intercourse (consensual or forced) with him and complaining about it as a “lying b……s” and subject to the death penalty. Execution will involve Tramp lying atop their naked bodies until they suffocate.

 

9. Death by right-wing shooters, car drivers, and tactical bombers who are in the act of standing their ground and/or protecting the president from “leftists” (see 7 above). Subsections protect patriotic vigilantes who are: engaging in target practice along U.S. borders, are forced to self-protect during “peaceful demonstrations” inside the U.S. Capitol, are being harassed by Black trick-or-treaters, heathens holding placards asserting that Charlie Kirk was a fraud, and leftists whose heckling hurts their feelings.

 

10. Whopping cough, polio, COVID, and 5,000 other preventable diseases such as Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Bubonic plague, TB, diphtheria, RSV, monkey pox, chickenpox, flu, or failing to own a gun.  (See Two and Nine above.)

 

 

 

Where Are My Choices?

 

 

 

Sometimes capitalism is enough to inspire communists! We’ve been told since were little that, unlike “socialist” countries, our economic system provides choices. The myth of capitalist choice is all around us. Almost every town has a gasoline alley with numerous stations cheek by jowl that are theoretically in competition with each other. Yet each sells gasoline that's a mere penny or two from other stations. Does anyone ponder over whether to pay $3.01 versus $3.02? It hardly matters given that pennies are being pulled from distribution!

 

The lack of personal choice dictates what we wear. The hot colors for 2026 will be teal, green, and blue. What if those colors don't flatter you? Millions of people will wear those colors anyhow, even though they think they look like they were mugged by park rangers. How about skinny jeans? They were hot just a few years ago until someone said you were supposed to wear wide legs that make you look as though you needed extra space to tuck in your peers when you go out. Trash ‘em; skinny jeans are back! For the record, I wear skinny jeans. It’s not because I think people wish to gaze at my physique; it’s because I'm old and my arse has disappeared.

 

Capitalism is supposed to work on a supply and demand principle. In theory, consumers drive the demand bus and suppliers respond by meeting their demand. As supply goes up, price is supposed to drop. In reality, capitalists create their own demand. They make “hot” items hard to obtain so the price skyrockets. It doesn't matter if the item is shoddily made; next year they will create a new demand and the sheeple will dump skinny jeans and wear construction worker pants with a tape measure in the side pocket once they see Kendall Jenner wearing them. Think I’m crazy? Explain why anyone would pay $100 or more for ripped jeans that look as if the wearer was mauled by raccoons. (I'll be wearing my skinny jeans unless I magically grow an arse.)

 

My rave  du jour is the size of automobiles. I need to replace my Prius Prime because disc surgery made me shrink by more than two inches  and I have trouble seeing out of it. I'm now around 5 foot 3 inches height and apparently the only person that short in all of America. My Prius Prime is now called a “compact” car. Dave Berry once joked about the new Ford Land-Grant, the first car to come with its own zip code. Maybe he wasn’t joking!

 

You might think that the answer to my dilemma is to look at subcontract compact cars. What are those? Yeah, I could buy a Smart Car. It should be called an Idiot Car as it gets less than 40 mpg. Who determines what mileage small cars get? In Europe the same vehicle that gets 30 mpg in the U.S. gets 50 or more. Maybe I should buy either an electric car or another plug-in hybrid. Have you seen the design of the new Leaf? Don't call it a Leaf; it’s more of a mature maple. I’ve viewed cars so wide that I need my phone GPS to find the glove box.

 

It's not hard to figure out who is behind big vehicles and low mileage; it's the oil capitalists of course. I'd say they lobby politicians to protect their singular desire to pump petroleum until they sell the last thimbleful to some rich fool who can afford $1000 per half oz. The truth is there’s little need to lobby because much of Congress is made-up of oil investors. They are the ones who answer the question of an old documentary: who killed the electric car? Anyone with more than 17 brain cells knows that large petroleum-consuming vehicles are not sustainable. Who needs big cars in a culture where a swelling tide of the people are taking Ozempic or Wegovy? Never fear; car dealers will regroup to sell us sailboats once the polar ice caps collapse and everything east of the Appalachians is under water. (Big Sale on Sails!)

