I can’t say I’ve ever heard of the Group “Murray Head”, but I do have a vague recollection of hearing their song back “in the day”: Say It Ain’t So, Joe.
Shoeless Joe
“Say it ain’t so, Joe.” It’s a phrase attributed to a sports reporter, talking to baseball hero “Shoeless” Joe Jackson of the Chicago White Sox after he admitted to a grand jury that he cheated in the 1919 World Series. If you don’t remember that piece of sports history, you’ll remember “Shoeless Joe” as a central figure in the movie Field of Dreams. It was the ultimate letdown; a hero admitting to fixing “America’s Game” for money.
I’m tempted to keep researching the phrase, to give you more trivial tidbits about it. But I’m simply putting off the inevitable. This essay isn’t about trivia: it’s about Joe Manchin on Fox News Sunday this weekend. He said the words seemingly fatal to President Biden’s Build-Back-Better Plan: “I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation…”
Promises Broken
After months of negotiations and good faith promises by Manchin and Biden to the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party, it seems that it’s over. Manchin has pulled the “Lucy and the football” on Progressive Democrats, and they would argue, on the Nation. He got what he wanted, the bipartisan infrastructure bill. The West Virginia turnpike (among many other things) will get plenty of cash for repairs. But the folks lifted by the Child Tax Credits, the seniors waiting for hearing and vision support, the parents paying hundreds of dollars for their kids insulin, the desperate need for climate repairs – all will have to wait. The gentleman from West Virginia has made it up his mind.
Or has he? Does “I cannot vote for this piece of legislation…” mean that Build Back Better is dead? Or is this just one more negotiating ploy in the long saga of a conservative Democrat from West Virginia finding himself in a progressive Democratic world. It seems that Biden and Manchin are “only” a half a trillion dollars apart – that’s after being multiple trillions away in the beginning. So why now, why torpedo the process at this moment?
Sharing Blame
Before we parse this issue, there are two points to remember. Democrats are not the only ones in the United States Senate. The reason why Joe Manchin is at the center of all of this, is that the Republican Party has as a singular body refused to participate in governing. They are not only the Party of “NO”, they are the Party that just a couple of years ago, were perfectly willing to spend trillions in tax cuts that largely went to giant corporations and the 1% of wealthy Americans. So they don’t get a “pass”.
And second, Democrats are only in this position because they aren’t electing enough Senators. The list is lengthy: North Carolina, South Carolina, Maine, Montana and Iowa all were vulnerable Republican seats in 2020, and the Democrats didn’t get one of them. That empowered Manchin (and Sinema, and every other Democratic Senator) with the kind of veto power we are seeing today.
Almost Heaven
Joe Manchin is a man of West Virginia. The Reverend Barber can march down the streets of the capital-city Charleston with the poor people of the state to highlight those who Manchin is hurting. Sadly, that’s not what influences the Senator. The Build Back Better plan contains over half a trillion dollars in climate change legislation, and climate change legislation translates in “West Virginian” to anti-coal. Joe Manchin is not only personally invested in the coal industry, but West Virginians as a whole, rich and poor are as well.
He can’t go home against coal. Ask Hillary Clinton: while the logic is that coal should be the first fossil fuel to go when it comes to climate change, coal is embedded so deeply in the mountains and culture of West Virginia that academic logic goes out the window. When Hillary “spoke the truth” to West Virginians about coal in 2016, she managed to make the traditionally Democratic state the “Reddest” state in the union. As the only Democrat statewide office holder, Joe Manchin knows what political suicide is, and he’s not doing it.
The Deal
So maybe Build Back Better isn’t dead – but maybe the climate change portion is. Perhaps Senator Manchin is quietly offering an alternative. Take the climate change money, use it to fund the other portions of Build Back Better for ten years instead of two or three. That way the Progressives get a win, and Manchin can still go back to his hometown in Farmington, West Virginia, a hero.
It’s not what I want, nor is it what’s good for the country. But it may be the only thing that the Senator from West Virginia can live with. And until his veto doesn’t matter, we have to dance to his tune. Or we can sing the sad song: “Say it Ain’t So Joe”.
This is another in the “Sunday Story” series. No politics here – just some true tales from a battlefield “geek”.
There is something about a battlefield: a peace and calm that belies the action that took place there. Walking where armies struggled, men triumphed and failed; survived and died – there is a depth, almost a spirit in the land. It’s a pull back to the past, as if the events on that property still reverberate somehow in the air. Is it haunted? Not in my experience, but the life and death struggles of so many, so concentrated in one place must have some timely “ripple effect”. At any rate, there are few other places (old cemeteries, Medieval Cathedrals, abandoned towns, prisons and schools) that have that kind of pull.
I’ve already told stories of the Gettysburg Battlefield (Ghosts at Gettysburg). It’s still my favorite. But I’ve visited many other Civil War sites, and, of course, there are stories from those as well.
Road Trip
If you own a Jeep Wrangler with a soft top – there’s nothing like a summer road trip. Put the top down, take the doors off, and head out on the highway to destinations – unknown? Well, like that Geico motorcycle commercial, I usually had a destination, but I could always change my course for “any old” reason.
This time I was headed to Shiloh in Southern Tennessee, the first really ugly battle of the Civil War. It’s a long Jeep ride, 545 miles from Pataskala to Savannah, Tennessee the nearest town to the battlefield. The journey is all about the “River Towns”: Cincinnati to Louisville, Louisville to Nashville, then head west towards the Mississippi River and Memphis. You turn back south about an hour short of the home of blues and barbecue, and head into the countryside until you hit the Tennessee River once again near Savannah, Tennessee. You’ve arrived.
Rivers and Railroads
The rivers were what the battle at Shiloh was all about. The “grand strategy” of the Union Army was to slice the Confederacy into pieces, preventing commerce and supplies from supporting the various Rebel Armies. The Mississippi River was the obvious line of attack, but to control it, the Union had to gain control of the land on each side.
So the newly minted Union General Ulysses S Grant of Illinois began at the Kentucky, Illinois border winning control of Northern Mississippi River. Then at Paducah, Kentucky he headed South by going up the Tennessee River. He made his “fame” with the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson in Kentucky (Ulysses S became known as “Unconditional Surrender” Grant from there) then continued south into Tennessee. Ultimately, he woud cut off and captured the vital Mississippi River town of Memphis.
The next line of Confederate supply was the railroad center at Corinth, Mississippi. The Mobile and Ohio line intersected with the Memphis and Charleston line, making the small town a major supply depot for the Southern Army of the West. It was the center of east and west railroad transportation. 40000 men were headquartered there under the command of General Albert Sidney Johnston.
Surprise at Shiloh
So Grant moved his almost 45000 man Army of the Tennessee further up the Tennessee River, camping above the river bluffs across from a steamboat stop called Pittsburg Landing, just south of Savannah and a little over twenty miles north of Corinth. He didn’t expect the Confederates to attack. He “anticipated” they would defend Corinth. Grant spread his soldiers all over the near countryside, waiting for the 17000 man Army of Ohio to come up the River and join him. Some of his men camped around a small log church, built by the Methodists, called “Shiloh”.
Johnston realized that Grant’s forces were vulnerable and unprepared for an attack. So he moved out of Corinth, and marched in full force at Grant. His three day march caught the Union Army by surprise, spread out on the bluffs above the Tennessee River, across from Pittsburg Landing, around the little Methodist church called Shiloh.
Well, that turned into a history lesson. All I need is a chalkboard and I’d be back in the classroom. Or today, it’s a PowerPoint on the Smart Board. I guess old teacher’s never give up.
Blood
But to finish the story – it was the largest land battle on the North American continent up to that spring in April of 1862. Over 80000 men pitched into combat, at least half completely unprepared for what was to come. The Confederates marched for three days, and caught the Union soldiers coming out of their tents for breakfast. Some were shot as they emerged to see what was going on. Others fled at the screaming hoard of Gray, the “unholy” Rebel yell that struck fear in their hearts. And some loaded their rifles and responded. But it was too few and too late to staunch the first Confederate charge.
And the battle could have been won in the first few hours of that April morning. But the Rebel charge faltered over Union bacon and pancakes. The Confederate men were hungry from three days on the road. It was too much to pass the Union breakfast, and that slowed them just enough so that the Union officers could reorganize and respond. They continued to fall back towards the bluffs and the Tennessee River, but it was a slow, measured, holding ground when they could and retreating when they must.
Albert Sidney Johnston
Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnson could feel victory. He rode his horse too close to the action, and caught a stray Minié-ball in his leg. (A Minié-ball was actually a large caliber piece of lead. When it hit, it was with slower speed than modern rifles. So it struck, spun, and caused an enormous amount of damage. There were so many amputations in the Civil War because there was often nothing left of the shattered bones struck by a bullet).
Johnston could easily have been saved. If he would just have dismounted, a surgeon could have applied a tourniquet to his leg. But Johnston was too enraptured with pending victory. There was no time for treatment. So he bled to death into his own boot.
Hornet’s Nest
Meanwhile the Union forces consolidated in a small forested area. Confederates converged on three sides, firing thousands of rounds into the wood. The Confederates said it sounded like a hornet’s nest after it was shaken, so many bullets were zinging and striking from the woods and into the bodies of their men. The Confederates charged the Hornet’s Nest eight times, but failed to dislodge them. It was only by near encircling them that the Union forces were forced to withdraw.
But the holding action at the Hornet’s Nest, and the loss of the Confederate commander, slowed the pace of battle. As night fell, Grant, injured in the battle as well when his horse fell on him, organized a final defensive line. The Union Army of the Tennessee would live to fight another day. Grant and his best subordinate, William Tecumseh Sherman spoke that night. Sherman, worried that they could continue the fight said,“Well, Grant, we’ve had the devil’s own day, haven’t we?” Grant responded, “Yes, lick ’em to-morrow, though.”
Lick-‘Em Tomorrow
That night, Grant and Sherman planned a counter attack. Meanwhile, the 17000 men of the Army of the Ohio arrived, and marched up the bluffs from the river, passing the frightened Union men huddled against the sides. The next day, Grant counter-attacked, and drove the Confederates back towards Corinth. It would be a few weeks before Grant took Corinth itself, but when he snatched victory from the jaws of defeat at Shiloh, that outcome was inevitable. Memphis fell to the Union soon after.
There were almost 4000 dead combined from both sides, and another 16000 wounded. It was the bloodiest battle in American History – that is, for the next six months. A battle in a small village called Sharpsburg near the Antietam Creek, would come in September.
Red Hornets
So I spent two days wandering the battlefield at Shiloh. It’s like a great park, especially on a weekday in the summer time. It’s hot, in the Jeep, in South Tennessee in July, and I had almost the entire place to myself. So there is no one to confirm this story – but me.
I was driving along the “sunken road” that runs by the Hornet’s Nest. I was in the Jeep, no top or doors, just wearing a T shirt and a pair of shorts. It was 90 plus degrees, and there was no one to notice around. As I drove slowly down the park road, I stared intently into the small woods. I could almost see the men hiding in the trees, the branches snapping off above their heads, the wood splintering from the cannon shots. I could even actually hear the low buzz of the “hornets” – the historic Minié balls in the air.
