“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like me, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.”
Tag Archives: democracy
The Magna Carta at 810
Around this time in 1215 C.E., England’s King John placed his royal seal on the “Great Charter”, more commonly known as the Magna Carta. The signing came after a revolt by English nobility against John’s rule. The document guaranteed the king would respect the rights of individuals and uphold the freedom of the Church – among other things.
The charter was a key element in the establishment of democracy in England and ultimately across Europe. It also became critical in the creation of the United States more than 500 years later. The framers of the U.S. Constitution highlighted the essence of the Magna Carta in their discussions.
The anniversary of King John’s signing is notable here in the U.S. since last weekend the indefatigable Donald Trump staged a parade in Washington, D.C., to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the establishment of the U.S. Army and his 79th birthday. The festivities were more for him and his overbearing ego than to celebrate the Army. But it was also important in that thousands of “No Kings” protests occurred across the nation – a direct response to Trump’s totalitarian attitude.
Fortunately, the Magna Carta – and the U.S. Constitution – will outlast any political ideology.
Filed under History
Reject
Karine Jean-Pierre, former White House Press Secretary under President Joe Biden, has shocked her peers and the political world by announcing recently that she’s abandoning the Democratic Party and declaring herself an independent. And I’m happy to say, “Welcome!”
Born in Martinique, Jean-Pierre attended – among other colleges – the New York Institute of Technology (from where I earned my B.A. in English) and had been a registered Democrat her entire adult life – well, until now. Like most people in the maelstrom of the American political arena, she had to conform to certain party ideology and maintain a specific persona. After her brief stint as Biden’s Press Secretary, however, she apparently couldn’t tolerate the deception any longer.
I have to admire her candor. She’s one of the few people in recent years to step forward and be so blatantly honest with her sentiments. The truth always hurts, and Jean-Pierre has taken a sledgehammer to a migraine.
I didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 because I didn’t feel she was the right leader for the nation. I only voted for Biden in 2020 to keep Trump from winning another term, but I reverted back to the Green Party last year and voted for Jill Stein. Trump still won, since the U.S. is not quite ready for a president with vaginal attributes – unlike many other nations in the Western Hemisphere, including our two bordering neighbors.
Jean-Pierre has notably critical of Biden’s mental and physical health – something his opponents had frequently cited from the moment he declared his candidacy. American politics is such an ugly venture. It’s always been nasty, but I feel it became especially toxic after the Watergate scandal. I’ve said for years that the worst thing the Democratic Party could have done in the run-up to the 2020 elections was to stand by as Biden and Bernie Sanders announced they were seeking the U.S. presidency.
As the 2020 presidential race commenced, the Democratic Party presented the most diverse gallery of candidates of any such contest. Then, like their Republican counterparts, they ended up with two old White men at the top. Biden’s only saving moment was selecting Kamala Harris as his running mate. It was an odd pairing. Harris became the first female Vice-President in U.S. history, while Biden eventually became the nation’s first octogenarian Commander-in- Chief.
During Donald Trump’s first term, I often told people – both supporters and detractors – that I felt the U.S. was essentially leaderless. Trump pales in comparison to many of his predecessors. On the other hand, though, his Democratic counterparts have their own share of failures. When the Democrat Party elected Ken Martin its new chair this past February, the news arrived with the same bravura as paint drying. The longtime leader of the Minnesota Democratic Party, Martin hopes to lead his constituents into a future filled with greater accomplishments (wins) across the nation.
“Donald Trump, the Republican Party, this is a new DNC,” Martin told reporters after his election. “We are not going to sit back and not take you on when you fail the American people.”
And I wish for the blind to see and the lame to walk.
*YAWN*
Wake me when something really important happens.
Like Jean-Pierre, I certainly won’t hold my breath. The Democratic Party needs a hell of a lot more than a new chairperson. If they’re prudent, they’ll heed Jean-Pierre’s not-so-subtle warning.
Filed under Essays
Elon Musk Can Kiss My Hairy Ass and Then Go Home
Elon Musk, the South African-born multi-billionaire who has founded several companies, including Tesla and Space X, has jumped into the 2024 presidential race with a curious stunt in support of Donald Trump. He’s offering USD 1 million to anyone who signs his pledge to support free speech and the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Pennsylvania State Attorney General Michelle Henry filed suit against Musk; stating the giveaway is technically a lottery not sanctioned by state officials. But Pennsylvania State Judge Angelo Foglietta stopped the litigation by refusing to block the Musk’s antics. Instead, he deferred the matter to a federal court and noted that Henry’s suit probably won’t be resolved before Election Day, next Tuesday.