 

I haven't completely given up. I can still check out Toyotas, Honda, and Kei. If they come through, I’ll  wait for retailers to offer skinny jeans with arse inserts. I'm sure I’ll be tempted to buy those at any price. Who needs choices?

 

Rob Weir

 

PS: Next year’s “hot” auto color is powder blue, if you believe marketers.

 

How to Break Bad Political Habits

 

By now you’ve probably digested the news that of the eight Democratic Senators who caved in to give Republicans the votes necessary to end the government shutdown. The enduring question is why? The eight– seven Democrats and one Independent who caucuses with the Democrats–can offer all of the disingenuous justifications they want, but the bottom line is that they have handed Trump a major political victory which he will use to blame the crisis on Democrats and liberals. The Disloyal Eight may have sandbagged next year’s midterm elections. The only partial victory the Democrats might have wrangled is a continuation of SNAP benefits. That is if:

 

·      The House agrees to those terms

·      Trump doesn’t throw another wobbly and refuse to sign the bill

 

What was surrendered was a guarantee that the Affordable Care Act would remain in place. Even SNAP could go away as its funding under the (ahem!) compromise bill covers only the period between November 2025 and the end of 2026.

 

I’ve watched the Democratic Party my entire life and it hasn’t inspired substantial confidence or hope since the end of Lydon Johnson’s administration. Oh sure, millions joyfully celebrated the kumbaya election of Barack Obama, the last morally upright president, a man too decent to do things he could’ve done, like make a recess appointment of a new Supreme Court justice when Anton Scalia died. He bet that Hillary Clinton would become president, but we know how that turned out. Instead of the moderate Merrick Garland we ended up with Neil Gorsuch, one of the SCOTUS “originalists” who see the Founders as infallible crystal ball gazers.

 

If you are a Democrat, it’s time to face the music; your party is as outdated as a 1967 Studebaker. As I frequently note, its singular talent is the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Where’s the pulse? Well, there’s Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist, his mentee AOC, and rising star Zohran Mamdani, also a democratic socialist. None of them are mainstream Democrats and Bernie is 81. In all candor, the Democrats are in serious need of a remake represented by 30-somethings like AOC and Mamdani.

 

Let’s look at Democrats who voted with the GOP. If you know this, skip to the end to see what I propose.

 

Angus King (78). He’s an indie but don’t think Bernie Sanders; Maine has odd electoral districting and often splits its electoral votes. King is a lawyer, a two-time governor, and a classic middle of the roader. He leans liberal, but just barely. He won’t be up for reelection until 2030, by which time he’ll be in his 80s.

 

Catherine Cortes Masto (58) and Jacky Rosen (65) are both from Nevada. Let’s call their votes what they are: Senators protecting Nevada tourism. Neither is up for reelection soon. They are concerned about airports shutting down. They’d rather deal with the potential collapse of the ACA than a decline in visitors to Vegas and Reno.

 

Jeanne Shaheen (75) and Maggie Hassan (64) are from New Hampshire, and you might think they’d favor a shutdown as the unofficial state motto is “We aren’t like Massachusetts.” Hassan says her vote was to save SNAP benefits, which would sound more principled were NH not a state currently funding SNAP. Shaheen has called for an extension of ACA. Good luck getting it. What she meant to say is that she’s up for reelection next year and will face John Sununu. For some reason people in NH love the Sununu family like little kids love monsters.

 

Speaking of reelection, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin (78) wants another term. You could look at the second most powerful Senate Democrat (after Chuck Schumer) and think “player.” Do Illini really want to give Durbin another term? He’d be pushing 85 at the end of it.

 

Tim Kaine (64) of Virginia is another self-interest vote. After all, Virginia has close to 400,000 federal workers once you count Department of Defense jobs, those on active military duty, and non-military support staff. He is on record of saying he “doesn’t care” if his colleagues are mad at him. This from the man who did Hillary Clinton zero good as her 2016 running mate.

 

John Fetterman (53) of Pennsylvania would normally be a strong presidential contender. Except many in his own party think he’s nuts. That not my slam on him; that’s what they really think. He has had widely reported mental health issues and a stroke. Fetterman is an enigma. At times he channels Bernie; at others he’s as inconsistent as a libertarian. At least he was upfront about his opposition to working without pay. 