Then I glanced up to see where I was headed – and there was the largest, reddest, hornet I’ve ever seen, hovering right in front of my face between my hands at ten and two on the steering wheel. Maybe it was two inches long; it almost looked like a plastic toy. But it was making very lifelike noises, the “low buzz of a hornet…”
As I said, there was no one around. I did the “manly” thing, especially in the face of the courage shown by the brave men who fought here. I jumped out of the Jeep!!
Now keep in mind, my Jeep wouldn’t go far. It was a four speed, and without some pressure on the accelerator it would soon stall out. (It was my old Jeep, a 1993, not my “new” one of 2004 vintage). So as I rolled in the grass it continued down the road a bit, then shuddered to a stop. I warily approached it, waiting to make my retreat to the “bluffs” if required. But there was no need: the red hornet of the “hornet’s nest” had made its exit.
I got back behind the wheel, and spent some time at the Shiloh Church, and at the National Military Cemetery as well, to honor those who gave, as Lincoln said, “…their last full measure of devotion”. And then I headed home – and discovered a whole non-military national park.
The Parkways
Most folks have heard of the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Park/Highway that follows the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains from North Carolina, above the Shenandoah Valley all the way to Northern Virginia. It’s a beautiful vacation ride, with easy exits to hotels, stores and towns. It’s peaceful: no trucks (though there are some campers) and lots of folks driving and enjoying the view. But beware – there are “vista jams”! No one is in a hurry on the Parkway.
So I headed east on Tennessee Route 64, with the idea that I would meander my way back up to Nashville by staying off of the Interstates. After I passed the town of Waynesboro, I came across something called the “Natchez Trace Parkway”. This was before the era of I Phones and even Garmin’s. My directions were from a map, carefully tucked under the emergency brake hand lever so it didn’t blow out of the car.
The Natchez Trace Parkway runs 444 miles from Natchez, Mississippi to just south of Nashville. Like the Blue Ridge, it is a two lane highway with parkland on either side for the entire route. It’s not a route for those in a hurry, but for a guy in a Jeep in the summertime it was a perfect path for a journey north through central Tennessee. Originally it was the “overland” route from Nashville to the Mississippi River, it bit faster than more direct routes to the river in a wagon if the load wasn’t too big. Now it’s a quiet highway surrounded by nature, with easy access to “civilization” if needed.
I followed the “Trace” north towards Nashville. It ends just south, near the town of Franklin. There was a Civil War battle there too. But that’s for a different story.
“It’s coming on Christmas, they’re cutting down trees, they’re putting up reindeer and singing songs of joy and peace,” (Riverby Joni Mitchell).
It’s almost the end of 2021, a year that, at my age, just flew by. Somehow, it seems we are always presented with the failures, the “almost did’s but didn’t’s” rather than the successes. For today, let’s look back at 2021, and see the good. Here’s what was “right” with 2021.
First of all, itwasn’t 2020. Covid is still around, but we are no longer trapped by it. Almost 62% of Americans are fully vaccinated, with another 10% partly covered. And before my anti-vaxxer friends attack – we KNOW that means those 62% have a much better chance of NOT getting Covid, and even a better chance of not ending in a hospital or dying from it. That’s good news.
The Big Quit
America is learning to live with Covid. All of the economics are showing a tremendous bounce back from our enforced shut down. The current unemployment rate is down to 4.2%. That still means that almost 7 million Americans who want jobs can’t find them. But we also have a new phenomenon, folks who after the shutdown decided they didn’t have to get back into the work force. That’s not about “living on government money”. Some families found they can live on a single income. Others are part of the “Big Quit”, where over 4 million Americans left their old jobs.
I know the American Way: “…work hard, boy, and you’ll find, one day you’ll have a job like mine…” (Yusef/Cat Stevens – I Might Die Tonight). Dedicate to your “forty”, then go find another “twenty” in overtime. But some Americans are finding a better way, one that, as the Gen X’ers say, “balances work and life”. I don’t remember much balance in my work-life, nor my father’s. Maybe they are right and we were wrong.
Inflation
So there is a shortage of workers, and that’s driving wages up. That might be inconvenient at the fast-food restaurant that can’t keep workers at low wages, but it means that more people are living at a higher standard. That IS a good thing.
The bugaboo of our rebounding economy is inflation. There’s lots of money around, and it’s not all the government’s fault. We’ve gone from over 14% unemployment to our current 4.2%, so there’s lots more money in the pockets of Americans. And the supply chain is trying to catch up with booming sales. All of those new phones and computers, shoes and running suits, cars and trucks; weren’t just rolling off the line while we were cooped up in our Covid-free homes. And they don’t materialize overnight. Economics 101: when demand for goods is greater than the supply of goods, prices go up and when the supply catches up, prices will level off.
So keep your pants on, and your wallet in your pocket. Inflation will level off soon enough.
Peace on Earth
It’s Christmas of 2021, and for the first time since 9-11, American forces are not at war, anywhere in the world. The withdrawal from Afghanistan was ugly, but here we are. Eighteen, nineteen and twenty year-olds aren’t patrolling the roads looking for IED’s, and coming home in flag-draped caskets or physically and mentally damaged. Ask Lyndon Johnson: it takes political courage to be the President who said – that’s enough.
The “bad news” for 2021 is that 5.6 million children are living in poverty. The good news – that numbers is cut in half from a year ago when 12.5 million were below the poverty line. And that is a direct result of the action of the US President and Congress. Sure it cost money, but how better to spend our tax money than to help children out of poverty?
Identity
There is no question that America is in an “identity crisis”. We are a nation in transition, becoming multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and multi-cultural. Like any transition, there are those who want it to happen sooner, and those who are trying to keep it from happening at all. But the reality is that America is not becoming “minority white” and “majority brown”. America is becoming majority “diverse”. The younger generations don’t see race, ethnicity, and religion as the same barricades to life that my father’s generation and even my own “Boomers” saw.
Here’s an interesting statistic: “According to the most detailed of the Census Bureau’s projections, 52 percent of individuals included in the nonwhite majority of 2060 will also identify as white” (Atlantic). Perhaps the racial and ethnic polarizations of 2021 are just growing pains. Maybe, like adolescence, we will “survive” the experience, and come out a more mature nation, less focused on external characteristics and more “into” individuals.
Structure
America is already committed to fixing our roads and bridges. We are set on rebuilding our airports, and our electric transmission lines. The government has dedicated over a trillion dollars to updating our infra-structure. That’s going to make life better for most Americans, and it will offer even better paying jobs to get it done. When we look forward to our economic future, not only will the “fixes” make our economy better; but the long-term employment opportunities will be a long-term boost.
And there is more “in the pipeline”. The US Senate is poised to pass the Build-Back-Better plan (in whatever form the can finally agree on). That will rebuild the “social safety-net” that was first established by the Great Society programs of the 1960’s. It will make a nation that right now is “haves” and “have nots” – somewhat – less divided.
Christmas’s Wishes
And perhaps – just maybe – voting rights are in the works as well. That may be more of a 2022 thing. We can hope.
But all these were started in 2021. As John F Kennedy said:
“All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”
Genesis was in concert last week, here in Columbus. Phil Collins now struggles with physical disability, but he can still sing. But he didn’t sing the haunting “In the Air Tonight”, that was in his post-Genesis era.
Slide from the Colonel Waldron’s PowerPoint Presentation
Contempt
President Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, is in contempt of Congress. He’s not the first high government official held in contempt. President Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder was the last one in 2012. Not surprisingly, Holder’s own Justice Department declined to bring criminal charges against him. But Meadows is in a very different situation. Evidence, much given to the January 6th Committee by Meadow’s himself, shows that he was in the center of the storm of “Stop the Steal” and the Insurrection. The contempt recommendation moves onto the Biden Justice Department.
The January 6th Committee hasn’t held public hearings yet. But they have already released mountains of evidence. Meadows turned over text messages from Congressmen and a PowerPoint presentation on how to overturn the legitimate election. What seemed from the outside like a confused and desperate attempt to keep Trump in the Presidency turns out to be an organized and documented conspiracy. And, as more information is revealed, Mark Meadows is the nexus, just one step away from the final decision maker. As Congresswoman Liz Cheney said so carefully:
“Did Donald Trump, through action or inaction, corruptly seek to obstruct or impede Congress’ official proceeding to count electoral votes?”
That’s a direct quote from the US Code (18 U.S. Code § 1505). Conviction under that law carries a penalty of five years in prison and fines. Could Donald Trump go to prison? Maybe, but a felony conviction would disqualify him for public office.
So where do we stand now.
Stop the Steal
We know that in the months before the 2020 election, the Trump Campaign, led by the President, intentionally and consistently sowed the seeds of distrust in the election results. The campaign message was clear: if I lose, it’s because someone else cheated. He questioned any election returns that were counted after election night.
The 2020 election was in a world pandemic. The absolute safest action was to vote by mail. Many states, including those swing states that were so important, had laws prohibiting counting votes before election day. So many millions of mail-in ballots were left unopened until the polls closed on Tuesday night.
Counting mail-in ballots requires a lot more time than those automatically registered at the polls, and it took several days before the final results were in. Meanwhile the Trump Campaign continued to claim election fraud. But every audit of the election results, including those conducted by openly pro-Trump organizations (the Cyber Ninjas in Arizona, for example) found that the election outcomes were accurate.
Recounts
We know that extreme pressures were brought on Republican election officials in swing states like Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona to alter vote counts. The President himself was recorded telling the Secretary of State of Georgia to “find just enough votes” for Trump to win. Not only was Mr. Trump openly pressing to alter election results, but Mr. Meadows, and others like Senator Lindsey Graham, pressured election officials to “rig” the final count for Trump.
A state investigation is already underway in Georgia regarding the White House actions. We don’t know whether Federal investigations for election interference are underway, or who targets of those investigations might be. But common sense says the Justice Department must be investigating.
The Big Lie
We all saw the public campaign after the election. Rudy Giuliani was the “front man” for “Stop the Steal”, and made a series of catastrophic public speeches. What we didn’t know was that much of his information was coming from a former Army Colonel and expert in “psy-ops”, Phil Waldron. He published a PowerPoint presentation on election fraud for the “Stop the Steal” campaign. Waldron is linked to Trump National Security Advisor General Mike Flynn, who was convicted and pardoned for lying to the FBI. Flynn and Waldron were part of a group of former and current military officers involved in the “Stop the Steal” movement.
Waldron’s convoluted PowerPoint not only tried to build a case for election fraud, it also outlined a path for “declaring a national election emergency” and disqualifying all of the mail-in ballots and many electronic votes. Not surprisingly, if all of those votes were disqualified, Trump would win. It also laid out a path for Vice President Pence to overturn the election results on January 6th.
The Legal Case
Waldron’s path to electoral victory was backed by the legal presentation of John Eastman, a former Clarence Thomas clerk and Law School Dean. Eastman determined that Vice President Pence had the power to deny the Electoral votes from those swing states that went to Biden, and either declare a Trump victory, or throw the election to the House of Representatives in a “tie-breaking” situation (in that scenario Republicans would control the outcome, even though the House itself was majority Democratic).
But Pence was dubious. His own legal advisors were telling him that the Eastman memo was flawed. Even Trump himself was unable to convince Pence to exercise a power he didn’t believe the Constitution allowed. We now know that several Congressmen and Senators were also in on the “Eastman” scheme. But with Pence standing firm, more pressure was required.