I could care less whether this foreign-born tax cheat wants to engage in such capers. One million dollars to any average person is attractive, including myself. But my vote is more important than that. So is everyone else’s.
It seems every major election in the U.S. since 2000 has gotten more and more weird. I remain cynical, as my displeasure with government at all levels in this country grows. Both major political parties have become increasingly dominated by extremists. Regardless of the office they’re seeking, candidates have always played initially to their base; those unmovable die-hards who will vote for one side no matter what. Then, once the candidate has secured the nomination, they expand their outreach to persuade as many others as possible.
Over the past decade, however, Donald Trump has preached to one group and only one group: his faithful (and fanatical) acolytes. He mocks them, in a way, behind their collective backs; the same way false prophets ridicule their blind minions.
From a political standpoint, I consider myself left of center, but I’ve voted consistently Democrat since 1992. Then came 2016 and I went rogue by voting for Jill Stein of the Green Party. I didn’t care for Trump and I never liked Hillary Clinton. Now I absolutely despise Trump and don’t care for Vice-President Kamala Harris. Recently various European chapters of the Green Party have begged Stein to withdraw from the presidential race and support Harris. At this point, though, it may be too late.
I’m not – and never have been – persuaded by editorial or celebrity endorsements of a particular candidate. Musk can keep his money – and settle in comfortably at one of Trump’s estates. I’ll vote my conscious, for whatever that’s worth in these chaotic days. Besides, official Election Day, November 5, will be my 61st birthday. I won’t spend it thinking about politicians.
Image: Gary McCoy
Filed under Essays
Oh, Hell No!
“It’s way beyond ironic that a place called the Holy Land is the location of the fiercest, most deeply felt hatred in the world.”
The Middle East – once again – is in turmoil. Then again, the sky is blue, so tell me something I DON’T know. Early on October 7, Hamas terrorists unexpectedly decided to attack a music festival in southern Israel. The calamity resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, in what Israeli officials dub “Israel’s 9/11”. It was the latest salvo in the millennia old conflict between Arabs and Jews in the region. And the perpetually high tensions are only intensifying.
Israel severed utility services to the Gaza Strip where over two million Palestinians are crammed into a tiny area in apartheid-like conditions. Meanwhile, Hamas is holding several Jewish hostages. It’s a nasty stalemate with no viable end.
As usual, though, the United States has gotten involved by showing unmitigated support for Israel. But President Joe Biden has gone even further and ordered two Navy aircraft carrier groups into the eastern Mediterranean to assist Israel with intelligence and reconnaissance. Now comes word that Biden may actually send U.S. ground troops into the region to provide further backing in the form of advice and medical assistance. That’s how our involvement in Vietnam got started more than six decades ago. And to that I say hell no!
U.S. military involvement in the Israeli – Hamas imbroglio will only result in more animosity towards the U.S. from the Arab world. In case anyone forgot, our most recent entanglement in the Middle East resulted in the deaths of millions of people. Coming out of the tragedy of 9/11, we had a cowboy president who was aching to run out and bomb places. That conflict – the Iraq War – was launched purely to gain access to the country’s valuable natural resources. It was blood for oil.
If the U.S. sends ground troops into Israel, it will just be lots of blood. And it won’t stop the relentless animosity that plagues the region. Something else will erupt between the warring sides in the future. That particular part of the globe has been a super-volcano of human interaction and for one primary reason – religion. The Middle East is the birth place of the world’s three largest theologies – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In other words, it’s a crime scene.
Hamas is definitely a terrorist group – and a cowardly one at that. They hide among the innocent civilians of the Palestinian populace; people they swear to support but who are also captives. But Israel isn’t exactly innocent. Like the United States, Israel was established primarily by White Europeans seeking religious freedom who displaced many of the indigenous residents.
Ironically, though, because that area is the cradle of Judaism and Islam, people of both faiths can genuinely claim it as their homeland. Supposedly Israel has proposed a two-state solution for decades, which Palestinians have allegedly rejected.
I have to highlight that Israel is the only true democracy in the Middle East. They maintain the highest standard of living and the lowest infant mortality in the region. I mean, Israeli women can drive and vote and don’t have to dress up like beekeepers when they leave home!
Regardless, I don’t know why level heads won’t prevail amidst the anxiety and honestly I really don’t care. The hate between both groups is like space – it’s infinite and never-ending. I truly wish, though, they would stop fighting and start talking. But because the bitterness has simmered for centuries and because religion is at the crux of it all, I just don’t see that happening within our lifetime.