 

BREAKING THE HABIT.

 

Republicanism has become the secular religion of conservatives and troglodytes. Democrats are the religion of dreamers without a clue. Party politics are dying and we would do well to pull the life support plug.

 

Here’s how to register your anger about the Great Sellout of 2025: Unenroll in the Democratic Party. Tell the courthouse clerk it’s a protest against machine politics. Most states allow you to request which primary ballot you want, so you can still vote D if you’d like, but “Independent” behind your name lets you avoid a lot of noise. I routinely unsubscribe to emails that try to pigeonhole me and never answer campaign phone calls. When I support someone financially I avoid all official party sites. Vote for younger candidates. A party relying on people my age or (gasp!) older has no future.

 

Musings on Charlie Kirk

 

 

Cut Off the Oxygen

 

There’s a John Prine* song with a chorus that goes: Blow up your TV. Throw away your paper/Go the country. Build you a home/Plant a little garden. Eat a lotta peaches/Try an’ find Jesus, on your own.

 

I already have a home in the woods, albeit in the ‘burbs, and my gardening skills are minimal, but the rest of the song (“Spanish Pipe Dream”) resonates. I pulled out one of my guitars, sang it, and smiled, though I was in terrible voice. (This happens about every other time I play these days.)

 

This is my prelude to Charlie Kirk. I had never heard of him until he was shot. I wish he hadn’t been; I was much happier when he was a complete unknown instead of a right-wing martyr. I’ve known lots of guys like Kirk and have done my best to ignore them rather than getting bent out of shape about what they say. The town where I grew up had/has many evangelicals and very few Jews or Catholics. I’ve not done a head count but it’s possible evangelicals outnumber mainstream Protestants. I have gone to a few evangelical services out of curiosity. To say they were not my thang is an understatement.

 

During my young adulthood there were other voices that conflated faith with capitalism, love of celebrity, or both. I admire religious people who hold fast to faith as a way to live a good life. I too was once involved with a youth group when I was searching to make sense of–to use Douglas Adams’ words–life, the universe, and everything.* It was not, by the way, Campus Crusade for Christ, which was way too conservative. I have no idea if it’s still around and, if so, what it’s like now. Back then, though, CCC seemed more interested in condemnation than salvation. The 1970s and 80s were when TV evangelists sprouted like weeds: Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Joel Osteen, Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, Jimmy Lee Swaggert, Robert Tilton…. It didn’t require a college education to know that most were hucksters milking gullible cash cows to keep them in mansions, luxury cars, and (in some cases) hookers. There were also those like Hal Lindsey*, who were latter day Millerites predicting the apocalypse. I’m looking out my study window and can report that Earth is still here.

 

I don’t wish to tar every minister or person of faith with a brush of fraud. I’ve also known religious leaders who were the proverbial salt of the earth. I’m not Catholic, but I knew Father Mike of St. Michaels College in mid-80s and he’d get my vote for canonization. I won't embarrass locals I'd lump in the same camp. There is, however, a reason why movies like Elmer Gantry, Boy Erased, Frailty, Guyana, Jesus Camp, Leap of Faith, The Night of the Hunter, Martha Marcy May Marlene, Marjoe, The Master, The Magdalene Sisters, and scores more exist. And I’ve not even touched upon those blowing the lid off of hucksterism in other faiths. My standard comes from Mary Chapin Carpenter who reminds us: forgiveness doesn’t come with a debt.

 

It also doesn’t come with a complete disregard for human nature. Or reason. Millions of kids go through youth groups and hear messages akin to those of Charlie Kirk. As they age, most eventually go down a different path. Why? All the usual human reasons linked to ideals versus desire. Mainly they find an ascetic’s life too confining, either because it’s impractical or the messenger doesn’t practice what he preaches. To go back to John Prine, the disillusioned realize they need to work out things for themselves.

 

I don’t know how sincere Kirk was, but I know it’s stupid to kill people like him. Okay, my Quakerism says it’s stupid to kill anyone, but it’s wicked dumb to create martyrs or applaud murderers. Hucksters, fanatics, celebrities, and influencers feed off our oxygen. Ignore them. Turn off the TV, toss aside the paper, and try to find Jesus/Allah/Buddha/etc. on your own. Ditto music or clothing you like or a Democrat who can get elected. Okay, maybe the last one is far-fetched.  

