Category Archives: history

A New Phase Has Begun

Posted on by
Reply

We haven’t heard anything like this since the Vietnam era protest songs.  Bruce Springsteen wrote a powerful protest song last weekend, recorded it at the start of this week, and it might be taking the Minnesota experience into a new socio-political realm.  It is hard for provocateurs to regain control when the public mood becomes part of a nation’s popular music culture, for music can be one of the greatest indicators of a generational shift in national attitude.

The song has the feel of the 60s because the momentum of the public mood in an increasing number of places is starting to be reminiscent of the early days of the Vietnam protests and the Civil Rights movement, a volatile combination that rewrote our country’s self-image. Will this song be the first of many protests songs of this generation?

Those who lived through those days can recognize that possibility. Today’s demonstrators are the children and the grandchildren of those who in the 1960s opposed military interventionism and advocated civil rights.

April will be the 61st anniversary of the first major antiwar rally, in Washington. It was there that Judy Collins sang a Bob Dylan song, “The Times They are A-Changin,’” followed by Joan Baez’s rendition of “We Shall Overcome,” the song considered the civil rights movement’s anthem.

English poet William Congreve wrote in 1697 that “Music can soothe the soul of the savage beast.”  It can. it also can motivate those standing against a savage beast.

For those who think Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” no longer fits the times, listen to Bruce Springsteen and “Streets of Minneapolis” the first major protest song or our times.

Bruce Springsteen – Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)

If you want to sing along, here are the lyrics. We apologize if they do not translate from our edit page to the post in proper verse order; our computer does odd things we don’t understand.  But you will be able to follow the lyrics as you sing along

[Verse 1]
Through the winter’s ice and cold  Down Nicolett Avenue A city aflame fought fire and ice ‘Neath an occupier’s boots  King Trump’s private army from the DHS Guns belted to their coats  Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law Or so their story goes

[Verse 2]
Against smoke and rubber bullets  In the dawn’s early light  Citizens stood for Justice Their voices ringing through the night
And there were bloody footprints
Where mercy should have stood
And two dead, left to die on snow-filled streets  Alex Pretti and Renee Good

[Chorus]
Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
We’ll take our stand for this land  And the stranger in our midst  Here in our home, they killed and roamed In the winter of ’26    We’ll remember the names of those who died  On the Streets of Minneapolis

[Verse 3]
Trump’s federal thugs beat up on
His face and his chest Then we heard the gunshots   And Alex Pretti lay in the snow dead. Their claim was self-defense, sir
Just don’t believe your eyes  It’s our blood and bones   And these whistles and phones  Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies

[Chorus]
Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Crying through the bloody mist
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

[Bridge]
Now they say they’re here to uphold the law
But they trample on our rights
If your skin is black or brown, my friend
You can be questioned or deported on sight
In our chants of “ICE out now”    Our city’s heart and soul persists  Through broken glass and bloody tears On the Streets of Minneapolis.

[Chorus]
Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
Here in our home, they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26    We’ll take our stand for this land   And the stranger in our midst
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis

[Outro]
ICE out (ICE out)
ICE out (ICE out)
ICE out (ICE out)
ICE out (ICE out)
ICE out (ICE out)
ICE out

(llyrics from genius.com)

What’s the Matter With Missouri? 

Posted on by
Reply

A century ago, Emporia Kansas newspaper editor William Allen White wrote an editorial called “What’s the Matter With Kansas,” a scathing column reacting to a populist takeover of Kansas government.

Here in Missouri, the pending loss of a third NFL team and the uncertainty about retention of one of our major league baseball teams, coupled with memories of other pro sports teams we’ve lost (two major league baseball teams and two NBA teams) have sparked some to think, “What’s the Matter with Missouri?

Let’s be clear at the outset of this discussion that there’s a lot that’s RIGHT about Missouri. There’s always something wrong about Missouri politically, depending on where you stand. But let’s not forget what is right as we look at what’s the matter with our state today.

One of Missouri’s biggest problem is that it’s too proud of our cheapness. Expecting the promotion that we are a low-tax state will produce steady economic development significant enough to make a major impact on our economy does not seem to be borne out by the realities.

If all of the tax cuts or eliminations we have seen in the past several years really worked, our metro areas would be economic giants in the Midwest. Our smaller cities would be centers for mid-corporate expansion and our even smallest communities might not be withering. Missouri would not be in danger of losing another seat in the U. S. House of Representatives, not because we are losing population (as is easy to say) but because other states are growing faster.

One of our biggest problems is that we are satisfied to be mediocre. But it can be argued that thinking economic growth springs from being a low tax state is questionable if low taxes are consistent with being the progressive state that excites potential investors.

US News’ most recent ranking of the states puts us 31st out of 50 in many categories. Our highest rankings are in fiscal stability and “opportunity,” where we are 11th (more on that in a minute).  We’re 18th in natural environment. Our economy ranks 25th.   After that—well…..

33rd in education

37th in infrastructure

43rd in health care

43rd in crime and corrections.

39th in teacher salaries, according to the MNEA.

World Health Review says we are among the states with the highest rates of homelessness—one dismaying factor that describes our economy, the numbers increasing 22% in the last five years, 39% more than in 2013 and 78% more than in 2018. People don’t flock to Missouri to become homeless.  This is a home-grown problem that includes many people with mental health issues. Speaking of which—

Mental Health America uses seventeen criteria to rank us 36th  in mental health and well-being—40th among adults.

Digging deeper into “opportunity,” US News ranks us 14th in equality and in affordability. But we are only 34th in economic opportunity.  And what does that mean? “It takes into account a state’s poverty rate, prevalence of food insecurity, and median household income as wellas he level of income inequality among residents… These four comprehensive metrics are indicators of more than just economic opportunity in a given state; they intersect with employment, stability and health – affecting the quality of life of a state’s population,” says the survey.

In health care, we are 28th in low obesity rate, 34th in low suicide rate, 39th in public health, 39th in low infant mortality rate and overall mortality rate and 44th in low smoking rate.

We don’t want to drag this out so we’ll let you read the 50 states report by US News and you can explore why its surveys do not rank us better.  Best States | U.S. News State Rankings and Analysis

States are far more than their sports teams. Once we look beyond the glitz and glamour of the coliseum and look at what should make us a great place to live, we find a grittier and less attractive view. To think that the things that drag us down will be improved by reducing the financial ability to lift them up seems to this layman’s eyes false economy.

We cannot escape the shortcomings that short-change ourselves if our big selling point is that we have low taxes. The exciting visuals of sports teams quickly fade when people look at the quality of real life and that quality is not improved by continued diminution of resources to improve it.

This is a campaign year and, of course, a tax cut is a favorite way of pleasing voters. Candidates, however, might want to focus on how income tax elimination will make Missouri better than 31st and how it will elevate our low standing in personal categories and whether paying sales taxes on a plumber’s visit makes us a place to which significant numbers of people and businesses want to move. Sooner or later, it will become clear that our drive to be a state known for its tight-fistedness won’t perform much economic magic.