The Rally
President Trump invited his supporters to Washington for a “wild time” on January 6th. The rally was timed to pressure the Congress to alter the outcome of the election as they certified the Electoral Votes. Particularly, the pressure was put on Vice President Pence to follow through with the strategy outlined in the “Eastman” memo. Speaker after speaker implored the masses to “fight” and stand up” for President Trump, presumably against the Congress. Then President Trump himself told the crowd to march on down to the Capitol and “tell them” what you want.
We don’t yet know all of the interactions between the Trump White House and the rally organizers. Mark Meadows does. We also don’t know whether there was direct planning for the protests on the Capitol building. Meadows did, in a text, promise that the National Guard would protect the “Trump supporters”. And we don’t yet know if there was collusion between the White House and the militant groups that led the actual attack on the Capitol building.
The Cavalry
After the attack began, the Capitol Police Chief, the DC Metro Chief and the Mayor of Washington asked for National Guard assistance. That assistance was delayed by the Pentagon for over three hours. Those were the three hours that we all watched the “medieval” battle on the steps of the building, with flags used as staffs to cudgel the police. We saw the sacred halls of Democracy defiled by the mob. And the “cavalry” didn’t come to the Hill, not until the damage was done, and the Electoral confirmation was halted.
What we don’t know; why the delay? The District National Guard General believes that it was intentional. Did the cabal of former military behind the “Stop the Steal” movement include Mike Flynn’s brother, Lt. General Charles Flynn, a part of the decision making team in the Pentagon stalling the National Guard? National Guard Major General William Walker says that Charles Flynn lied about his actions on January 6th.
Insurrection
How close was the United States to a coup d’état? Was the Insurrection planned, or just a mob pointed in a direction and left to its own devices? We cannot paper over what happened, just because it wasn’t successful. We owe it to those that lost their lives, the police officers but also those in the “mob” who were manipulated into an attack. And it’s not over. Mr. Trump continues to claim that election was corrupt. Republicans throughout the nation are using that whole fabrication to justify restrictive voting laws. Several states have legislated the power to ignore the vote count and determine who won by a vote of the legislature. Stop the Steal may have been a fraud, but the result of that effort is very real.
The mob attacked Congress. No one else is better able to bare the facts of what happened. It’s not just for history, but for the future of our nation.
There is a Grandfather Clock sitting in our dining room. It really is a family heirloom: it came from Jenn’s mother. All of the pieces and parts, the chains and pulleys and weights are there, but it doesn’t work. Jenn said the chiming was beautiful but loud, every quarter hour, and the ticking was, of course, incessant. So her Grandfather Clock stands silent against the wall, hands at 3:15, unerringly correct twice a day.
Most flat surfaces in our house have something on them, and the top of the Grandfather Clock is no exception. For years there were garlands from our wedding at the top, and for a while there was an old wireless doorbell. They garlands are now in a drawer, and the wireless doorbell replaced by a “Ring” camera system. So a year and a half ago, the top of the Grandfather Clock was vacant.
Pandemic
And that’s when Covid hit. We had our last meal out that Sunday, March 15th, two of four customers in a normally crowded tavern. And then we were home. It would be well over a year before we went out to eat again. At first, it was hide in your house. In fact I remember consciously thinking that if it was the outside that was safe. The virus was in people, not “in the air”. But we had to get groceries, and beer, and that most rare item of all, toilet paper. And to risk human contact, we needed masks.
Originally, I had the masks we used to sand drywall. They weren’t designed to restrict viral spread, to my knowledge, but there was a mask shortage and it was the best we could do. Then my niece sent us a stack of N-95 masks, the “hospital standard” for viral spread prevention. They worked, but it was a struggle. The N-95 were restrictive. They muffled our speech, and weren’t comfortable for breathing. So we had them for the times when we might be in a more crowded environment, but they weren’t our “go-to” masks. There are still some on the Grandfather Clock.
Our next choice was the handmade masks created by our friend, Angie. It was kind of like the ladies who rolled bandages for the soldiers away at the Civil War; there were mask making YouTube videos and family “bubble” gatherings to sew masks. Those were more comfortable, but they didn’t seal as well. And they had to be tied, so they weren’t as convenient. We soon realized that masks were going to be a semi-permanent part of our lives.
Amazon
So we ordered some cloth masks from Amazon, masks that had elastic straps to fit around the ears and metal tabs that could form fit around our noses. And those became our “go-to” masks. Whenever we went anywhere, which wasn’t very far, we had our cloth masks. They were hanging on the key rack beside the front door, on a hook beside the keys. Whenever we went out to the grocery or to Lowes for whatever house project we were working on, it was grab your mask and keys. And since dogs still got away from home during the pandemic, Jenn was often on the trail of one, and I’d occasionally tag along.
It was almost like another world, out there “dogging”. Gas stations and convenience stores were kind of open, and fast food drive-thru were available. As long as you didn’t need a restroom, things were pretty good. And if was good to connect with other human beings, mostly outside, standing over a “humane trap”, sharing stories of dogs and life in the pandemic. Those masks are still hanging on the hook.
Vaccines
Come December and the vaccines, it looked like another six months and we might be “over” Covid. I purchased paper masks, ones that could be worn, washed a few times, and thrown away. I decided to officiate outdoor track meets, and masks were mandatory even though the meets were outside. As I headed out, there was a paper mask in my right back pocket, opposite the wallet in my left. But by the end of track season in May, the mask orders were being lifted, and at the Regional meet it was OK to go maskless. It was good to see people’s faces, and not have to remember to “smile with my eyes” because they couldn’t see my mouth. The box of masks was on top of the Grandfather Clock.
I think it was mid-June that I considered cleaning off the top of the Clock and throwing all the masks away. We were vaccinated, and it looked like Covid was waning. But then came the Delta Variant, now followed by the Omicron Variant. As the pandemic turns into an endemic, it looks like masks may be a standard apparel item, like a coat or shoes in the December weather.
Time
There are still plenty of masks; paper, cloth, and N-95’s on top of the Grandfather Clock. It’s a fitting place for them. Masks have bought us time: time to get the vaccine, and time for Covid treatments to improve. Now there’s talk of a pill, kind of like Tamiflu, that you could take if you tested positive and had mild symptoms. And there are booster shots, maybe every year like the flu shot. What was a deadly risk is becoming “manageable” – if folks were willing to take the shot.
But many aren’t. So we’ll probably need masks again. And they are always available, on the way out the door. They’re up on the Grandfather Clock.
I will come as no surprise that I am a history “geek”. I participate in some “boards” online discussing all sorts of American History, from the Revolution to Afghanistan. Like most discussions in our polarized world today, our current political divisions seep into almost every topic. Do you like George Patton as a military commander? Was he a “good” general who said all of the wrong things, a “leader” who slapped an enlisted man, a manipulator who was willing to risk his forces for his own ego? Does he sound like a recent American President?
So it wasn’t a surprise that when the topic was about the mechanics of a particular kind of gun, the “true-believers” in the Second Amendment descended in mass to make their point. That Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is brief:
“A Well Regulated Militia, be necessary to the security of a Free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”.
Infringing
Their first point was that the Amendment was absolute: “…the right…to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”. Any regulation of arms, from handguns to automatic weapons is an “infringement”. They believe there is an absolute right to have any type of weapon.
Justice Robert Jackson made a common sense argument in 1949 about any Constitutional right: the Founding Fathers did not write a “suicide pact”. They were well aware that every right had its limitations. As Justice Holmes said about the First Amendment: “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.” (By the way, the outcome of that case, US v Schenck, was that the defendant went to jail for criticizing the military draft during World War I and causing “a clear and present danger”. Brandenburg v Ohio redefined that finding).
Both Holmes and Jackson were making the point that no “right” is absolute. The interests of the state in maintaining order and safety must also be weighed in any discussion about “rights”. And the Supreme Cour takes that view about arms. It allows certain weapons to be banned (you can’t have your own rocket propelled grenade launcher). And it regulates others like fully automatic weapons that are heavily licensed and taxed.
US Code
Usually arguments about the Second Amendment end there – haggling around the extent the government can restrict and control gun ownership. But in this “board” discussion the argument continued over the first clause of the Amendment, that “good old” well-regulated militia.
They pointed to the definition of “militia” as established in US law (10 USC §311):
a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32 , under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are–
1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
Their simple argument is that every male citizen (or intended citizen) from seventeen to forty-five is “in” a militia. So they are all entitled to full, unfettered Second Amendment rights. That was the absolutists “mic drop” moment. While they did leave out about half the population (women) they argued that the US Code closes the deal on the idea that somehow the “militia” clause modifies the “right to bear” clause. Every man is “in” the militia so every man gets “their right to bear arms”.
Suicide Pact
James Madison, the author of the Bill of Rights, wasn’t a lawyer. But he did have a Princeton University education, and considered himself a “student” of the law. And Madison was well aware of the dangers of an “unregulated militia”. Shay’s Rebellion was a “citizen’s militia” attack on the government of Massachusetts. It helped bring about the Constitution in the first place. And the Whiskey Rebellion against Federal taxes, was going on as he introduced the Bill of Rights to the Congress.
Madison did not waste words in his Constitutional writings. The term “well regulated” was intentional, to require state control of a what today we would recognize as the National Guard. And Madison would easily parse the difference between organized state militias, and an unorganized mass of citizens waiting for a draft like the one that Mr. Schenck opposed. “Unorganized” is NOT well regulated. (Now do I get to drop the mic?)
The Winner is – Today
Nope – the mic belongs to the “absolutists” – at least for today. In the most recent Supreme Court decision on the Second Amendment in 2008 (District of Columbia v Heller), the Court narrowly agreed with the infringement argument. They detached the militia clause in a five to four decision, saying that it didn’t influence the absolute right to bear arms. And that marked the turn of the Supreme Court towards a more conservative view, one that is playing out today in the current legal debate about the Roe v Wade and Casey abortion decisions.
The debate about militias and the Second Amendment is now “settled law”. Just like a women’s right to access abortions. But as we know, when it comes to rights – nothing is settled anymore. Just hold you’re mic, and you’re breath.
This is the next in the “Sunday Story” series – no politics here – just a story about Mom and Dad and the Nightly News.
Thinking of Mom
I thought a lot about my Mom Thursday night. She passed away ten years ago at the age of ninety-three. Dad and Mom lived a marvelous life, up to the last couple of years. Throughout it all there were “constants”; things that they did every day. One of those was don’t go to bed before eleven. They might well have slept on the couch in the family room in front of the TV, Dad probably since eight, but never went to bed, never before the local news came on.
And another of those constants was the network Nightly News. Dad ran a television station in Dayton in the 1960’s, and the Nightly News was part of the business. He watched how his local newscasters did with Ed Hamlin at the anchor and Omar Williams on sports. It was one of the main ways to evaluate the station. The network news brought viewers to the program, and the television business was all about selling advertising. So Dad watched the local and network news religiously. It was the end of his business day, whether he was still at work that late, or already at home.
The Dayton station was an NBC affiliate for most of those years, and the network broadcast was the Huntley-Brinkley Report. Chet Huntley and David Brinkley were “old school” reporters, out of the mold of CBS’s Edward R Murrow and his protégé, Walter Cronkite. So NBC was the default choice for news in our household, with the exception of a couple years when Dad switched the Dayton station to ABC. Then it was a young Canadian named Peter Jennings who anchored the network desk.