 

* For the record, Prine was a serious Christian. Adams is the author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy sci-fi series. Lindsey (d. 2004) wrote The Late Great Planet Earth and numerous sequels.

Labor Day Blues

 

Subscribers to this blog will notice that I’m late with the Friday edition. That’s because I get depressed as Labor Day rolls around.

 

Since 1882, Labor Day has traditionally been a holiday to honor the American labor movement. May Day is often celebrated in other lands, but its association with democratic socialism didn’t play well in the U.S. where too many people think socialism is a synonym for communism.*

 

Labor Day’s end-of-summer date was first chosen for its closeness to the birthday of Uriah Stephens, the founder of the Knights of Labor. Don’t believe the nonsense that the first celebration was organized by New York City’s Central Labor Union; that mistake gets repeated because many people confused  Mathew Maguire with P. J. McGuire. Matthew was a socialist and P(eter) J. was a mover and shaker in the American Federation of Labor, which was for skilled workers which came to oppose the all-inclusive Knights of Labor. In addition, several cities had protest parades before the September 5, 1882, New York event often cited as the first Labor Day parade.  

 

I wrote three books on the Knights, but that’s not why I’m depressed. By academic training, I am a labor historian. I used to teach the history of the American labor movement, but by the end of the 1980s, it was fair to ask: “What movement?” I eventually began to call myself a historian of the working class, but that begs another question: “Who you calling working class?”

 

I categorically honor brave union members toiling to make things better for their comrades. The problem is that they aren’t enough followers and there is no strong federation of unions to make a political dent. Today the largest federation is the AFL-CIO with about 15 million total members across 60 unions. That’s deceptive, though, as it counts retired members. Moreover, an AFL-CIO political endorsement is about as useful as a lawn sign. It is a bureaucratic paper tiger ignored by constituent members. A whopping sixty percent of Teamsters voted for Trump in 2024, as did a majority of steelworkers, longshoremen, and fire fighters–a pattern that repeats in most unions that are male-dominated.

 

Let’s go a step deeper. Under 10 percent of Americans belong to a union of any sort. In 1960, nearly a third of workers (32 %) were unionized. As late as 1983, it remained 20 percent, but Ronald Reagan led the charge to decertify unions and the numbers have fallen ever since. Today’s numbers are even weaker when we break them down. Of the 9.9 percent, one third are government employees–assuming Trump hasn’t fired them all. The largest (2.2 million) are teachers’ unions, followed by trainees, and librarians. If we look to the private sector, fewer than six percent are organized and if you really want dire numbers, just 2.7 percent of individuals having anything at all to do with retail are unionized. Belonging to a union is often more pro forma than proactive. Teachers, for instance, are often legally forbidden to strike and 27 states have right-to-work laws, meaning a teacher can’t be forced to join a union and one can be fired for just about anything. Adding insult to injury, in most right-to-work states union members can be assigned to train those who might replace them.

 

Why do workers put up with this? The right-to-strike isn’t protected much anymore, so a lost job could mean financial hardship. Yet, 163 million Americans work, a number with the potential to bring most employers to their knees. That’s if, they aren’t lulled into consumerism submission by a barrage of commercials, tricked by wily ideologues, or convinced they are impotent. Note the old union banner above. Raise your hand if you work only eight hours a day, have eight to pursue what you wish, and get eight hours’ sleep. Yeah, right! That fight entails seeing one’s self as a member of the working class, but tell me the last time you even heard that term. U.S. = middle class right? Nope! Using objective economic date, 60 percent of all workers fail to meet middle-class standards.

 

No wonder Labor Day depresses me.

 

Rob Weir

 

* For the record, few American organizations were as virulently anti-communist as democratic socialists, whose idea of working-class heroes is more in the Eugene Debs/Bernie Sanders mold than Lenin or Mao.

 

 

Kehinde Wiley and the Last of the Lost Cause?

 

 

Rumors of War, 30' tall

 

The Last of the Lost Cause?*

*This essay/review is part of a larger in-progress project on Civil War mythology.

 

If you don’t follow the art world carefully, you might not know the statue above. It is a work that subverts one of the biggest lies of the past 160 years. The sculptor is Kehinde Wiley. If you can’t quite place the name, I’ll bet you know his presidential portrait of Barack Obama, but first things first. 