Useless arguments about “tax and spend liberals” versus “don’t tax and can’t spend conservatives” won’t solve what’s wrong with Missouri, and as great as our state is in float streams and tourist attractions, there’s plenty the matter with it that we can overcome if all of us recognize that WE are responsible for being 31st or 43rd or—-pick a number as long as it’s in the 30s or 40s.

The first gubernatorial inauguration I covered was that of Warren Hearnes when he became the first Missouri governor elected to two consecutive four-year terms. He said on that clear but chilly January day, “To do and be better is a goal few achieve. To do it, we are required to make sacrifices—not in the sense of shedding our blood or giving our lives or the lives of those we love,  but sacrifice in the sense of giving of a part of those material things which we enjoy in abundance. A great people will sacrifice part of that with which they have been blessed in order that their children might be better educated, their less fortunate more fortunate, their health better health, their state a better state.”

What’s the matter with Missouri?  When have any of our recent leaders laid down this kind of challenge to all of us?  Would we accept it if they did?

Failure to issue that challenge….and a failure to respond to it is what’s the matter with Missouri.

Notes from the Minnesota War Zone II

Posted on by
Reply

A warning—do not rise to the bait. Unfortunately, a lot of people didn’t get the memo.  They sent their own message.

This memo was sent to at least some state employees and people at the University of Minnesota last Thursday.

The Cedar Riverside area of Minneapolis is described as a historic “point of entry for immigrants since Swedes, Germans, and Bohemians began arriving in large numbers during the late 19th century.” Today it is sometimes called “Little Mogadishu” because it has become the largest concentration of Somali-born residents in the twin cities.

A key figure in the anti-Muslim protest was Jake Lang, a January 6th participant who served four years in prison before President Trump pardoned him. Some of his rally colleagues dragged him away from the scene at Minneapolis City Hall, bleeding from the back of his head.

Reports indicate he was leading the Americans Against Islamification’s “Crusader March on ‘Little Somalia.’” One report says he intended to burn a copy of the Quran during the rally. Lang was dragged away to safety by one of his group after about ninety minutes of yelling back and forth and when the chaos that he sought to stoke went after him.

Another report says a member of the group was chased into a parking garage and struck with a flagpole. During the chaos, one of those protesting the presence of Lang’s group noticed the man was bleeding from a head wound and was heard shouting into a megaphone, “This guy needs medical help. He needs mental help. The bleeding is natural for Nazis, but he needs mental help.” When another woman, a protestor, asked the man if he needed help, he replied, “No, I’m good. Thank you, though. I appreciate you.”

It’s not clear if the two reports are referring to Lang or if there was a second man. Later, Lang texted on X from a hospital that he “was just literally LYNCHED by anti-white mob of liberal and illegal immigrants…PRESIDENT TRUMP SEND IN THE NATIONAL GUARD They are lynching White Christian Americans!!!!!”

Some will say he asked for what he got. Some who have studied contemporary accounts of lynchings will say that what happened to him is nowhere near a lynching.  And some will question whether there is anything at all Christian in his words and actions and President Trump’s roundup up of Somalis there.   .

On one hand, the worst thing that can happen is for people to give the Langs of our country the attention and reaction they provoke. On the other hand, what happened at that rally is a clear statement that good people will not stand for Trump’s ongoing ethnic cleansing campaign.

We aren’t in Minneapolis but we all should wonder how we would react if it was OUR city and OUR state being put through these experiences because they didn’t vote for Trump and don’t kiss his political ring.

Sometime the best protest is a silent, glowering presence, bristling with danger for the provocateurs but not giving them the violence they want.

But it’s easy to say that when it’s not your city and it’s not your people, your neighbors, who are endangered by someone who is really, just a petty, pitiful vengeful little man who misguidedly believes he is more than just a President of the United States.

—when he is, in fact, so much less a President and a man, and a disgrace to the office.

Obituary for a Politician

Posted on by
Reply

In 1968, Nancy and I were in Sacramento, California where our friend from college, Tracy Wood, was a United Press Reporter in the Capitol.  We went with her to a news conference with Governor Ronald Reagan.  No credentials. No security checks. We just walked with her into the room.

She took us on a tour of the Capitol which, though big with a genuine gold dome, was not nearly as impressive as ours. We went into the House of Representatives that recently had been redecorated and told us House Speaker Jesse Unruh’s first impression if it was, “It looks like a French whorehouse.”

Jesse Unruh already was something of a political legend in California, the kind of political figure I wish we had today here and in Washington. Compared to Unruh, we live in a political world where genuine almost-larger-than-life figures are replaced by bland, small and often self-important individuals who tell us they will fight for us but instead are just throwers of sand in the political sandbox.

I was looking up Unruh’s most famous quotation about lobbyists a few days ago and I came across the Washington Post’s obituary for Unruh that made us wish for an era we are old enough to remember—when politics was properly passionate in the proper places, where it seems heavyweights fought over issues in the chambers and laughed over dinner at a restaurant.

It is discourteous, it is said, to speak ill of the dead but in this era there are a number of candidates for whom we might not speak well. His is the kind of obituary for a politician we are not likely to see when the final gavel falls for too many of this generation:

Washington Post

JESSE UNRUH A ‘BIG DADDY’ WHO GAVE POLITICS AND POWER A BEAR HUG

By Lou Cannon, Washington Post  August 5, 1987

When Jesse Unruh arrived in Sacramento 32 years ago as an overweight, underpaid state assemblyman, he became part of a legislature that was largely of the lobbyists, by the lobbyists and for the lobbyists.

The history books will say that Unruh, who died of cancer Tuesday in his California home at the age of 64, took money from these lobbyists and used it to elect legislators who made him, as speaker of the Assembly, the most powerful politician in California. The historians will also say that Unruh used this power to transform a supine and dependent legislative body into one that had a decent respect for the people and sufficient resources to represent them. They will say that the Unruh era was a time when the legislature initiated action to help the needy, protect consumers, advance civil rights and save some of California’s magnificent parklands before developers could destroy them.

During the Unruh years, these achievements were overshadowed by the forceful personality and gargantuan appetites of “Big Daddy,” a nickname given him by his friends and hurled back in his face by his enemies.

He was called “Big Daddy” because of his supposed resemblance to the domineering southern father played by Burl Ives in the film version of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.” But Unruh really was more Broderick Crawford than Ives, the Crawford who portrays a thinly disguised Huey Long in “All the King’s Men” and rallies the rural dispossessed to his banner by calling them “hicks” and promising them a taste of the power they have never had.

When Unruh went to the legislature, he was a real hick from the cotton fields of Swenson, Tex., by way of the Navy and a GI Bill of Rights education at the University of Southern California. He had been dirt poor, and he once said that he never wore socks before he was 12 but that no one could tell because his feet were so dirty.