Anchor Man
But NBC stuck, even when Dad was promoted out of the Dayton station and we moved to corporate headquarters in Cincinnati. Chet Huntley retired, and Brinkley moved to ABC. But we were loyal to the new guy, John Chancellor, who took over the reins. When national crises hit, from Watergate to Presidential elections, it was the NBC crew that talked us through the details.
For a decade starting in 1970 (“WLW-D, Your Stations for the Seventies” was the jingle), Chancellor led the way. Then, after a “tryout” by Roger Mudd, the younger Tom Brokaw, the Today Show host, took over. He stayed at the anchor desk for twenty-one years, and became the senior mentor of NBC News. My Mom developed a close “relationship” with Tom Brokaw, as he brought every crisis and triumph personally to our family room. But waiting in the wings was Mom’s favorite, the White House Correspondent for NBC News, a young, clearly ambitious reporter named Brian Williams.
In the last few Brokaw years it became obvious that Brian was the heir-apparent. There was even a mock “press conference” with Brokaw as the subject, when Williams stood up and carefully inquired as to Brokaw’s health and well-being. It was a joke – but it really wasn’t. Williams was ready for the anchor chair, the senior position in NBC News. And after twenty-one years, Brokaw was aging, and more importantly, struggling to annunciate. The night time talk show hosts were putting marbles in their mouths, making fun of him. Still – Tom Brokaw had the gravitas to take us through the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Bush-Gore election, 9-11, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The Chair
Brokaw retired from the chair in 2004. He didn’t stay retired long, as NBC suffered the incredible loss of their Chief Washington Political Correspondent, Tim Russert, to a massive heart attack in spring. Brokaw took over Meet the Press, and helped lead Mom and the nation through the election of 2004.
But Brian finally had the Nightly News. Mom no longer talked of NBC, or the evening news. She waited to watch Brian.
He led NBC for a decade. Even when Mom was struggling, her lungs calcified and unable to absorb enough oxygen, she still watched “Brian” every evening. She looked to him for guidance during the hurricanes of 2005, and celebrated with him the election of the first African-American President, and the passage of Obamacare. Mom loved Brian.
Mom passed away in 2011.
Brian Williams had a “memory conflation” in 2015. He described a memory of a missile attack on his helicopter in Iraq. But that really didn’t happen, and Brian was removed as the NBC anchor. Lester Holt took over.
There was lots of discussion at the time about why Brian Williams did that. Was he just embellishing stories to make himself more important? Had he been warned so starkly in the war zone, that somehow the warning became an “event” in his mind? Or had he described that exact same event so many times, that it became a real “thing” for him, an experience he thought he actually had? He too became fodder for the late night monologues.
Exile on Cable
After six months, Brian came back – but not to the Nightly News desk. He was exiled to cable, the “breaking news” anchor whenever MSNBC went live to an event. He was doing school shootings, hurricanes, and tornadoes, directing coverage and commentary from New York. Seemingly, he wasn’t allowed to leave Rockefeller Center, virtually strapped to the anchor chair.
And then the election of 2016 got so convoluted, that MSNBC needed someone to summarize the daily events for their viewers. Brian began a new program, The 11th Hour from 11 to midnight. And for the last five years, Brian Williams helped to detangle the Trump Administration and the world. He brought in the experts, from historians to commentators to doctors, to declassify all of the craziness that was Trump, Impeachment, Covid and now the Biden Administration. Brian became our nightly ritual, instead of the comedians. I learned a lot from him between 11 and 12, even if I seldom actually saw the end of his show.
Brian Williams signed off The 11th Hour for the last time Thursday night. He says he’s headed into real retirement, but that remains to be seen. I stayed awake to listen to others praise him, and hear Brian’s final words as an NBC anchor. And at the end, I thought how sad Mom would be.
This is a part of the “Outside My Window” series in Our America. No great political observations, just what’s going on – today literally outside my window.
Sunrise in Pataskala
Back to Normal?
Jenn, our son and I went to see a concert in downtown Columbus last night. It was the band Genesis with Phil Collins, on probably their last tour. Collins has a deteriorating nerve condition, and performs from a chair at the front of the stage. He was the original drummer for the band, and taking over the drum set was always a part of his persona. Now he can’t do that. But he can still sing, and his twenty year old son Nic has taken over on the drums. It’s a passing of the torch – the son honoring his father’s skill. And it’s still a really good concert with three of the original Genesis members, old school mates Collins, Tony Banks on the keyboards and Mike Rutherford on guitar.
It’s another part of my “Dahlman Concert Tour”, seeing the great performers of the past before it’s too late. This fall that’s included outdoor concerts with the Rolling Stones and Billy Joel. But Genesis is the first time indoors since the pandemic changed the world. Next up: James Taylor and Jackson Browne.
Going to a concert downtown is such a “normal” thing to do, but it’s been such a long time since we could. There was dinner “downtown”, and walking the streets of the “big city”. Then we were in in the crowd on the floor of Nationwide Arena, taking pictures, drinking beer, with the normal wafting of concert marijuana smoke after the lights went down. We were on our feet for more than two hours for the show: so very normal, and exciting.
Genesis in Concert
Back to the Pack
This meant a late night both for the three of us, and for our pack of friends at home. The five dogs did their sleeping while we were gone. So there was midnight dinner (our Lab Atticus was too nervous to eat), then a romp outside, and a couple of hours of chasing around the house in the middle of the night. They didn’t calm down until two in the morning.
But our elder statesman, Buddy, is the “keeper of the clock” when it comes to breakfast. He was lenient this morning, letting us “sleep in” until 6:45. Then it was time to get up and get breakfast – the late night was my problem, not his! (Buddy, by the way, just went back to bed here at 8 am, the prerogative of an old border collie/shepherd mix I guess).
But I need to thank Buddy later today. He got us up for a beautiful sunrise here in Pataskala, the reddened sky peaking over the Christmas lights of this little town. It was worth the lost sleep to witness it, and it recalls one of my Mom’s old English sayings:
“Red sky at night, sailor’s delight, Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.”
Warning
What should we “be warned” about? That could be quite a list. Maybe it’s the weather, the temperature has been in the twenties, but will hit sixty by Saturday, with rain coming. A mud mess for the “pack” in the backyard, I’m afraid. Or maybe it’s the Omicron variant of Covid, so much more infective than the Delta variant which was more than the “original”. To use another one of Mom’s expression, I feel like we’re waiting for the “other shoe to drop” on Covid. We might be playing with fire when it comes to dinners and concerts – flirting with normalcy in an wholly abnormal world.
Or maybe it’s the economy, or the Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, or any of the other national or world crises we face.
There’s plenty to worry about, as our Lab Atticus can tell you. But there’s good news as well. My ears are still ringing from Phil Collins and the group; I’m glad we’re able to have those experiences again. And there’s plenty of coffee in the house. Other than getting the Christmas tree up (and fortified from the puppy CeCe) there’s not too much on our plate today.
Maybe a red sky in the morning is just a beautiful way to begin a new day.
We have a precipitous divide in American politics. The numbers are available, stark, and essentially terrifying. More than twenty million American voters believe the 2020 election was stolen from Donald J. Trump. They know it in their hearts: it was stolen, cheated, ripped off. To use a football analogy, “…we won on the field, but lost on the scoreboard”. And not because the other team scored more points. No, they lost on the scoreboard because someone rigged the board to give more points for the other team’s touchdowns, and less points for theirs.
They believe, because it’s a “prophecy fulfilled”. Their leaders, with the 45th President of the United States in front, convinced them that if he lost, the election was stolen. The “ground was softened” by years of preparation, from even before the 2016 election. They could not trust the outcome, nor the counters, nor the ballots themselves. They could not trust that their vote for Trump was counted for Trump. The Democrats, or the Chinese, or the George Soros himself rigged the system.
They aren’t the only ones who questioned the election process. Those of us who voted for Hillary Clinton asked some of the same questions after the 2016 results. Over two years later in April of 2019 as the Russiagate scandal broke, I wrote about those doubts in Put On My Foil Hat. But since even the “doubters” could never find final proof, most never crossed the line into “true-believers”. But the twenty million have.
De-Construction
Steve Bannon, the “Svengali” behind the plan, called it “De-Construction” of the government. I wrote about it over four years ago in November of 2017, (The Bully and Bannon). But even as I did, I didn’t understand the full import of his goals. When Bannon said don’t trust government, he didn’t make a distinction between Federal, State or Local. He didn’t even divine out Republicans versus Democrats. It wasn’t until November of 2020, when the “Stop the Steal” movement turned on Republicans running local and state election offices across the country, that I realized the full depth of his “De-Construction” plan.
If everything is corrupt, then it should be no problem that Trump, the sitting President, was on the phone with the chief election official in Georgia demanding “just enough” votes to win. Because, according to him, it’s all rigged anyway, so rig it for me. And since the counters are all crooked; they deserve the threats and the screamers, the folks with semi-automatic weapons parading on the sidewalks outside of their homes.
Seventy-Seven Minutemen
And speaking of weapons, the twenty million need to arm themselves. There will come a day when their weapons may be needed to make sure their “truth” is revealed. It’s no mistake that Stop the Steal and the Second Amendment are totally intertwined. The idea: Don’t let them get your guns; it’s the only way you will be able to fight back. Bannon doesn’t believe “The Establishment” will go down without a fight. There were Seventy-seven Minuteman on the Lexington Green. They started the American Revolution. It’s the true import of the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag. So be ready.
That’s because it’s really true. The guy down the street from me is ready to hold his AR-15 up against the 82nd Airborne para-roping from the Black Helicopters. It’s like a scene from the original Red Dawn, as the brat pack of Patrick Swayze, C Thomas Howell, Jennifer Gray and Charlie Sheen stood up against the entire Soviet Army. They believe it. And they have legal armories where they practice, right down the road, right out in the open, because it IS legal to do so.
Gospel According to Fox
That inherent mistrust, fueled by years of Fox News and other propaganda spread like a slow pandemic. And when the real pandemic hit, the logic became convoluted. President Trump seemed to lose the election because of Covid, so Biden won because of Covid, so anything he does to stop Covid is benefitting his illegitimate Presidency, so don’t get vaccinated. And since Fox and the rest can provide “facts” and “experts” to back why vaccines don’t work, they have their “proof”.
The Alternative to the gospel of Bannon, otherwise known as the mainstream media, are part of the “Constructed Establishment”. So don’t believe, don’t listen, don’t even engage with those that mistakenly trust what the AP or New York Times or other independent news organizations might say. As one of my friends once told me; “do you wonder why no one reads your “blogs” anymore?” I don’t wonder, I see the statistics behind each essay. I know people read my essays. But the early years of great debates about Trump World, mostly on Facebook, are over. Don’t engage, because it might cause you to question.
A Rising Tide
They are “true believers”. Don’t underestimate their power, will and desire. After 2016, they thought they had it made. When the 2020 vote came in, they reacted. But January 6th was a small disorganized protest compared to what’s coming. Now, their power is represented by the co-opted Republican Party. They are legally rigging the states, so that Trump/Republican legislatures can LEGALLY overturn the vote of the people. And come 2024, they will be so much better prepared, and financed, and determined.
Democrats do have a chance to counter at least the “legal” rigging of the state elections. But that chance is right now, and will quickly slip away unless action is taken. The House is ready, the President is sort of ready, but the Senate is not. So many of our nation’s critical issues are dependent on two votes in the Senate. And there is no sense that those votes will come, even though they claim to be Democrats.