 

Wiley portrait of Barack Obama

 

 

Wiley’s equestrian statue is titled “Rumors of War” and is meant to shock. Instead of a wig-topped noble or a dashing solider, Wiley’s defiant figure is a black man with his dreadlocks tied back suggestive of a crown or an Indian sachem’s topknot. The figure is also wearing high-top sneakers, blue jeans, and a warm-up jacket. You can find this statue outside the main entrance to Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Art (VMFA).

 

Wiley based “Rumors of War” on a statue of J.E.B. Stuart that once sat atop a similar pedestal on the city’s Monument Avenue where it shared company with other “heroes” of the Confederacy. You might recall that those came down during Black Lives Matter protests in 2017. There is but one statue remaining, that of tennis great Arthur Ashe. CSA president Jeferson Davis was among those that pulled down and defiled. Wiley’s statue suggests that the real “war” was/is that of black freedom. That’s not the way the story is usually told.

 

Jefferson Davis vandalized; Stuart statue in storage

   
 

 

The Confederacy was defeated, but you’d hardly know that from the way the Civil War was retold before all the bodies were put to rest. The so-called “Lost Cause” was the ideological precursor to legal and customary segregation that sought to strip newly emancipated enslaved peoples of their political, economic, and human rights. The so-called “Jim Crow” era was the order of things until most of its vestiges were outlawed by the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Even then, the “war” Wiley wants you to ponder still rages: the one for black equality and dignity.

 

The Lost Cause did as much, perhaps more, to ingrain racism deeply into American culture. It claimed that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery and invented a host of specious and nonsensical alt.realities. You name it and it was tried: tariffs, the interference of Northern radicals, states rights, attempts to subvert the Southern agricultural system, a Northern political power grab, Southern honor…. Some of these have validity, but it’s simply impossible to fashion an explanation for the Civil War that doesn’t have black slavery at its core. (Tariffs are rising today, but I don’t detect a serious call to arms!) The Lost Cause created myths: the genteel South vs. the money-grubbing and unkempt North, a war of Northern aggression foisted upon the South, Scarlett O’Hara-like plantations marked by easy-going relations between white and blacks, kindly Southern “massas,” illiterate” slaves better off in bondage, evil abolitionists, etc. Some of that has a kernel of truth as well, but it all rests upon a worldview in which all whites were viewed as better than any black person. 

 

Currently in garden by Valentine Museum. Soon to be reinstalled at the Ironworks. 

 

When this statue was placed in front of the Tredegar Ironworks in Richmond, howls of protest erupted and white people committed acts of vandalism against it. Ditto the Arthur Ashe monument. Do we presume they did so genteelly?

 

Looking down Scarlet's stair case

 

For the record, Southern charm is not my thing, but parts of the South retain an air of grace. I might have been just as happy to have some barbecue and listen to the blues, but we had lunch one day at the Jefferson Hotel in down Richmond and it’s quite a place. Scarlett O’Hara even sashayed down its staircase in Gone with the Wind. There are tons of plantation homes below the Mason-Dixon Line that ooze with elegance as long as you don’t think about who and what sustained them.

 

As Bob Dylan put it, though, “the times they are a changing...” (Okay, he dropped the final “g.”) A Richmond friend and I visited the “Southern White House,” where Jefferson Davis quartered during the war. In many ways it’s more democratic that the one in Washington DC. It belonged to a bourgeois doctor who made it a home. Davis did all of his serious presidential duties at the state capital building a block away. The dining room picture is about the biggest thing in the house. Make no mistake, though; Davis was a Confederate and a racist. The good news is that guides no longer try to whitewash that. Nor do they fail to tell you that the house “staff” was comprised of wage-earning whites and white indentured servants, but the vast majority of workers were enslaved black folks. 