” . . . They live in a steady shame and insult of discomforts, insecurities and, inferiorities, piecing these together into whatever semblance of comfortable living they can,” James Agee wrote of similar sharecroppers. This is what Unruh’s life was like as a boy and, in some inner recess, what it must always have been like. After he became, at 39, the youngest speaker of the Assembly in California’s history, he told a friend, “I’m still not sure I’m not going to wake up some day and be on a small farm out there in Texas.”

Perhaps because he knew what it was like to be truly powerless, Unruh had a keener appreciation of power than more sheltered politicians. “He was the premier politician in the state because he knew the issues and understood the uses of power,” said Stuart K. Spencer, a longtime Republican adversary and friend. “He used power to advance the causes he believed in. He was very honest and didn’t go sneaking around when he wanted money like some politicians do. But the key was that he was willing to use the power once he acquired it.”

Unruh’s Democratic candidates and Spencer’s Republican candidates competed for the legislature in campaigns of brutal intensity and misrepresentation. Afterward, they would drink together and tell stories about what they had done to each other. Unruh did not avoid his adversaries, and he valued most those who shared his understanding that politics was both a noble calling and a dirty business.

Unruh was not afraid to get his hands dirty. He despised those who disdained political detail or soared above the petty and sometimes ugly struggles by which he remade the State Assembly. Unruh boasted too much and ate too much and, for a long time, drank too much. But he did not shrink from the reality of his faults or his virtues.

Instructing freshman assemblymen on how legislators were supposed to behave in lobby-ridden Sacramento, Unruh would say, “If you can’t eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women and then vote against them, you have no business being up here.” This doctrine formed the core of Unruh’s political theology. He knew that the lobbyists were an eternal fact of life. He believed that the way to deal with them was to accept this fact and use their resources to advance his own agenda.

He did not deal as successfully with Ronald Reagan as he had with the lobbyists. Unruh was too proud of his political skills to appreciate the contempt which many Americans hold for politicians as a class. Gov. Reagan, who did not know the contents of his own legislative program, understood and shared this prejudice and exploited it at Unruh’s expense.

But it is also true that Unruh, who was at bottom an unrelenting, populist Democrat with a personal understanding of poverty, gave Reagan a tougher political race than any other Democrat has before or since. You can look it up, as Casey Stengel would have said. Without money or organization or an attractive television personality, Unruh nonetheless came much closer to defeating Reagan at the polls than did Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown, President Jimmy Carter or Vice President Walter F. Mondale.

After Unruh lost to Reagan in 1970, his political life went downhill. He was strong enough to accept defeat, but he was unable to deal with powerlessness and being out of the legislature. As an elder statesman, he was a bust.

Unruh subsequently was elected state treasurer, a job whose requirements he mastered within minutes and which gave him time and freedom. But his home was no longer in the future, and he spent the rest of his life recalling the glory days when he had been “Big Daddy,” the powerful speaker of the Assembly.

He had a right to do that, a right to feel pride in his accomplishments. He did something that no else has ever done. He went to California as a Texas hick and remade its corrupt and backward-looking legislature into a modern instrument of democracy. This is not a small thing.

Oh, how I would like to see those words about eating, drinking, etc., and voting against them on the wall of every legislative office in our Capitol.  I’ll bet a craftsman in Jefferson City could sell of lot of ‘em.  Maybe they would provoke some cultural change.

 

On the Minneapolis Front Lines

Posted on by
Reply

Minnesota—a state of Lutherans, loons, lutefisk, and Lake Wobegon—is suddenly a war zone.  To hear the Trump administration describe it, it is filled with dangerous Somali fraudsters, and as HHS Secretary Kristi Noem put it, a “domestic terrorist” got what she deserved, a woman that Vice-President Vance claimed was influenced by a vaporous “left wing network,” and that President Trump accused of “violently, willfully, and viciously” running over ICE agent Jonathan Ross—characterizations all quickly issued with absolutely no knowledge of what happened to Renee Nicole Good, a recent Kansas City resident who had moved to Minneapolis about a year ago. Her wife, Rebecca, said in a statement, “We were raising our son to believe that no matter where you come from or what you look like, all of us deserve compassion and kindness.”

A recent editorial by the Wall Street Journal disputed the fulminations from Trump, Noem, Nance and their associates: “Minnesota’s Fraud Problem Isn’t Immigrants: It’s the vast size of the welfare state that corrupts them,” suggesting that generous benefits and numerous programs so large that comprehensive oversight is rendered impossible create opportunities for fraudsters. The Journal blamed both political parties for the situation.

When we were organizing the Missourinet in 1974, the first person I wanted on the my news staff was Jeff Smith who had worked with me at the now defunct KLIK radio station in Jefferson City right after he left Indiana University. Jeff was a terrific reporter whose career path took him into marketing and management. He and his wife Denny remain among our most cherished friends.

Jeff retired as a VP with Northwest Airlines and now is heavily engaged in non-profit work in Minneapolis. Among his colleagues are Somalis. Last week, just as the significance of the killing of Renee Good was starting to sink in, I asked Jeff and Denny to share some of their thoughts. Denny in particular has an interesting perspective on the immigrant situation, which became the focus of their comments.

Here is what they sent:

ICE Storm in Minnesota –

from Jeff and Denise (Denny) Smith

Four days ago, as we write this, Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. Depending on which account you believe, she was either a hero or a domestic terrorist. There’s no doubt that the event sparked a storm of outrage on our cold, wet streets.

Unfortunately, we may never get a neutral account of what happened. The Federal government is acting as the sole investigator following its role as executioner. It’s the latest trauma our community has endured in the last seven months, including a fatal school shooting and the assassination of a State Representative.

Renee Good’s death is an outcome of the Trump administration’s decision to send more than 2,000 ICE and Border Patrol agents to Minnesota. Trump is clearly ratcheting up his determination to punish Minnesota for being blue.

As a white woman, born in the U.S., Renee Good wasn’t the chief target of these agents’ attention. Those would be people who are brown or black.

Minnesota has been home to us for forty years, since we migrated from Missouri for a career opportunity. Thank God we didn’t move from Mogadishu. If we had migrated from Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, we now would be labeled “garbage” by President Trump. If we wore a hijab or had brown skin, we would likely be afraid to leave our home, fearing an ICE agent’s impulsive imprisonment.

Somalis in Minnesota are neighbors and co-workers. They comprise the largest population outside of Mogadishu and our communities depend on them every day. Somali Americans have become integral parts of all aspects of a diverse Minnesota that ranks in the top ten states for health, education, our business environment and other measures.

Quoting the Sahan Journal, a local newspaper serving Somalis, “The vast majority of Somalis here and across the United States are U.S. citizens, and most who are not have legal permanent residency.” Among many professions, they provide needed services for people at Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport. They care for older adults living in our communities for seniors. They work in our food processing plants. But, according to Trump, they’re not “legitimate” Americans.

By that definition, most likely, neither are you.