But don’t be fooled – even if the voting and election certification issues are fixed, there are still twenty million true believers. That won’t change, even as Democrats get excited about Build Back Better and the January 6th Committee. Like standing at the edge of the sea, the sand is slipping beneath their feet, and the tide is rising. Will Democrats happily watch our boats go to the horizon, enjoying the view – until we drown?
Ethan Crumbley was a fifteen year old sophomore at Oxford High School in the Detroit exurbs. His parents gave him an early Christmas present the weekend after Thanksgiving, a semi-automatic pistol. His Mom took him to the shooting range so he could enjoy it. And on Tuesday, November 30th 2021, Ethan put the semi-automatic pistol and several clips of ammunition in his backpack, and took them to school. Later in the day, he attacked his fellow students and teachers. Four students were killed, seven more students and a teacher were wounded.
16 Year Old Hero
Before we go any farther into this tragedy, we need to recognize a hero. Tate Myre was a sixteen year old junior, and a star running back on the football team. The weekend before the shooting, he visited the University of Toledo as a scholarship prospect. When Crumbley started firing, Tate charged, trying to stop the shooter. Tate was shot several times, and died in a police car on the way to the hospital. But his actions bought other students’ time to get away. He saved lives, at the cost of his own.
A Threat
On Monday, a teacher was disturbed to observe Ethan searching for ammunition on his cell phone. The next day, the day of the shooting, a note was found on his desk. It had a drawing of a gun, a bullet, and a bleeding victim, and the words “…the thoughts won’t stop, help me”. The teacher did exactly the right thing: Ethan was sent to the office. The administrators called the parents in for a conference, and required that Ethan receive counseling within forty-eight hours. They suggested that the parents take Ethan home.
But the parents demanded that Ethan stay in school. We don’t know how that conversation went, yet, but clearly administrators didn’t feel they had “enough” to require Ethan’s removal from school. And, they either didn’t think of it, or felt they couldn’t, do a search of Ethan and his backpack, the backpack with a gun and ammunition clips. And they didn’t call in additional social services, or call the police.
We also don’t know if they asked the obvious question: does Ethan have access to weapons, particularly guns. If they did, we don’t know if Ethan or the parents lied or told the truth about his new present. Certainly Ethan didn’t tell them the gun was right there, in the office, in his backpack. So Ethan went back to class, and ultimately, four students died and six more and a teacher were wounded.
What Would We Do
I was the Dean of Students at a suburban high school for eight years. If I was working in Oxford High School, Ethan and his parents likely would have been in my office.
What would we have done? So the note, the pictures and the cry for help, would have been considered a threat. That creates the “reasonable suspicion” that a school legally needs to act. In our situation, probably the entire administrative staff, the Principal and the Assistant Principal and the Dean would have been involved. We also would have called in the School Resource Officer (SRO), the Sheriff’s Deputy assigned to our school, in the years when one was available.
I retired in 2014. While there were political divides then, the current climate is far more polarized than it was even seven years ago. So we don’t know what the conversation with the Crumbley’s was like. We don’t know if the Second Amendment was mentioned. We don’t know how concerned the Administrators of Oxford High School were with parent complaints, and student removals. And finally, we don’t know if Ethan was a student with a status which made it difficult to remove him from the school building.
Reasonable Suspicion
But I do know what would have happened in our office. One of us, probably me, would have searched Ethan’s pockets, and his coat, and his locker, and for damn sure, his backpack. He made an identifiable threat, on paper, and asked for help. Our staff, including the SRO, would want to do everything to help him. But first, we would have made sure he was safe, and so were our students and staff.
And if the parents refused to allow the search? Then a couple of things would have happened. The SRO could have raised the threat to a legal issue, and then handled at as a police matter. In the years when we didn’t have an SRO on site, a Deputy would have been called in. Here in Licking County we have deputies specially trained in crisis intervention.
Or we would have done an “emergency removal”, requiring the parents to take Ethan home. There might have been yelling and screaming. Things might be ugly. But Ethan would have gone home, and those ten students and a teacher would have been safe, at least for Tuesday. And then the Sheriff’s Department would have been notified, and they would have done a “home check”.
Hindsight
I can imagine how the Oxford High School administrators are feeling right now. No matter how you look at it, they failed the most important mission they have for their students, to keep them safe. They must be devastated, perhaps beyond recovery. They not only have to live with their failure, but also with the national scrutiny of their actions, including by armchair quarterbacks like me. But I have been in their position. There are lots of pressures: parents, school boards, district office staff, local, state and national politics. But none of that compares with their duty to stop what happened in the halls of Oxford High School on Tuesday.
I guess you have to be a “certain age” to remember those old movies. I certainly don’t remember them from the theatre, but on Saturday afternoons or late in the night, they were on TV. They were “film noire” and some of the favorites of my parents’ generation. But for me they were grainy, black and white cops and robbers films, with an anti-hero as a criminal or a shady detective, who always had a “femme fatale” on his arm.
The great players of Mom and Dad’s generation were all there: Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Becall, Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner, Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer, William Holden and Gloria Swanson, Orson Welles and Joan Crawford. They had offices in seedy buildings, chain smoked and talked out of the side of their mouths, and double crossed each other time and time again. The cops were often as bad as the criminals, and there was no such thing as a “happy ending”.
And no one ever got to “take the Fifth”. They were shot, or tricked, or a confession was “sweated out” of them under the swinging light hanging from a single cord. Getting justice wasn’t usually the issue, revenge was. And the moral of the story – there might not be any morals in the world at all.
US Constitution
So what is the Fifth?
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution outlines the rights of someone accused of a crime. The portion we’re concerned with is:
“ No person…shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”
In our criminal process, no one can be required to answer questions or make statements that could incriminate themselves, that is, help prove their guilt. It’s such an important part of our Constitutional process that, since 1966, each time law enforcement questions a suspect, the officer is required to notify the suspect that they do not have to answer questions – the famous Miranda Rights from the Supreme Court case of the same name. “You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you in a Court of Law.”
And the Fifth Amendment right crosses over to almost every government interaction with the public. A Congressional Committee can require a witness to answer questions. But they cannot require that the witness “confess” to a crime. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that some former Trump officials are seeking the protection of the Fifth Amendment. In fact, the surprise is that they took so long to do so.
“Taking the Fifth” is NOT a confession. In fact, juries are instructed that they cannot infer guilt because someone refused to testify, invoking their Fifth Amendment right. It’s a right every American has, guilty, innocent, or somewhere in between (like the Film Noire anti-heroes).
Executive Privilege
There are several laws they may have been violated by the Trump Administration and their supporters in the two months after the 2020 election. Certainly those who led the crowds to attack the Capitol on January 6th are likely candidates for criminal charges. And the “leaders” who developed the entire strategy of trying to undermine and overturn the 2020 election results may have criminal exposure.
When former Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Clark was called to testify in front of the January 6th Committee, his first defense of “executive privilege” was unlikely. That law is clear: executive privilege, the idea that a President ought to be able to get confidential advice, only applies to the current executive.
Clark, and the “legal mind” behind “Stop the Steal’, attorney John Eastman, now realize that they may have broken the law. So their best bet, and most effective way to avoid questions, is to “Take the Fifth”. And they have every right to do so.
Money Talks
So why didn’t they do that in the first place? Why start on a shaky legal foundation, the “privilege” argument, when they had firm footing in the Fifth Amendment? The answer lives at Mara Lago in Florida. While legally “taking the Fifth” doesn’t imply guilt, in the mind of the general public, someone who does must be hiding something. Invoking the Fifth Amendment raises the question of criminality, that somewhere in their actions laws were broken. And, of course, the man in Mara Lago cannot stand the concept that something in “Stop the Steal” was illegal.
And this isn’t just a legal question, it’s a financial one as well. Those lawyers sitting beside the witness get paid, probably $500 an hour. Someone has to pick up the tab. All of these potential witnesses needr help for legal fees, and the obvious answer is the hundreds of millions raised by the Trump Campaign of 2020 and 2024. Implying crime is not a way to reach those funds.
Immunity
However, unlike the shaky “privilege” argument, the Fifth Amendment protection does have one vulnerability. The Fifth only applies if there is a risk of criminal action. So the January 6th Committee has the ultimate “cure” to the Fifth. Like every Congressional Committee, they have the power to grant immunity from prosecution. Once immunity is granted, then the Fifth Amendment no longer applies.
Immunity can be transactional, question by question, or it can be “blanket” over an entire testimony. There are often questions a witness can answer that do not incriminate, and those don’t need to be “immunized”. That high priced lawyer sitting beside the witness has “just one job”: to make sure that if an answer will be incriminating, the witness either “Takes the Fifth” or gets immunity for the answer.
The question for the Committee: if everyone gets immunity, the Committee gets answers but no justice; no one to take responsibility for what happened in those two fateful months. But if no one gets immunity, there will be a lot of information that never comes out. And that’s problem the Committee members will need to solve.
Like those old films, there probably won’t be a “hero” on the witness stand (and no femme fatale). No matter what the Committee reveals, there’s not likely to be a happy ending either. But, unlike Film Noire, the Committee may get justice.
The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the case Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization this week. It is a direct challenge to Roe v Wade, the 1973 case that allowed women to legally access abortions throughout the United States up through twenty weeks of pregnancy. The essence of the Dobbs argument, was that Roe was “wrongly decided” by the ’73 Court, when it discerned a Constitutional right of women to control their own bodies. The state of Mississippi (Dobbs) argued that the United States Constitution is “neutral” on the that issue, and therefore their state should be able to regulate it under the Tenth Amendment as “a power not delegated” to the Federal government.
There is a singular reason why Mississippi brought this direct challenge to Roe: the changes in the Justices who will decide the case. Due to two deaths, a resignation, and the machinations of Mitch McConnell; President Donald Trump was able to appoint three Justices to the nine judge panel. All three were historically against Roe, but pledged “loyalty” to the precedents set by prior Courts. Now that they are “in the chair” though, their arguments demonstrate a willingness to throw the Roe decision out. Along with two already sitting Justices, they have a five vote majority.
Legal Weeds
The politics aside, the Court is on the cusp of making a major change in direction. The “discerned right” of women to control their bodies is only one case. There’s a series of decisions made by the Court about greater personal freedoms, all based on similar legal reasoning. The Court reasoned that States could not ban interracial marriage (Loving v Virginia), use of birth control (Griswold v Connecticut), abortions (Roe v Wade and Casey v Planned Parenthood), homosexual activity (Romer v Evans) and most recently gay marriage (Obergefell v Hodges).
The basic argument is that the Constitution contains a right to privacy and to equal protection under the law. Since that right is in the Constitution, the individual states do not have the authority to control those private behaviors. Mississippi is directly challenging that concept. If the Court accepts the reasoning, all of these other precedents are at risk as well. It doesn’t mean that abortions, interracial marriages, gay marriages, birth control or homosexual activity could become “illegal” nationwide. But it could mean that individual states would regulate those actions differently, depending on the state.
Divided America
We already see that occurring with abortion laws in the United States. In many states, the legislatures are dominated by those who want abortions completely banned. Some of those states have done everything they could, within the scope of the Roe and Casey decisions, to regulate abortions from within their borders. Missouri and Texas, have succeeded. Other states recognize the “spirit” of Roe and Casey, and only regulate abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy, when the baby could survive outside of the mother.