Either way I just don’t want the U.S. to get militarily involved. That will solve nothing! It never has.
Filed under Essays
What He’s Done
Earlier this week New México police arrested a failed Republican congressional candidate and charged him with hiring some men to shoot up the homes of Democratic opponents. Solomon Peña allegedly was dissatisfied with the results of his race last year and decided to seek revenge in the worst possible way: through violence. Like his idol, former President Donald Trump, Peña is an election denier and claimed fraud in his own run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He lost to his Democratic opponent by more than 3,600 votes.
In the U.S. many elected officials – mostly Democrat and liberal – have been the targets of political violence over the past 5 or 6 years; which (not surprisingly) coincides with the rise of Trump. The animosity reached a feverish crescendo on January 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump loyalists stormed the U.S. Capitol Building in a failed attempt to undermine the 2020 presidential election, as well as democracy itself. I’m still angry at the sight of hundreds storming into the building and even angrier at those who continue to support Trump and dismiss the severity of that day. Like most Americans, the rampage reminded me of images of developing countries in the throes of political chaos. While various groups in the U.S. have threatened to inflict such carnage over previous decades, no one really thought it would happen.
We have Donald Trump to thank for that.
Threatening election officials and taking out opponents with bullets is what used to happen in places like Colombia and the Philippines. Even as recently as 1995, Israel experienced political violence when Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. The act stunned the international community and roiled the only truly democratic state in the Middle East.
Americans have always had a love-hate relationship with their elected officials, whether or not they actually voted for them, or even voted at all. But I’ve always believed the Watergate fiasco was a major turning point in our nation’s disillusionment with politicians overall. That a sitting president would seek to gain an advantage over his adversaries by concocting a burglary scheme shocked most people. They always sort of knew politicians weren’t necessarily the most moral of individuals, but an actual break-in?
A greater sense of partisanship began to take hold in the ensuing decade and became more pronounced in the 1990s, as Republicans did everything they could – and failed – to undermine Bill Clinton’s agenda. The scandalous (and genuinely corrupt) 2000 presidential election widened the chasm of discontent. The GOP’s blatant disrespect for President Barack Obama was even more egregious and appalling – but not really unexpected from conservatives, as far as I was concerned.
Then came Donald Trump, and the haters suddenly had a license to lash out with unabashed vigor. All the social upheavals of the 1960s were the result of tensions that had been brewing for decades; people had grown tired of just waiting for change and hoping for the best. In a similar, yet twisted manner, the right-wing extremism that exploded under Trump also had been fomenting in the souls of angry (mostly White male) conservatives for years; that is, since…well, since the 1960s. Ronald Reagan once said he wanted to return America to the time before the 60s screwed up everything. As a relic of his past, he naturally didn’t understand we can’t go backwards in time. That’s science fiction. But that’s why I call most conservatives preservatives – they want to preserve the old ways of life; ways that were good for them, of course, but not everyone else.
Trump revised that futile dream with his “Make America Great Again” mantra; claiming he wanted to “take America back”. Back to where, those of us with more than half a brain asked, and how far? Back to the Civil War? Back to the Gilded Age?
Peña is just one cog in the wheel of America’s political vitriol. Think of this for a few moments. Acting like a drug cartel leader, Peña (who already had a felony criminal record) hired some thugs to fire gun shots into the homes of people he thought had snatched victory from him. At least one of those bullets ended up in a child’s bedroom. Just as with drug cartels, Peña and his henchmen cared nothing about their intended victims and any collateral damage – i.e., innocent bystanders. Drug lords only care about their profits; everyone and everything else be damned. Peña only cared about exacting personal revenge over what he perceived to be a corrupt system. We’re not supposed to do that in civilized societies.
But that is Trump’s legacy. That is what he’s done to the overall concept of democracy.
Filed under Essays
Worst Quotes of the Week – July 30, 2022
“Those who play with fire will perish by it.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping, to President Joe Biden, regarding Taiwan’s independence
The comment comes after news that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi plans to visit Taiwan soon.
“This is why we have always fought: We are willing to mix with one another, but we do not want to become peoples of mixed race.”
Hungarian President Viktor Orbán, who is scheduled to speak in Dallas next week at the Conservative Political Action Conference, urging his fellow Europeans not to marry non-White immigrants
Orbán also appeared to make light of the Nazi Holocaust while discussing plans to reduce natural-gas demand in Europe: “I do not see how it will be enforced – although, as I understand it, the past shows us German know-how on that.”