Only indigenous Americans have non-immigrant roots. The Twin Cities are home to more than 8,000 tribal members. But that population also does not feel safe. Last week, ICE detained four members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe because they could not provide proof of citizenship. They were unhoused and living under a bridge.

And they are not white.

Unless you are a Native American, you too are connected to an immigrant. Did your forebearers come from Poland, or Ireland, or Italy or, involuntarily, from Africa? If so, your ancestors knew what it’s like to be labeled “garbage,” or worse.

As a second-generation Sicilian, Denny’s grandparents and their families were vilified by white Americans as the new “Niggers” and were recruited to replace black cotton field workers during the great migration north by southern former slaves.

There’s always the “other” and they usually have dark skin.

We acknowledge that a few Somali Americans are at the center of the documented fraud in some Minnesota social service agencies. However, we trust that the fraudsters will receive swift justice and that the bureaucrats who allowed it will be held responsible.

We are alarmed by the Trump administration’s broad-brush judgements, especially of non-white Americans. We should not be so quick to judge entire populations. We should not be so quick to judge, period.

Our move introduced us to a region shaped by both harsh winters and remarkable cultural diversity.  Over the decades, we’ve witnessed how new waves of immigrants, from all corners of the globe, have been welcomed to the fabric of Minnesota, bringing fresh perspectives, food, traditions, and resilience. This blend of backgrounds has enriched our state and broadened our understanding of the world.

We’re glad we migrated to Minnesota and we pray for our city.

0-0-0-0-0-0

For the record: Native Americans were not recognized as general citizens of this country, not even by the Fourteenth Amendment,  until June 2, 1924 but were not guaranteed the right to vote in every state until 1948.

It’s important to hear from people such as you and me in America’s occupied areas—-because ICE is among us, too. And so are immigrants.

The death of Renee Good is a case filled with complications and Minnesota authorities are not ceding the investigation and prosecution of the case to Trump’s FBI or any other federal agency whose trustworthiness is as limited as our President’s honesty.

But the basic point to remember is this:  The “domestic terrorists” in Minneapolis are the ones sent there by President Trump to punish a state that is not in his political column. His justification that people from those places he calls a “sh—hole countries” are committing massive fraud is a blatant slander of thousands of good people and a craven excuse for his abuse of power.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board disputes Trump’s singling out of Minnesota and its Somali immigrants: “Minnesota’s Fraud Problem Isn’t Immigrants: It’s the vast size of the welfare state that corrupts them—not immigrants or a particular culture.” Others have noted the billions of dollars poured into Pandemic relief programs have led to massive systemic nationwide fraud, suggesting that Trump’s singling out Minnesota and its Somali residents for military intervention is far beyond the limits of reality.

None of us deserves what is happening in Minneapolis and in too many other places in our country today. As Renee Good put it, “No matter where you come from or what you look like, all of us deserve compassion and kindness.”

Compassion and kindness are two of the many things grievously missing in our national dialogue and particularly from our national leadership.

Maybe we’ll ask Jeff and Denny to report from the front lines of our president’s war on his own country again as the ICE campaign and the killing of a 37-year old poet simmer in this frigid time.

We All Know What Tomorrow Is

Posted on by
Reply

How can we forget?

I had been asked to keep a pandemic journal because we had no personal journals from the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic that told how people survived day by day during that scary time. We share some of those times because there was, at the start, no known medicine to treat whatever it was, and—as was the case with the misnamed Sanish Flu (it could have been the Kansas Flu)—the first advice was to mask up, stay indoors, close public gathering places such as bars, restaurants, churches, etc.

I was working on my Journal on January 5, 2021, watching video of the Trump rally that was becoming more dangerous with every lie that he told. I was not very forgiving of him for years before and I will never forgive him for this day. He remains the most despicable person in public or private life I have ever run across.  I added some photos to the entry as they became available and a text of Trump’s incitement to riot a couple of days later so journal reader a century from now (or longer, of course, I hope) will know how our country survived a pandemic but darned near didn’t survive Donald Trump—the first time. As long as there is a United States of America it will be a national shame that he was elected again, and more and more people are understanding that now. Here is how I watched in horror—as I hope you did—what happened that day. Wednesday, January 6, 2021

0-0-0-0-0

I begin this entry at 1:50 p.m. while watching something happen in Washington that neither I nor my citizen ancestors going back to the days of Washington, Jefferson, and even earlier founders could have imagined—thousands of supporters of our president, egged on by him in an hour-long tirade near the White House—have laid siege to the United States Capitol, interrupting the debate on certifying results of the Electoral College. I am watching FOX, the network that has been uncomfortably friendly with our president for years, as some demonstrators are trying to break through the doors into the House of Representatives.

Reporters just said law enforcement officers are guarding the doors with guns drawn, and another of the reports said moments ago that he’s been getting text messages from ambassadors saying this country would be highly critical of other countries if anything such as this happened there.

What we are seeing is appalling.  One observer calls it “a breakdown of the constitutional process.”  It’s the most significant incursion inside our Capitol since the British attack in 1814.  There is no doubt our president stoked this outrage and has been doing it for months, years. This morning, he and his children and other supporters had a rally near the White House.  His son, Donald Junior—who hopes to become the next national chairman of the Republican Party—told the crowd that their presence should tell mainline Republicans their day is past. “It should be a message to all Republicans who have not been willing to actually fight, the people who did nothing to stop the steal. This gathering should send a message to them: This isn’t their Republican Party anymore. This is Donald Trump’s Republican Party. We’re going to try and give our Republicans the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country.”  Then his father ranted for about 90 minutes, speaking to a crowd he had been begging for several days to show up in Washington today.  He urged the protestors to go to the capitol.

They did and about an hour after Congress started the process and started dealing with the first protest—of the Arizona results the House and Senate suddenly adjourned.  When I saw that happen (on C-SPAN) I switched to CNN and then to FOX because I suspected there was trouble developing.

FOX reporters are as stunned as anybody on the other (less Trumpish) networks by what is unfolding in front of them. Others got into the hallways and office areas.

Protestors get into the capitol and are shown on video walking through Statuary Hall.

One reporter on Pennsylvania Avenue just reported things are becoming increasingly violent in the streets. Senators and Representatives are locked in their offices. The Vice-President, who was presiding over the joint session, has been evacuated.  The President apparently is in the oval office where he earlier sent a Tweet criticizing the VP for lacking courage to overturn the election results today.  That was after VP Pence told members of Congress he would not try to singlehandedly throw out electoral votes. He had sent a letter to all members of Congress saying, “It is my considered judgment that my oath to support and defend the Constitution constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.”

A few minutes ago he tweeted, “Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our country. Stay Peaceful!”

One senator just tweeted a picture of protestors in the Senate Chamber.

The Mayor of Washington has instituted a 6 p.m. curfew.