 

Not exactly the State Dining Room

 

To circle back to art, Kehinde Wiley is far from the first artist of color seeking to put African Americans back in the historical narrative. He is, though, one of the most successful and clever. He’s a lot of things the hardshell right hates: black, gay, has an Ivy Legree degree (Yale), and possess an impressive grasp of art history. If you wonder what’s up with the flowered backdrops of his portraits, know that his role models are precisely those Old Masters (and Mistresses) venerated by white cultural elites. The VMFA has a Wiley painting titled “Willem van Heythusen Posing with a Sword.” Why the Dutch name? It’s based on Frans Hals painting done in 1625. He has done the same with religious paintings and most of his portraits. Things look a bit different when we replace white bodies with black ones and update the drapery, doesn’t it? 

 

Frans Hals

Wiley

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Did Feminism Happen?

 

An advertising insert is to blame for the following rant.

 

 

 Fifty-two years ago Ms. Magazine debuted and second-wave feminism was on a roll. Many believed that gender equality was right around the corner. From one perspective that really matters in America--sports--one could draw the conclusion that it was. Think of how WNBA pioneers such as Becky Lobo, Candace Parker, and Sherly Swoopes paved the way for Sue Bird, Brittney Griner, and Diana Taurasi, who passed the baton to Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and A’ja Wilson. Women’s soccer players such as Mia Ham, Carli Lloyd, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Hope Solo have out-performed male teams for decades. And how about Olympians like Simone Biles, Florence Joyner, Katie Ledecky, and Gabby Thomas?

 

I’d be the last to deny that women have made great strides across American society. I’d also be the last to affirm that the Ms. dream is anywhere close to reality. In many ways it seems further away now than in 1972. Backlash eroded a whole lot of progress. A short list includes the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment, the assault on Roe v. Wade, pay inequity, and cultural changes that negatively impacted women.

 

The last should never been undersold. Reagan tried to tell us that women were already equal, though he coddled anti-feminists like Phyllis Schlafly and rightwing evangelicals.  Fox News specializes in bimbo culture, with its leggy blondes (natural or bottled) and its willingness to peddle backdoor GOP idiocy such as attacks on Hillary Clinton's pant suits. It played a large role in helping Trump defeat her and is pulling out the stops again against Kamala Harris. In a feminist world Clinton would have swamped the smarmy Trump and the upcoming election would be a Harris runaway.

 

Trump embodies the ways in which feminism as a movement has lost its mojo. Here’s a guy who brags about grabbing women’s genitals, was found guilty of sexual assaulting E. Jean Carroll, and at last count has been accused of abusing 25 others. Yet somehow he promises to be a “protector” of women and many deluded souls believe him.

 

What to do? Answer: Change the culture. Baby Boomers led the fight for gender equality until too many fell prey to economic greed. Gen X did a bit better simply by kicking down a few doors, but though it will anger some to hear it, things have stalled under Millennials and Gen Z. Pick your reasons why. Solipsism? Short attention spans?  Materialism? I’m tempted to add that they place too much faith in politics and not enough in how they live.

 

 Socialization is generally considered the most important factor in how a child will come to view the world. Some parents are great–one of my favorite moms (and people) ever made sure her daughter had sports equipment, books, and toys that sparked her imagination, not those that simply anesthetize. This sort of put-your-ideals-into-action mechanism is no guarantee that everyone will shout out “the kids are alright” (apologies to Pete Townshend) but it can’t hurt. It’s what every parent, aunt, uncle, grandparent, teacher, and employer should do. 

 

 

This brings me to the insert. One of this household’s favorite pastimes is perusing junk mail catalogs for the tackiest or coolest thing on each page. Who could resist one titled “Top Toys”? I wish we had! It depressed me to consider how little has changed. We still live in a pink and blue world. It’s still girls as passive domestics and boys doing the things they've always been expected to do. It’s action figures for boys and Barbie for girls. (Apparently not many viewers got it that the movie Barbie was a take-down of traditional roles.) Trucks, guns, Hot Wheels, Star Wars, and dinosaurs for the XY kids and princesses for the distaff side, though realistically they should prepare to be homemakers and cleaners.

 

Sure, you could take away a girl’s Barbie and hand her a Transformer, but the way socialization works is that: (a) She will still want the Barbie, or (b) Suffer ostracism from peers for being a weird kid. Reverse and give a boy a Barbie and it doesn’t get better. A better option might be for consumers to boycott stores that promote blatant gender discrimination.

 

I’ll entertain the idea that I’m making a mountain out of a mole hill but take a look for yourself before you conclude that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rob Weir