We saw the same thing prior to the Obergefell decision, where some states allowed gay marriage, some states established a second form of “union” to encompass it, and many states, like Ohio, went out of their way to pass laws banning same-sex unions. A couple could be married in Massachusetts or in a “union” in Vermont, but their relationship was not recognized in Ohio or Kentucky.
Let Freedom Ring
This case is an outgrowth of the great crisis that America is facing today. We are a nation of change. The dominant majority of “white people” will no longer be the majority in a few years. The United States has always prided itself as a nation of immigrants. But when those immigrants stopped looking like “everyone else”, they were perceived by some to be a threat.
I can sit in a classroom today in little Pataskala, Ohio, and have students who are Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Sikh; as well as Southern Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterians, Lutherans, a couple of Jewish kids and a whole lot of non-believers. Even this “white ‘Christian’ suburban community” has changed.
Also in that high school classroom are straight kids, gay kids, trans kids, and lots of kids who don’t “identify”. For some in America, all of this change is incredibly threatening. It challenges their vision of what “America” should “look like” and “act like”. Their state legislatures are enforcing that vision of human behavior. And they are threatened by women choosing to have abortions.
Who Decides What to Believe
Their argument is that they are protecting a life by preventing abortion. And they have every right to have that belief. The question the Supreme Court answered in Roe and all of these other cases, is that “personal beliefs” should not be enforceable by law when they are about private behavior. The Roe decision carefully parsed when the state had an interest in the growing fetus, and determined that its rights outweighed the privacy rights of the mother only after it could physically survive outside her womb.
If a pregnant woman believes that she should protect that life and carry to term, that’s her choice. If she determines that she does not want to do so, and it’s the 20th week or before, then the Court said she can make that choice as well. The Roe decision said that the individual state legislatures shouldn’t be able to determine her choice for her.
Consequences
It’s likely that the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v Wade. Thirty or more states will say what the ‘correct’ belief is, and ban most abortions. But don’t think that “correct-ness” will stop there.
What we thought were “inherent” rights of Americans to be themselves, love who they want, and have their own personal beliefs, may all be at stake.
It was called the “gag rule”. From 1835 until 1844, the United States House of Representatives banned debate on the pivotal issue of the time – slavery. The Nation spiraled down for nine years towards the depths of secession and Civil War. And the legislature refused to allow discussion of the topic. Former President John Quincy Adams, then a representative from his native Massachusetts, again and again tried to get the “gag rule” lifted. But it took until 1844 to gain enough votes to allow just a debate on slavery.
The rationale: there was nothing but acrimony to be gained by debate. There were not enough votes to change anything, to somehow make the issue “better” for either side. So better to not even bring it up.
School Shooting
Tuesday four Michigan high schools students died and another seven injured at Oxford High School, about thirty miles north of Detroit. They were killed by a “typical” school shooter; a fifteen year old white boy with a semi-automatic pistol. He went through two “clips” and was loading a third when the police arrived and quickly apprehended him in the hall. They captured him uninjured.
While information is limited, we know it was his father’s gun, purchased four days before on “Black Friday”. We don’t know the reasons for the shootings, or what connections the victims had with the assailant. What we do know is this. Nothing more will be done to prevent the next school shooter .
Again
I wrote my first essay on school shootings in “Our America” on February 15th, 2018, almost four years ago. It was called “Again”, and it was written the day after seventeen high school students and teachers were killed in Parkland, Florida. The title was prophetic, the shootings at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School weren’t the first of 2018, and it wouldn’t be the last either. It just happens, again, and again, and again.
It’s so common that it hardly breaks into the news cycle. Yesterday’s catastrophe was the twentieth of this school year (NYT). The word “catastrophe” speaks of some infrequent and overwhelming event, not something so commonplace as “just” another school shooting. But for the parents of those four murdered children, and the wounded, and the students of Oxford High School, their world will never be the same.
Inaction
But what have we done to prevent this? What actions have we taken to protect the students of Oxford, or Parkland, or Pataskala where I am substitute teaching today? As a former school administrator I can tell you there are three answers to that question. First, we have done a lot. Second, we have not come close to “solving” the problem. And third, our students are still at risk, perhaps just as much as they were before Parkland, and even before Columbine, almost twenty-two years ago.
Don’t fault school administrators, or police departments with School Resource Officers, or even the parents of the “shooters” who don’t know what’s going on. Schools have spent millions of dollars and thousands of hours of time trying to protect our kids. Police (or in the case of this school, the Sheriff’s Department) are willing and able to lay their lives down to protect our kids, I have no doubt. So are the teachers in the building, as I was when I was the Dean of Students. But none of that has made much of a difference – twenty school shootings since last August.
Acceptance
There is an old public relations trick. When asked if you’ve solved a problem that you can’t fix, you talk about man-hours, dollars, construction changes, contingency plans. You talk about how much you’ve “worked” the problem. But in the end, none of what we’ve done in the past twenty-two years, or the past four, have made much of a difference.
Some will argue that you can’t know what you stopped; how many schools avoided the “school shooter” experience through all of those “man-hours, dollars, construction changes and contingency plans”. And they would be right. But in the end, we have obviously failed. Failed those four kids who died Tuesday, failed those seven, some still battling for their lives, and failed the kids who huddle in the corners of classrooms in every school in the nation practicing “school shooter” drills. We have not even come close to solving the problem.
Lead from Behind
America is a nation awash in guns. On this, the fifth day of hunting season, here in Pataskala rifles are everywhere. But it’s not just hunting rifles. Our nation is filled with handguns, rapid change ammunition clips, semi-automatic “military style” rifles, and all sorts of ways to more effectively kill not just deer, but people. In our polarized nation, there is no chance that we might find a real solution to school shootings. Oh, politicians on all sides will “say a prayer” and “hold the students in our hearts”. But nothing can be done.
There will be speeches on the floor of the House of Representatives about the need for gun law reforms. There isn’t a “gag order” preventing it. But we are bound by “politics” from acting. That inability is a direct reflection of America’s division over the issue. Just a little more than half of Americans are in favor of more restrictive gun legislation, but 40% live in a household with a gun (Pew). In our time where “leadership” is politically dangerous and politicians read the polls before they determine any “stand”, it shouldn’t be a surprise that we can’t find a solution.
Americans accept this level of gun violence in our schools. We are so determined to have “our guns” that, unlike anywhere else in the world, we allow our children to die. Our inability to even address the problem creates “collateral damage” – the four dead of Oxford, the seventeen dead of Parkland, and the fear every student feels in school in the United States.
It’s our choice – and the good citizens of the United States have made it.
We live in a post-truth era. What in any other time would be widely accepted as fact, today is a matter of “opinion”. No matter what “science” learns, no matter what level of expertise someone has in a particular subject, everyone’s opinions about everything, all of a sudden, are valued. You have yours, I have mine, and somehow, they both have equal weight.
That’s because we can go “on Google” and find any justification for any theory we want. And since that information is presented in a “smart” way, say with lab coats in front of the US Capitol, then “obviously” it’s the truth. All of the credentialing that created trust in the past, from academic degrees to years of expertise, no longer count. Joe Rogan has at least as much weight in the Covid debate as Anthony Fauci, if not more. Ask Green Bay Quarterback Aaron Rogers. Rogan (Newton South High School, U-Mass dropout) is an “influencer” with eleven million followers, and that status somehow lends more credence than Fauci’s forty years of scientific leadership and advanced degrees (BA from Holy Cross, MD from Cornell, Honorary Doctorates from 9 Universities).
“Experts”
It is foolish. We still want an “expert” to fix our car, or our broken leg. If I had a question about pole vaulting, I’d go to Greg Hull (Arizona) or Jim Bemiller (Tennessee) or my pole vaulting “guru”, Mark Hannay (Slippery Rock). They are the best, the most experienced. They are the proven experts in the field. Of course folks outside the “pole vault world” don’t know their names. And we didn’t know the names of Tony Fauci (National Institute of Health) or Mike Osterholm (University of Minnesota) or Peter Hotez (Baylor) before Covid either. (Except Fauci, we knew him from AIDS and Ebola).
But our arguments about the pandemic aren’t really scientific ones anymore. As we are post-truth and post-fact, we are post-science as well. The debate is now clothed in political terms of “personal freedom”. “You can’t tell me what injection I have to take”, is the argument now, based not in science, but in a narcissistic view of personal privilege versus civic responsibility.
American Dis-Unity
America has a long tradition of unifying in the face of great crisis. From World War I and World War II to 9-11, we have turned to national solutions to solve our national problems. But we also have a long tradition of dissent to those solutions. The Vietnam War started with national support. That didn’t last. As the war dragged on, Americans discovered that the Government wasn’t telling the truth about the conflict (The Post – Pentagon Papers). That revelation didn’t seem to alter national policy or action. The War continued, through the final years of Johnson’s Presidency and the six years of Nixon’s ill-fated stay in the White House. The Vietnam War didn’t end until 1975, after Ford’s ascension to the Oval Office.
While we have a tradition of unifying under crisis, the Vietnam Era taught a deep distrust of “the Government”. That distrust is underlined in popular culture, from the Rambo movies to the heroic portrayals of activist protestors in The Trial of the Chicago Seven. That distrust is also emphasized in The Report, which examined the actions of the CIA after 9-11, and Shock and Awethat looked at the false evidence that justified the invasion of Iraq.
Add that to the current post-truth era, and maybe it isn’t such a surprise that instead of unifying in the face of a pandemic virus, the United States is fractured. But that division has a real cost in lives. The United States still leads the world in Covid deaths, now nearing 800,000. India, with a population four times the size, has only recently reached half that toll.
Oh, the Needle!!
It is logical for a nation faced with a health crisis to search for a way to prevent the disease. It is logical for that nation to look to the most brilliant to find a preventative, a vaccine. And once it finds that preventative, it’s more than logical for the nation to want it’s citizens to take it. In fact, it is logical to protect the nation, just as logical as it was to draft soldiers for World War I and II, and to ration food and products. Now THAT imposed on “personal freedom” – especially when they put a rifle in your hands and sent you to war.
But “Oh the needle – oh the needle in my arm!!!!!” Clearly that infringement must be beyond “the pale” for some. The science is irrefutable: the vaccine works, and it would save lives. But that all depends on facts that many don’t believe anymore.
Natural Immunity
And the final illogic of our post-truth world is “natural immunity”. Those who had the misfortune of getting Covid, now claim that are “immune” from the disease. Again, science conflicts with that claim. While prior infection does give some immunity, the level is dependent on how sick you were, and what variant of the disease you had. And worse, instead of “risking” the vaccine, some are more willing to risk the disease itself, in order to gain immunity from – the disease.
But those pandering to the anti-vaccine crowd are trying to place “natural immunity” as equal protection to vaccination. The science, the facts, demonstrates that it isn’t. But since all opinions are “weighed equally”, those that find political shelter in opposing vaccination are now clinging to “natural immunity”. I wish they were right. I wish that the almost fifty million Americans already infected by Covid were set.
But they’re not.
Omicron
It would be nice for the worst of Covid to be behind us. Politically, it would be an advantage for President Biden to be able to say “…he cured the United States”. We have weathered the original infection, then re-infection with the Delta Variant. But viruses are all about mutation, and the global spread of the corona-virus encourages genetic changes.