So far, Josh Hawley has been silent—and he’s one of those who lit this fire several days ago when he announced he would challenge the election results. He was later joined by a dozen others, and the president who “rallied” his supporters in Georgia Monday and who encouraged demonstrators this morning to march on the Capitol.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, interviewed on FOX “cannot be sadder or more disappointed. This is not the American Way. I’m with capitol police; I’ve heard on the radio shots have been fired.”   (we later learned a woman had been shot, apparently while with the crowd trying to break into the House chamber.) “This is Un-American, what’s going on.” He called on Trump to make a statement.  The president sent out a Tweet shortly after that, about 2:15: “I am asking everyone at the U. S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No Violence! Remember WE are the Party of Law & Order—respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!”

About the same time, Brett Baier on FOX reported Speaker Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had asked that the National Guard be deployed to clear the protestors.

2:30—FOX shows protestors breaking windows and climbing into the building.

Fox at 2:50 showed a photograph of a demonstrator sitting in the chair in Nancy Pelosi’s office.

The New York Times reported later that night that he’s from Arkansas, Matthew Rosenberg, who left a quarter on the desk and took a personalized envelope from the office. And he could be in very bad trouble. His Congressman, Steve Womack, tweeted about him, “I’m sickened to learn that the…actions were perpetrated by a constituent. It’s an embarrassment to the people of the Third District and does not reflect our values. He must be held accountable and face the fullest extent of the law. This isn’t the American or Arkansas way.”  And Arkansas Senator Jim Hendren tweeted “Don’t know this guy, but he needs to go to jail.”

Another photo shows a demonstrator sitting in the Senate President’s chair.

Haven’t seen an I-D of this creep yet.

(all Photos in this post are from Google Images)

2:52—Pelosi and Shumer call on president to go on the air and call on protestors to leave.

2:55—DOD mobilizes troops.  A barrier will be set up around the capitol, crowd to be cleared out. And a tight lockdown will be put in place.

2:20—FOX reports at least one person has been shot.

2:20—senate secured and demonstrators are being pushed out of the second and third floors of the rotunda.

3:05—President-elect Biden goes on the air.  He began, “At this hour, our democracy is under unprecedented assault, unlike anything we’ve seen in modern times. Let me be very clear: The scenes of chaos at the Capitol do not reflect the true America, do not represent who we are. I’m genuinely shocked and saddened that our nation, so long a beacon of hope and light for democracy, has come to such a dark moment. America’s about honor, decency, respect, tolerance. That’s who we are. That’s who we’ve always been.”

He demanded the president call on his supporters to end an “unprecedented assault” on democracy. “I call on President Trump to go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the Constitution and demand an end to this siege.”  He urged the protestors to end their occupation of the House and Senate and blamed today’s violence on Trumps refusal to accept defeat. “At their best, the words of a president can inspire. At their worst, they can incite…This is not dissent. It’s disorder. It’s chaos. It borders on sedition, and it must end now. I call on this mob to pull back and allow the work of democracy to go forward.” He finished, “President Trump, step up.”

A few minutes later the White House released a taped message from Trump encouraging people to go home—-but most of his 61-second message was a whine about the election:

“I know your pain, I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us, it was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side.  But you have to go home now, we have to have peace. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order we have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt. It’s a very tough period of time. There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us from me from you from our country. This was a fraudulent election. But we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You’re very special. You’ve seen what happens, you see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home and go home and peace.”

We love you. You’re very special. ??????  No condemnation, no criticism.  Whine and pat these domestic terrorists you have encouraged on the heads and tell them to go home.

3:40—FOX shows video of woman shot in the capitol. She’s reported critical at a hospital. This is the only reported shot fired and only reported person injured.

It’s dusk in Washington now and reporters and city officials are worried about what will happen tonight, despite the curfew.  The Mayor and metropolitan police have announced anybody on capitol grounds after 6 p.m. will be arrested.

4:15: Rep. Steve Scalise says he hopes to get the capitol open and continue the debates tonight. Some other members reportedly feel the same way but we haven’t heard from the Congressional leadership yet.

At some point in all of this, this afternoon, the networks proclaimed John Osoff had won the Georgia Senate election although the margin is so thin that a recount is likely. He’s 33 and will be the youngest member of the Senate although not the youngest person elected. That honor goes to Joseph Biden.

About 4:55 it was announced that police think the capitol is secure again.

About an hour ago, Hawley tweeted: Thank you to the brave law enforcement officials who have put their lives on the line. The violence must end, those who attacked police and broke the law must be prosecuted, and Congress must get back to work and finish its job.

He drew three quick responses:

Samuel George

Sir – you inflicted this by rejecting the vote of the people

Your name will always be associated with today. Cool legacy.

Alex Rozar

This was your doing.

Former President George W. Bush released a statement late this afternoon “A statement on the insurrection at the Capitol,” a pretty plainspoken comment.  It’s especially impactful because he has seldom spoken about things since leaving the White House—as past presidents traditionally have done.  But there’s no love lost between the Bush family and Trump.

“Laura and I are watching the scenes of mayhem unfolding at the seat of our Nation’s government in disbelief and dismay. It is a sickening and heartbreaking sight. This is how election results are disputed in a banana republic — not our democratic republic.

“I am appalled by the reckless behavior of some political leaders since the election and by the lack of respect shown today for our institutions, our traditions, and our law enforcement. The violent assault on the Capitol — and disruption of a Constitutionally-mandated meeting of Congress — was undertaken by people whose passions have been inflamed by falsehoods and false hopes.

“Insurrection could do grave damage to our Nation and reputation. In the United States of America, it is the fundamental responsibility of every patriotic citizen to support the rule of law. To those who are disappointed in the results of the election: Our country is more important than the politics of the moment. Let the officials elected by the people fulfill their duties and represent our voices in peace and safety.

 “May God continue to bless the United States of America.”

 Former President Clinton: “Today we faced an unprecedented assault on our Capitol, our Constitution, and our country. The assault was fueled by more than four years of poison politics spreading deliberate misinformation, sowing distrust in our system, and pitting Americans against one another. The match was lit by Donald Trump and his most ardent enablers, including many in Congress, to overturn the results of an election he lost.”

Former President Obama: “History will rightly remember today’s violence at the Capitol, incited by a sitting president who has continued to baselessly lie about the outcome of a lawful election, as a moment of great dishonor and shame for our nation. But we’d be kidding ourselves if we treated it as a total surprise. Right now, Republican leaders have a choice made clear in the desecrated chambers of democracy. They can continue down this road and keep stoking the raging fires. Or they can choose reality and take the first steps toward extinguishing the flames. They can choose America.

“I’ve been heartened to see many members of the President’s party speak up forcefully today. Their voices add to the examples of Republican state and local election officials in states like Georgia who’ve refused to be intimidated and have discharged their duties honorably. We need more leaders like these — right now and in the days, weeks, and months ahead as President-Elect Biden works to restore a common purpose to our politics. It’s up to all of us as Americans, regardless of party, to support him in that goal.”