“You degenerate pagans and atheists and non-believers went way too far with the COVID nonsense, with shutting down our churches and forcing our kids to be masked, and forcing us to get vaccinated with some mystery goop in order to keep our jobs and provide for our families. You pushed us too far, and now we’re going to take dominion of this country, of our culture, of news, of entertainment, of technology, of education, of everything for the glory of Jesus Christ, our king. It’s just that simple.”
Andrew Torba, a far-right Christian nationalist preacher, in a speech supporting fellow right-wing nationalist Doug Mastriano
“Nobody has gotten to the bottom of 09/11 unfortunately, and they should have.”
Former President Donald Trump, as his country club prepare to host several officials from Saudi Arabia for a golf tournament
Trump’s Bedminster Club is just across the Hudson River from Manhattan. Several families of 9/11 victims have expressed outrage over the event. Of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers, 15 were from Saudi Arabia.
Filed under News
Most Bizarre Quote of the Week – February 5, 2022
“This week, President Trump said I had the right to ‘overturn the election.’ But President Trump is wrong. I had no right to overturn the election.”
Former Vice-President Mike Pence, speaking to the Orlando, Florida chapter of the Federalist Society about Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to relitigate the 2020 elections
Pence added, “Look, I understand the disappointment many feel about the last election. I was on the ballot. But whatever the future holds, I know we did our duty that day.”
Filed under News
No Traitors Allowed!
On Friday, February 4, the Republican National Committee voted overwhelmingly to censure two of its own: Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois for their participation in a Democrat-led panel investigating the January 6, 2021 Capitol Hill insurrection. The RNC declared – as it has always maintained – that the individuals participating in the riot were “ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.” Immediately after various news outfits began reporting news of the resolution, the RNC tried to clarify itself by stating they weren’t referring to the deadly attack on the Capitol.
Gosh, what else is there to talk about with that day’s events?
It’s become obvious the 21st century Republican Party won’t tolerate any kind of conscientious objectors – even if they are 100% right in their actions. The RNC has continually repeated the fake narrative that the January 6 insurrectionists were merely Capitol Hill “tourists” – who just happened to arrive bearing various assault weapons and stormed into the building like zombies invading a meat-packing plant.
I still believe a large percentage of Americans just don’t realize that the events of that day meet the true definition of a terrorist attack. If the mob had contained anyone other than a bunch of angry, self-righteous White people, right-wing extremists would be quick to denounce it as a true domestic terrorist attack and begin demanding criminal prosecution of everyone involved. But since that gang was supporting their man, Donald Trump – the biggest dumbass ever to occupy the White House – they’re getting their priorities confused…again.
I also wonder if most Americans truly recognize the January 6, 2021 insurrection as the clear threat to democracy it really was. Watching that day’s events unfold, I kept thinking, ‘Is this the United States? Is this really happening here?’
We’re accustomed to witnessing that kind of brutality and violence in foreign countries. That shit happens in Pakistan or Peru – not in the U.S.! But it did happen in the U.S. It happened here – in a nation that has claimed for some 200 years it is the beacon of democracy on planet Earth. In a country that has the oldest national constitution of any developed sovereign state.
I find it equally appalling – but not surprising – that the RNC has censured Cheney and Kinzinger for their efforts to learn the truth about the January 6 riot and prosecute those who participated in it. Cheney, daughter of former Vice-President Dick Cheney, and Kinzinger, a military veteran, each represent the truest of public servants – individuals committed to the values of integrity and moral decency. They understand the actual severity of the January 6 mutiny; that the participants weren’t “tourists” trying to comprehend the machinations of the American political system. They were rioters – terrorists. And for their probity, they are being reprimanded by their leaders and constituents.
That says quite a bit about a political party. It says a lot about that particular squadron of stewardship. But it would say even more about a society that seems to ignore the calamity of January 6, 2021 and treat ensuing investigations as mundane political business.
Filed under News
Best Quotes of the Week – June 19, 2021
“This day doesn’t just celebrate the past. It calls for action today.”
President Joe Biden, upon signing the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act on June 17
“You are courageous leaders and American patriots.”
Vice-President Kamala Harris, praising a group of Texas Democrats for walking out on a state legislative session in protest of a strict new voting bill
“Without a national standard for voting rights and voting reform, states are going to just chip away at the rights of voters state by state. Hopefully, this might inform minds and shape opinions when folks are in that Senate cloakroom wrestling over how they’re going to proceed with HR1 and HR4.”
Texas State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, about the Texas Democratic walk-out
Filed under News
Chief Writing Wolf 