The world-wide web of transportation means that what happens anywhere in the world, will be everywhere else in days. So the discovery of the Omicron Variant of Covid 19, a variation with multiple mutations, is chilling. We know we can’t stop it from getting into the United States. It’s probably here. It’s already in Canada, with two cases identified in Ontario. What we don’t know is how infective it is, and how effective the vaccines will be against it. Omicron may not change a thing. It might change everything.
It would be better if we could handle this together; united as a nation against the disease. That’s not likely. The anti-fact machine is already churning out propaganda, claiming that somehow one side is “making the variant up” for political gain. We don’t share the same facts, nor the same sources of information. Another viral crisis will deepen our divisions, not heal them.
We live in a world today of “intimate” mass communication. In the “old days”, communication was by reading; newspapers, tracts or books. We had a “choice to know”, short of the street corner cry of the newsboys: “Extra, Extra, Read All About It, Spanish sink US Battleship!!!” Want to know more – buy the paper. And from the beginning, newspapers had their biases. Some of the great newspapers of the mid-1800’s fought for abolition of slavery, like William Lloyd Garrison’s Liberator and Frederick Douglass’s North Star.
But the bias of the newspapers of the late 1800’s was more about selling papers and making money. The great newspaper “war” between William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal and Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World wasn’t about ideology. Itbecame a national battle of sensationalism to sell papers. Which paper could tell the “biggest” story, true or not? We categorize that as the era of “Yellow Journalism”. It was when the United States actually fought a war driven not by necessity, but by public opinion stoked with outrage by the lurid stories of Spanish atrocities.
Fredric Remington, the famous artist of the American west, was sent to Cuba by Hearst, to draw images of the war atrocities for the Journal. The story goes that when Remington cabled Hearst that nothing was happening, Hearst replied: “You furnish the pictures, I’ll furnish the war”.
Intimate Communication
Today we are far beyond newsboys crying out in the city streets. In fact we have surpassed the time of the television “evening news” (though it’s still available). Today our news is delivered individually, to our handheld devices. We get our news in bed or the bathroom, as we drive or as we idle away time at work. The newsboy is no longer crying out from the street – he is “pinging” on the bedstand or vibrating in our pocket. But he still demands the same attention – “Extra, Extra, read all about it”.
Just as the yellow journalists one hundred and twenty years ago used stories and pictures to drive our emotions, today’s “commentators” (such a neutral word, as if they were ancient Greek scholars) find key words to impress our views. And that’s what today’s essay is about, the new “yellow journalism” of the Twenty-First Century. I call it “critical word theory”.
Legacy Americans
Let’s start with the “newest”, coined by Fox commentator Tucker Carlson: Legacy Americans. This term is part of an entire “school” of thought, based around the changing demographics of the United States. The facts are that sometime in the next twenty years, white people will no longer be the majority of Americans. For the first time since the colonization of North America, the country will be a “majority-minority” nation. That means that no one group; not whites or blacks, Latinos or Asians or Native Americans or “others”, will be a majority of America. We will be a nation of varying minorities.
That’s a fact. But what Carlson means is what happens to the “legacy” Americans when they stop being the majority? “Legacy Americans” are the white people who were here – before. Before what? Before the migrations of the twentieth century, before “brown people” became more populous throughout our nation, rather than just the Southwest. Carlson uses the term like a crowbar to divide the interest of the soon to be minority whites from what will be the majority of the nation, non-whites.
Fix the Vote
And so the machinations of many states to reduce the voting power of non-white peoples and enhance those of whites is to protect “legacy Americans”. It sounds so “proper”, like the inheritance left by some old aunt to keep the family fortune going. But of course, the definition of “legacy American” is anti-democratic, as anti-American as it comes. It calls for the preservation of power regardless of electoral strength.
Which brings us to Carlson’s greater thesis of “White Replacement Theory”. This is the over-arching theme of his philosophy. The theory states that, like the villainous organization in a James Bond movie, the Democratic Party is in favor of allowing “open borders”, because they want more brown people to come to the United States and vote for them. They will “replace” the white voter, (and employee), to reshape the nation into something else – in Carlson’s mind maybe Venezuela.
Which fits into the real propaganda, the “Big Lie” of “Stop the Steal”. Because when Democrats respond that they don’t want open borders but legal immigration, and besides immigrants aren’t citizens and can’t vote – the Carlson thesis is that they already do vote. His claim is that voting is already so corrupted in this nation that millions of illegal votes have reshaped our election results, particularly one. The fact that this isn’t true, doesn’t seem to matter to Carlson: He’s “furnishing the pictures and the war”.
White-washed History
“Legacy Americans”, Carlson would say, should embrace their “Heritage”. Heritage is another misappropriated term in our modern Yellow Journalism. It stands for the literally white-washed history taught in the public schools of the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s. “Heritage” means that the Southern “Lost Cause” of the Civil War was righteous, and that the villainous North (just like the Democratic Party) is trying to erase history by removing Confederate relics from town squares and flag poles.
But the real erasing of history took place at the end of Reconstruction in 1876, when the white votes of the South were more important than securing the victory of civil rights in the war. Robert E. Lee didn’t even want monuments. He wanted the nation to move on from the disaster that he prolonged (though he certainly didn’t put it that way). But it was in the “interest” of the white South to re-write the history of America.
That’s what we (I’m sixty-five) were taught in school, the “Lost Cause” history that somehow put the “romantic” Confederates on an equal footing with the “industrialized” Union. Sure we learned about the heroic Irish Brigades who fought in the War on both sides. But we were taught about the brilliant “strategery” of the Confederate Generals, and the life wasting butchery of the Union Generals. And we learned very little about the 179,000 African Americans of the Union Army who battled to free their brothers from slavery. Where are their statues?
Leave it to Beaver
“Heritage” is used to define what I would call the “Leave it to Beaver” time, of the 1950’s. It all seemed so peaceful, before the upheavals of Americans of color demanding equal rights. The good old days when everyone “knew their place”: women stayed at home, gays stayed in the closet, and people with disabilities stayed in the upstairs bedroom with the shades down.
Which leads us to the final “bugaboo” term: “Critical Race Theory”. No matter that critical race theory was a specific term used to define a study of legal processes at the post-graduate level, today it is now misused as the over-arching term for the “evil” of teaching that discrimination is wrong; that it benefitted and still benefits one race over another. Because, as Mr. Carlson would have it, we are to roll back the changes to “Leave it to Beaver” times. That way, we would make sure that “Legacy Americans” are protected, that their “Heritage” is saved, and that they aren’t “replaced”.
The end of the Reconstruction marked the end of the dream of an America where color didn’t matter. Yellow Journalism brought us an “imperialistic war”. And the Critical Word Theory of today is trying to divide our nation, and make it one of minority rule.
I was up early on Thanksgiving morning. “The dogs” don’t recognize Federal holidays, but I was ready to get going at six, anyway. It was Thanksgiving Day; there’s cleanup to do, turkeys to prepare (one for cooking, one for smoking), and tables to set. So getting out of bed wasn’t so hard. Besides, CeCe, the pit bull puppy, made no mistake about needing to go out. The harder I tried to sleep, the more she licked my face.
The morning news shows on Thanksgiving are usually a compilation of earlier shows. While the dogs don’t recognize Federal holidays, the crew at MSNBC definitely does. So there were lots of interviews that I usually wouldn’t pay much attention to. One was of a New York Times book essayist (I missed his name) who did a review of the 9-11 Commission Report, now twenty years after the attack.
9-11
There was lots of talk about the failures of America after 9-11: black sites, torture, loss of privacy with government intrusion and America’s failure to export democracy. But there was also a story (always looking for a good story), one that resonates on this day to gives thanks.
I’ve written about Flight 93 before, the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania near the little town of Shanksville. The memorials there are powerful, a fitting symbol of American determination and sacrifice. But this Thanksgiving morning I learned one more detail about what happened that Tuesday on Flight 93. The passengers, well aware of the earlier attacks on the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon, knew they were on a flying missile. And they chose to do something about it.
And before they charged the cockpit door, they did something wholly American. They took a vote. The passengers determined by democratic agreement to “do something” rather than ride the missile to its fate, probably the Capitol Building. Certainly they understood the likely outcome of their action. And they were even more aware of their fate if they did nothing. So they voted to act, to sacrifice, and to try to save America from another assault. Flight 93 hurtled upside down into a field near Shanksville at over five-hundred miles an hour. It was democracy in action.
Under the Rug
Wednesday, I witnessed another vote that renewed my faith in democracy. In Brunswick, Georgia, just north of the Florida border along the Atlantic coast, a jury of twelve citizens unanimously agreed that three white men could not chase down a black man and cause his death. It was a case that should have been a “no brainer”. One of the white men even videoed the final moments. But it also might have been swept under the rug.
The local District Attorney, a friend of one of the three, ordered the men not to be arrested. Before she recused herself, she made sure the next District Attorney would agree not to find cause for charges. Had an attorney of one defendant not “leaked” the video, charges would never have been brought. Perhaps the scariest part of this case: that lawyer leaked it because he thought the video justified the murder. In fact, it was the critical evidence proving the charges against the defendants.
No Defense
The defense made it clear where they stood. They called for black pastors to be banned from the courtroom, they denigrated the character and the physical appearance of the victim, they did everything they could to convince the jury that this “black man” was guilty – of something. This was a trial about race, about a black man jogging in a white neighborhood, and about three white men taking the law into their own hands. It was a case from the 1940’s or 50’s Jim Crow South. But in our current political climate, there is a looming question: where does America stand on race, guns, self-defense and vigilantism? Just look at the result of the Kenosha trial.
Eleven white and one black juror made their answer clear. For two days they deliberated, then reached a verdict in time to go home for Thanksgiving: guilty. The defendants were guilty of varying degrees of murder, guilty of false imprisonment, guilty of assault with their trucks. All three will spend most of their remaining lives in jail.
Thankful
Yesterday was Thanksgiving. I know that for some, Thanksgiving is symbolic of European mistreatment of the Native Americans. And there are many things in our history we should be sorry for. But there are also events we can be proud of.
We all know the story. The Pilgrims, fresh from a sixty-six day crossing of the Atlantic and two hundred miles off course, landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts. It was a harbor protected by the long arm of Cape Cod, stretching out into the sea. The arrived in September, too late to plant the crops they needed to survive the hard New England winter. So they suffered, surviving at the mercy of the local natives who helped provide them with food, and teach them how to gather the local plants, clams and lobsters.
Almost half of the 102 Pilgrims died in that first winter. But when spring arrived, they went to work, planting crops and building a more structured settlement. By the fall, they were prepared for the winter, and wanted to give thanks for the bounty of their harvest. They joined in celebration with the Native Americans who helped them survive that first long brutal winter. So it was in 1621 that the first “Thanksgiving” was celebrated in America, not just to give thanks to God, but to those Native Americans who helped them to survive.
National Holiday
That tradition lived on in the northern colonies. And days of Thanksgiving were proclaimed for other reasons. George Washington called for a national day of Thanksgiving after the ratification of the Constitution. Individual states had their own scheduled days of Thanksgiving, though it remained more of a regional than national tradition.
It wasn’t until 1827 that there was a movement for a “National Day of Thanksgiving”. Sarah Josepha Hale, a noted writer and magazine editor who authored “Mary had a little lamb”, began a thirty-six year campaign to convince the nation.