Jimmy Carter: “This is a national tragedy and is not who we are as a nation. Having observed elections in troubled democracies worldwide, I know that we the people can unite to walk back from this precipice to peacefully uphold the laws of our nation, and we must. We join our fellow citizens in praying for a peaceful resolution so our nation can heal and complete the transfer of power as we have for more than two centuries.”

Twitter has shut down our president’s access for 12 hours because of a message he put out this afternoon.  Facebook took down his “We love you” video and has banned him for 24 hours.

The Kansas City Star tomorrow morning available on line this evening:

“No one other than President Donald Trump himself is more responsible for Wednesday’s coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol than one Joshua David Hawley, the 41-year old junior senator from Missouri, who put out a fundraising appeal while the siege was underway.  

“This, Sen. Hawley, is what law-breaking and destruction look like. This is what mobs do. This is not a protest, but a riot. One woman was shot and has died, The Washington Post reported, while lawmakers were sheltering in place.

“No longer can it be asked, as George Will did recently of Hawley, “Has there ever been such a high ration of ambition to accomplishment?” Hawley’s actions in the last week had such impact that he deserves an impressive share of the blame for the blood that’s been shed.

“Hawley was first to say that he would oppose the certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College win. That action, motivated by ambition, set off much that followed — the rush of his fellow presidential aspirant Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and other members of the Sedition Caucus to put a show of loyalty to the president above all else.

“After mayhem broke out, Hawley put out this uncharacteristically brief statement: “Thank you to the brave law enforcement officials who have put their lives on the line. The violence must end, those who attacked police and broke the law must be prosecuted, and Congress must get back to work and finish its job.” So modest, Senator, failing to note your key role in inspiring one of the most heartbreaking days in modern American history. We lost something precious on Wednesday, as condolence notes to our democracy from our friends around the world recognize.

“Among those Hawley got to emulate him was Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall, whose very first act as a member of the world’s greatest deliberative body was to sell out his country by attempting to overturn the outcome of a legitimate election.

“This revolt is the result, and if you didn’t know this is where we’ve been headed from the start, it’s because you didn’t want to know.”

“’The Frankenstein just tore down the doors to the palace,” U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat from Missouri, told The Star. Which happened because, as he said, “One-third of the nation has bought into a bald-faced lie, and they are living in a fact-free America.’

“’I’m currently safe and sheltering in place while we wait to receive further instruction from Capitol Police,’ tweeted U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, a Democrat from Kansas. ‘Today is a dark day for our country. It’s unacceptable that we have a President who has repeatedly condoned and even encouraged this despicable behavior. It must stop.’”

“We’ll say again what Davids is too polite to say: Trump did not manage this madness on his own. Far from it.

REPUBLICANS KNEW TRUMP’S FRAUD CLAIMS WERE BOGUS

“Just before the putsch began, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said sadly that we need to once again work from an agreed upon set of facts. Only now has he noticed that lying to the public on a daily basis poisons democracy.

“People have taken this too far,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said on Fox News. Until he had to run for cover, McCarthy was fine with this sick stunt.

“U.S. Rep. Andy Barr, a Republican from Kentucky, said in a statement, ‘Today’s events at the U.S. Capitol are tragic, outrageous, and devastating. They are wholly inconsistent with the values of our constitutional Republic.’

“Yes, they are. But they are wholly consistent with Trump’s calls to overturn this election to address nonexistent fraud. And they are wholly predictable, given the willingness of most Republicans to repeat these baseless claims.

“When we wrote that Hawley’s actions were dangerous — and that those of Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt and others were too, in their pretending for far too long that the election wasn’t over — some readers found that absurd. ‘Oh my goodness, how will democracy and our country survive?’ one reader wrote in sarcasm. ‘How will Biden possibly govern? The Star editorial board’s hysteria over nothing is approaching CNN levels.’

“No doubt plenty of Americans will see even this free-for-all in the temple of democracy as defensible. And those of you who have excused all of the brazen lawlessness of this administration can take a little bit of credit for these events, too. They couldn’t have done it without you.

“Hawley, Marshall and other Republicans who upheld Trump’s con about widespread fraud knew all along that his claims were bogus. Now that they’ve seen exactly where those lies have landed us, decency demands that they try to prevent further violence by making clear that Joe Biden did not win by cheating. Please, gentlemen, surprise us.”

(Hawley gestures to the demonstrators this morning as he goes into the Capitol.)

About 9:30 tonight the Senate defeated the challenge to Arizona’s electoral votes 6-93 as several of the original protesting Senators withdrew their support of the challenge after today’s actions.

A TV station in San Diego (KUSI) says it has confirmed the identity of the woman who was shot to death inside the capitol.  It says she’s Ashli Babbit, a USAF 14-year veteran who did four tours overseas. The French news agency, AFP, said tonight that Babbit tweeted yesterday about those going to Washington for the rally, “Nothing will stop us….they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours….dark to light!”,

I had said right after the election that one of my greatest concerns was how much damage Trump could do before he left.  I’ve written a couple of pretty harsh blog pieces (the most recent one was Monday) about him.  I can’t say I was surprised by what happened today—I was surprised by the scope of the events but not that there was mob violence based on his encouragement of it. Now, with two weeks to go before he departs the White House, there are some concerns being voice in tonight’s news coverage about this deranged man with his finger on the nuclear trigger remaining in his job for those 14 days.

Tonight (it’s 10:15 p.m.) there’s talk about whether steps need to be taken under the 25th Amendment to remove him.  And there are reports of several resignations from his staff and possible resignations from his cabinet or high-level staff.  There are also a lot of questions being asked about how the mob could have penetrated the Capitol security.

I don’t think I would want to be in the White House tonight.  Our president must be in a rage that borders on insanity, not only because Pence hasn’t done his bidding and Congress not only won’t do his bidding and because some of his closest associates are on the verge of bailing out, but because he has no access to s social media, no way to rant and rave at an unprecedented level.

This has been one of those days that will be a “What were you doing when….” question is asked. It’s a landmark day in national memory much as the Kennedy assassinations and the King murder and the Moon landing, and the Twin Towers attack (and in Jefferson City’s case, the 2019 tornado). This one is so special because even the Kennedy and King assassinations didn’t leave people this shaken about the future of our republic.

It’s now after midnight.  The TV nets are reporting the streets of Washington are quiet.  The day’s toll, according to various reports:  Four dead—one shot to death by a police officer and three who had medical emergencies.  Fourteen police injured , two hospitalized, one critical.

The joint session re-convened. Two or three protests were offered but none had a Senator’s name on it—the first House member with one protest said the Senators had withdrawn their names. The count stopped with Pennsylvania when several House members and Senators Hawley and Cruz filed a protest.  The Senate dispatched with the Hawley-Cruz part of it 7-92.  The House is voting down the protest on its side of things but it’s time to call it a terrible day and go to bed.

While all of this has been going on, the common folks were dealing with the coronavirus.  MODOH reports yesterday’s positivity rate was 21.5% and hospitalizations just under 2800. Nationally, yesterday was the deadliest day in the pandemic.

0-0-0-0-0

And now, five years later, having witnessed his tragic-for-our nation return and his actions pardoning himself and his “peaceful tourist” followers from any responsibility for those events, having witnessed his and his followers’ efforts to turn Ashley Babbit into a martyr, having watched him try to prosecute those who would have prosecuted him if he had not kept his lies about that day alive and current, we are starting to see many of those who lacked courage to challenge him then and again in 2024 starting to realize what they have unleashed up on our freedoms and our national honor.  Overseas, America’s symbol is Trump and it is a symbol that is daily destructive to our position in the world as a creator of and defender of freedom.

History will look at this generation of Americans and will ask, “How could they have gone so wrong?”  Scholars will analyze and theorize, none of which will change what we are because of that day and the days since that all of us have witnessed.

It is 2026. Change seems to be coming. But as it evolves, the movements behind Trump and January 6 are returning also, Oath Keepers, Conspiracy theorists, and the Super-Religious Patriots who see power as more holy than service and who see their God in Trump.  This is going to be an ugly year. But a year from now the nation will emerge battered, perhaps soon to be without him, although bearing the deep scars he has left. We must believe the Better Angels will outlast him and we then can get about the business of rebuilding our country.

The Peace Speech

Posted on by
Reply

Less than six months before his murder, President Kennedy spoke to the graduating class at American University in Washington, D.C.  It became known as his “Peace Speech.”

Today we are going to recall those remarks, delivered June 10, 1963 because they speak of a nation to which we should yearn to return and to be dissatisfied with leaders who want to deliver anything less.

We are not engaging in nostalgia with this entry. We are engaging in hope as it was embodied in a President who believed in doing for his country, not for himself, and summoning his generation to follow in that spirit.

(If you wish to hear President Kennedy’s voice as you follow along, go to Bing Videos.)

The ‘Peace Speech’

It is with great pride that I participate in this ceremony of the American University, sponsored by the Methodist Church, founded by Bishop John Fletcher Hurst, and first opened by President Woodrow Wilson in 1914.

This is a young and growing university, but it has already fulfilled Bishop Hurst’s enlightened hope for the study of history and public affairs in a city devoted to the making of history and to the conduct of the public’s business. By sponsoring this institution of higher learning for all who wish to learn, whatever their color or their creed, the Methodists of this area and the Nation deserve the Nation’s thanks, and I commend all those who are today graduating.

Professor Woodrow Wilson once said that every man sent out from a university should be a man of his nation as well as a man of his time, and I am confident that the men and women who carry the honor of graduating from this institution will continue to give from their lives, from their talents, a high measure of public service and public support.

“There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university,” wrote John Masefield in his tribute to English universities — and his words are equally true today.

He did not refer to towers, or the campuses. He admired the splendid beauty of a university, because it was, he said, “a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see.”

I have, therefore, chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth too rarely perceived – and that is the most important topic on earth: Peace.

What kind of a peace do I mean? What kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and build a better life for their children — not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women — not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.

I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age where great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World War.

It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn.

Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need them is essential to the keeping of peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles — which can only destroy and never create — is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace.

I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war — and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.

Some say that it is useless to speak of peace or world law or world disarmament — and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it.

But I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitude — as individuals and as a Nation — for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward — by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the Cold War and toward freedom and peace here at home.

First, examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it is unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable, that mankind is doomed, that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view.

Our problems are manmade. Therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable and we believe they can do it again.

I am not referring to the absolute, infinite concept of peace and goodwill of which some fantasies and fanatics dream. I do not deny the value of hopes and dreams but we merely invite discouragement and incredulity by making that our only and immediate goal.

Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace, based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions, on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single, simple key to this peace, no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers.

Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process, a way of solving problems.

With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor, it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement.

And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors.

So let us persevere. Peace need not be impracticable, and war need not be inevitable. By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all people to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly toward it.

And second, let us reexamine our attitude toward the Soviet Union. It is discouraging to think that their leaders may actually believe what their propagandists write. It is discouraging to read a recent authoritative Soviet text on Military Strategy and find, on page after page, wholly baseless and incredible claims, such as the allegation that “American imperialist circles are preparing to unleash different types of wars, that there is a very real threat of a preventive war being unleashed by American imperialists against the Soviet Union, and that the political aims of the American imperialists are to enslave economically and politically the European and other capitalist countries and to achieve world domination by means of aggressive wars.”

Truly, as it was written long ago: “The wicked flee when no man pursueth.” Yet it is sad to read these Soviet statements to realize the extent of the gulf between us. But it is also a warning — a warning to the American people not to fall into the same trap as the Soviets, not to see only a distorted and desperate view of the other side, not to see conflict as inevitable, accommodation as impossible, and communication as nothing more than an exchange of threats.

No government or social system is so evil that its people must be considered as lacking in virtue. As Americans, we find communism profoundly repugnant as a negation of personal freedom and dignity. But we can still hail the Russian people for their many achievements in science and space, in economic and industrial growth, in culture and in acts of courage.

Among the many traits the peoples of our two countries have in common, none is stronger than our mutual abhorrence of war. Almost unique among the major world powers, we have never been at war with each other. And no nation in the history of battle ever suffered more than the Soviet Union in the Second World War. At least 20 million lost their lives. Countless millions of homes and families were burned or sacked. A third of the nation’s territory, including nearly two-thirds of its industrial base, was turned into a wasteland, a loss equivalent to the destruction of this country east of Chicago.

Today, should total war ever break out again, no matter how, our two countries will be the primary targets. It is an ironic but accurate fact that the two strongest powers are the two in the most danger of devastation. All we have built, all we have worked for, would be destroyed in the first 24 hours.

And even in the cold war, which brings burdens and dangers to so many countries, including this Nation’s closest allies, our two countries bear the heaviest burdens. For we are both devoting massive sums of money to weapons that could be better devoted to combat ignorance, poverty, and disease. We are both caught up in a vicious and dangerous cycle with suspicion on one side breeding suspicion on the other, and new weapons begetting counterweapons.

In short, both the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in halting the arms race. Agreements to this end are in the interests of the Soviet Union as well as ours, and even the most hostile nations can be relied upon to accept and keep those treaty obligations, and only those treaty obligations, which are in their own interest.

So, let us not be blind to our differences, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved. And if we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

Third, let us reexamine our attitude toward the cold war, remembering that we are not engaged in a debate, seeking to pile up debating points. We are not here distributing blame or pointing the finger of judgment. We must deal with the world as it is, and not as it might have been had the history of the last 18 years been different.

We must, therefore, persevere in the search for peace in the hope that constructive changes within the Communist bloc might bring within reach solutions which now seem beyond us. We must conduct our affairs in such a way that it becomes in the Communists’ interest to agree on a genuine peace.