It took until 1863, in the middle of the Civil War, that she found a sympathetic ear with President Abraham Lincoln. He was searching for ways to keep the Union together. The War was a time of ultimate mutual sacrifice, as almost every American was directly impacted by the casualty lists from the battlefields.
And so Lincoln issued a proclamation, calling for a national “Day of Thanksgiving” on the last Thursday of November. The first “national” Thanksgiving was the week after Lincoln outlined the reasons for the Civil War in the Gettysburg Address. As he said, the nation fought so that “…a government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”. The holiday was another way he held the Union together while he worked to bring the Civil War to a successful conclusion. Even with the victories of Vicksburg and Gettysburg in the summer, that was still not a sure thing in November of 1863.
So Thanksgiving became a “National holiday”, ultimately in the South as well as the North. It was a celebration of thanks, but also of unity: a holiday we could all share, regardless of religion or race or region or creed.
Breaking Tradition
The great “tradition breaker” in American history was Franklin Roosevelt. He is the only President to ignore Washington’s precedent of serving no more than two terms as President (“Teach them how to say goodbye”). Roosevelt, elected at fifty years of age in 1932, was unwilling to leave as the country faced World War II in 1940, or while the War was still raging in 1945. And Roosevelt looked at other “traditions” as way to help the US economy, particularly during the 1930’s in the Great Depression.
Even in those stressed economic times, consumer buying went up significantly before Christmas. But the “Christmas Season” didn’t officially start until after Thanksgiving, the last Thursday in November, usually the last couple days of the month. The country knew exactly when that was: since 1924 the Macy’s Parade has been a wonderful commercial announcement of the beginning of Christmas. That’s why Santa Claus was at the end of the parade – time to start shopping.
Roosevelt wanted another week of consumerism, so he made one. He moved Thanksgiving up a week, to the third Thursday of November. While the nation accepted Roosevelt running for President for a third and even fourth term, they didn’t want him to “pack” the Supreme Court, and they definitely didn’t want him “messing” with Thanksgiving. In 1942, he bowed to public pressure and returned it to the fourth Thursday of November.
Thanksgiving Today
So here we are today, the day before Thanksgiving, 2021. We have much to be thankful for this year. The pandemic isn’t over, but we are learning how to live with it. For many there are empty chairs at the table due to Covid, just as there were empty chairs in 1863 and the 1940’s from the Wars. But Thanksgiving isn’t about loss, it’s about life. The Pilgrims could look forward to a winter better than the one before. Washington could look forward to a new nation, a new experiment in human experience. Lincoln could finally see a road to victory in the Civil War. And Roosevelt could get us to go shopping – for an extra week.
President Biden has already pardoned the turkeys, though not the two in our refrigerator. And he’s releasing oil from the strategic reserve to lower the burden of soaring gas prices. So there’s reason to be thankful this Thanksgiving as well.
But what we should really think about as we gather round our family tables tomorrow, is that there still is so much more that unifies our nation than divides it. For at least one day, we are all focused on the same subject: gathering our loved ones and sharing a meal. Regardless of our political differences, we can all share in that.
And if the turkey puts you to sleep, no worries. Close your eyes, the Bears and Lions football game really won’t be much of a contest. But save some turkey for the “Game” on Saturday, and the Bengals and Steelers on Sunday!!
In 1963 we were living in Clifton, a residential section of the City of Cincinnati. Mom and Dad had bought the house of “Mom’s Dreams”, an old English Tudor at 21 Belsaw Place. It was all old oaken beams and plaster board walls, set into the hillside. We didn’t have air conditioning, but a huge fan on the third floor pulled cool air up through the house in the summer.
There was a big open field next door, perfect for a second grader to gather friends and play, and a wood behind to explore that was the shortcut to my friends on the next street over. That house is still there, fifty-eight years later. The little tree we planted in the front yard is full grown now, and there’s a house built in the big field, and I’m sure air conditioning has been installed.
Clifton School
Clifton was a nice walking community. Our church was only a few blocks away on Clifton Avenue. And the school, the ancient Clifton Elementary building, was also within easy walking distance for a second grader. Rain, shine or snow, we walked to school, “uphill, both ways”. It wasn’t really, just an easy walk past the church and the big yards with Osage Orange trees. Those trees produce a “fruit”, the big green “hedge apples”. They were perfect for throwing at each other, or kicking down the sidewalk to school.
Clifton School was so old it there was a large fountain out front, for watering the horses the pulled the streetcars as they made their way down Clifton Avenue towards town. (No, I’m not that old, the horses were long gone even then). The more modern “Annex” was across the street from the old building, and that was “my school” for second and third grade. In fourth grade we would move over into the old building.
Kennedy
I was a President Kennedy fan even as a seven year-old. Mom had a direct connection to the Kennedy’s. She went to boarding school with Kathleen Kennedy, the President’s sister, who became part of the family tragedy when she died in a plane crash in 1948. So Mom was a huge Kennedy supporter, even as a British citizen, and I was wearing a Kennedy button at four years old in the 1960 election.
November 22nd, 1963 was a normal school day in Mrs. Meyer’s second grade class. But sometime after lunch, we became aware that something was up. The teachers kept slipping out to the hallway to talk to each other, and Mrs. Meyers had tears in her eyes when she came back in the room. She didn’t tell us what was going on, but soon the Principal came on the PA and announced that school was ending early, and we were going home.
Rumors flowed as we walked out of the building. I remember someone describing a huge monster that attacked Texas, though I didn’t take much stock in that. But clearly something had happened, and it was bad. They never let us out of school early.
Fighting Words
So I headed back home, up Clifton Avenue, along with the “regular” crew that lived along the way. One boy, a third grader, seemed to know “everything”. As we passed the Osage Orange trees with the hedge apples on the ground, he told us that President Kennedy was shot and dead. I didn’t believe him, and we argued as only a third and a second grader could. His third grade superiority was too much for me – I punched him in the nose. He ran off towards his house.
I was filled with righteous anger – how dare he lie about my hero, President Kennedy. As I walked up the steps to the front door, I was all ready to tell Mom how I defended him. But as I reached the top of the steps, the big wooden door opened. Mom was standing there, tears streaming down her face.
In Black and White
The next few days are a blur. We watched a lot of TV, black and white images of airplanes and crying people. The President’s body and Jackie and the new President Johnson were whisked out of Texas and back to Washington. And then there was the funeral, the lone horse, the boots reversed in the stirrups, behind a plain caisson with a flag covered casket. John-John, the President’s son just a couple of years younger than me, saluted the flag as it went by. And the final resting place in Arlington, the hats of the military laid carefully around a plain white cross.
The punch in the nose was forgotten.
Yesterday, Jenn and I were driving around, moving signs asking folks to look out for a lost dog. We pulled into a driveway to turn around, and the yard was covered with hedge apples. Memory is a funny thing – especially on November 22nd, fifty-eight years after President Kennedy was killed.
Eighteen year old Kyle Rittenhouse is free. He killed two and took another’s arm in those fateful few moments in Kenosha in August of 2020. This week a jury of the citizens of Kenosha, found him not guilty of felony manslaughter. We can’t know what the full reasoning of the jury was – but we can imagine that they accepted his attorney’s claim that Kyle was; “defending himself”. The doctrine of self-defense is one of the few ways our law justifies intentionally taking a life or maiming someone.
Kyle was not an innocent teenager, thrust into a situation fraught with danger. He intentionally placed himself there, armed with an AR-15 rifle. (By the way, the “AR” stands for Armalite, the first company to make this type of rifle, not “automatic rifle”. The AR-15 is not automatic, it is semi-automatic, and requires a trigger pull for each round fired).
Attracted to Danger
Kyle went to “protect property” from the “rioters”. He ended up in a car lot, and after shots were supposedly fired (not from Rittenhouse), one man came up and tried to take Kyle’s gun away from him. Kyle shot him four times.
After shooting the first man, Kyle ran for it, pursued by about a dozen people. He fell to the ground and was kicked in the head. He fired two shots at the “kicker”. Both missed. Kyle got back to his feet, and a man struck him on the shoulder with a skateboard and tried to take the rifle. Rittenhouse shot him in the chest, killing him. A fourth person approached with a handgun. Kyle shot him in the arm.
If Kyle had been in the hallway of his Illinois high school, Antioch Community, with that AR-15, the men who attempted to get his rifle would be hailed as heroes, and the seventeen year-old would be a “school shooter”. By virtue of the laws of neighboring Wisconsin, it was legal for him to be armed with a rifle on the streets, in the middle of “civil unrest”. And when it all came down, he wasn’t even placed in custody after the shootings. It wasn’t that the police didn’t know. They simply sent him on his way, after taking two lives and irrevocably changing a third. The Kenosha police perceived Kyle to be on “their side”.
Scared Boy
Eighteen year-old Kyle Rittenhouse is neither the horrific villain progressives paint him or the vaunted hero of the Second Amendment set. It is obvious that he was a scared teenager, a “boy in a man’s job”, who put himself in a situation he couldn’t handle. The boy who clearly saw the Marine advertisement: “we run towards danger when others run away”, saw himself as that heroic figure. But when courage was really needed, all Kyle could do was hide behind the AR 15 strapped to his chest (so it couldn’t be taken away).
There is no question that, once the shooting began, Kyle was in fear for his life, one of the fundamental tenets of “self-defense”. “Grown men” were trying to take away his gun, his shield, the symbol and tool of his assumed “heroic manhood”. The question the jury had to answer was when Kyle took on the adult responsibility of bearing arms in a time and place of civil disorder, did he somehow lose some of that self-defense protection. Those who backed him say that it’s common sense: he had a gun, he was in fear for his life, and he used the gun. He is not guilty, and those who tried to take his gun away from him assumed all the risk and responsibility. Their lives were forfeited by their own actions.
Assumed Responsibility
But that reasoning is simplistic (though it obviously worked with the jury). Again, if he were in the halls of Antioch Community High School there would have been no question that he did not have that right of self-defense. If he were in the process of committing another crime, say robbing a bank, again he can’t claim it. So the legal question was, does a self-appointed vigilante (in the defined sense – a civilian who takes on law enforcement duties without legal authority) have the same rights as a police officer might?
If Kyle had been a police officer, and someone tried to take away his gun, then we would all agree that the officer would have the “right” to protect it, and himself. But Kyle wasn’t a police officer, he was a “wannabe” police officer. And the police in Kenosha “on the streets” seemed to welcome Kyle and his vigilante friends to the scene. So how much responsibility do they bear?
And there is the mostly unspoken question of “white privilege”. Neither Rittenhouse, nor any of the people he shot, were people of color. But if we closed our eyes and saw Kyle as a Black seventeen year-old with that AR-15 strapped to his chest, would the outcome have been the same? Would the police have been so welcoming? I think we all can agree that things might have been very different.
Precedence
That Kyle Rittenhouse was found “not guilty” (of course that isn’t the same thing as innocent) doesn’t establish a legal “precedent”. The facts of the Kenosha event are narrowly defined, and local courts don’t set precedent anyway. The same fact pattern with a different prosecutor, judge and jury might well have had a different outcome. The real danger of the Rittenhouse trial is the perceived “precedent” it creates in the public mind. How many “vigilante” groups will appear in the next time of civil disorder? And if they start shooting – are they “school shooters” or “heroic helpers of authority”?