Above all, while defending our own vital interests, nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war. To adopt that kind of course in the nuclear age would be evidence only of the bankruptcy of our policy, or of a collective death-wish for the world.

To secure these ends, America’s weapons are non-provocative, carefully controlled, designed to deter, and capable of selective use. Our military forces are committed to peace and disciplined in self-restraint. Our diplomats are instructed to avoid unnecessary irritants and purely rhetorical hostility.

For we can seek a relaxation of tension without relaxing our guard. And, for our part, we do not need to use threats to prove we are resolute. We do not need to jam foreign broadcasts out of fear our faith will be eroded. We are unwilling to impose our system on any unwilling people, but we are willing and able to engage in peaceful competition with any people on earth.

Meanwhile, we seek to strengthen the United Nations, to help solve its financial problems, to make it a more effective instrument for peace, to develop it into a genuine world security system — a system capable of resolving disputes on the basis of law, of insuring the security of the large and the small, and of creating conditions under which arms can finally be abolished.

At the same time we seek to keep peace inside the non-Communist world, where many nations, all of them our friends, are divided over issues which weaken Western unity, which invite Communist intervention or which threaten to erupt into war. Our efforts in West New Guinea, in the Congo, in the Middle East, and in the Indian subcontinent, have been persistent and patient despite criticism from both sides. We have also tried to set an example for others by seeking to adjust small but significant differences with our own closest neighbors in Mexico and Canada.

Speaking of other nations, I wish to make one point clear. We are bound to many nations by alliances. These alliances exist because our concern and theirs substantially overlap. Our commitment to defend Western Europe and West Berlin, for example, stands undiminished because of the identity of our vital interests. The United States will make no deal with the Soviet Union at the expense of other nations and other peoples, not merely because they are our partners, but also because their interests and ours converge.

Our interests converge, however, not only in defending the frontiers of freedom, but in pursuing the paths of peace. It is our hope, and the purpose of allied policies, to convince the Soviet Union that she, too, should let each nation choose its own future, so long as that choice does not interfere with the choices of others.

The Communist drive to impose their political and economic system on others is the primary cause of world tension today. For there can be no doubt that, if all nations could refrain from interfering in the self-determination of others, the peace would be much more assured.

This will require a new effort to achieve world law, a new context for world discussions. It will require increased understanding between the Soviets and ourselves. And increased understanding will require increased contact and communication. One step in this direction is the proposed arrangement for a direct line between Moscow and Washington, to avoid on each side the dangerous delays, misunderstandings, and misreadings of the other’s actions which might occur at a time of crisis.

We have also been talking in Geneva about our first-step measures of arms control designed to limit the intensity of the arms race and reduce the risks of accidental war. Our primary long range interest in Geneva, however, is general and complete disarmament, designed to take place by stages, permitting parallel political developments to build the new institutions of peace which would take the place of arms.

The pursuit of disarmament has been an effort of this Government since the 1920’s. It has been urgently sought by the past three administrations. And however dim the prospects are today, we intend to continue this effort, to continue it in order that all countries, including our own, can better grasp what the problems and possibilities of disarmament are.

The one major area of these negotiations where the end is in sight, yet where a fresh start is badly needed, is in a treaty to outlaw nuclear tests. The conclusion of such a treaty, so near and yet so far, would check the spiraling arms race in one of its most dangerous areas. It would place the nuclear powers in a position to deal more effectively with one of the greatest hazards which man faces in 1963, the further spread of nuclear arms. It would increase our security, it would decrease the prospects of war. Surely this goal is sufficiently important to require our steady pursuit, yielding neither to the temptation to give up the whole effort nor the temptation to give up our insistence on vital and responsible safeguards.

I am taking this opportunity, therefore, to announce two important decisions in this regard.

First: Chairman Khrushchev, Prime Minister Macmillan, and I have agreed that high-level discussions will shortly begin in Moscow looking toward early agreement on a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Our hopes must be tempered with the caution of history but with our hopes go the hopes of all mankind.

Second: To make clear our good faith and solemn convictions on this matter, I now declare that the United States does not propose to conduct nuclear tests in the atmosphere so long as other states do not do so. We will not be the first to resume. Such a declaration is no substitute for a formal binding treaty, but I hope it will help us achieve one. Nor would such a treaty be a substitute for disarmament, but I hope it will help us achieve it.

Finally, my fellow Americans, let us examine our attitude toward peace and freedom here at home. The quality and spirit of our own society must justify and support our efforts abroad. We must show it in the dedication of our own lives, as many of you who are graduating today will have a unique opportunity to do, by serving without pay in the Peace Corps abroad or in the proposed National Service Corps here at home.

But wherever we are, we must all, in our daily lives, live up to the age-old faith that peace and freedom walk together. In too many of our cities today, the peace is not secure because freedom is incomplete.

It is the responsibility of the executive branch at all levels of government — local, State, and National — to provide and protect that freedom for all of our citizens by all means within our authority. It is the responsibility of the legislative branch at all levels, wherever the authority is not now adequate, to make it adequate. And it is the responsibility of all citizens in all sections of this country to respect the rights of others and respect the law of the land.

All this is not unrelated to world peace. “When a man’s ways please the Lord,” the Scriptures tell us, “he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.” And is not peace, in the last analysis, basically a matter of human rights, the right to live out our lives without fear of devastation, the right to breathe air as nature provided it, the right of future generations to a healthy existence?

While we proceed to safeguard our national interests, let us also safeguard human interests. And the elimination of war and arms is clearly in the interest of both. No treaty, however much it may be to the advantage of all, however tightly it may be worded, can provide absolute security against the risks of deception and evasion. But it can — if it is sufficiently effective in its enforcement and if it is sufficiently in the interests of its signers, offer far more security and far fewer risks than an unabated, uncontrolled, unpredictable arms race.

The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough, more than enough, of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it.

But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success. Confident and unafraid, we labor on, not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace.

-0-

The speech was delivered only eighteen years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki and only eight months after the Cuban Missile Crisis that frightened leaders of both countries into starting back-door discussions. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev called it “the greatest speech by any American president since Roosevelt.”

A few weeks later, the United States and Russia signed the first nuclear test ban treaty outlawing tests in the atmosphere, under water, and in outer space.

But that was then. This is now.

Maybe in looking back we can find hope in moving forward

(Photo credit: Google Images)

Married to a Feminist 

Posted on by
Reply

The perils of doing research that involves going through old newspapers is that it is easy to be distracted from the purpose at hand when the eyes drift to an article unrelated to the topic.

So it was one day several months ago when I came across an article from Grand Forks, North Dakota republished in the Jefferson City Tribune on January 24,1922 about a man who married a FEMINIST.

Not just a feminist but a “blazing feminist” according to the article.

This was the era in which women had achieved the right to vote after years of public and private pressure. Two or three generations of descendants of those women would set fire to some of their “unmentionables” and force their way to even more significant standing in society.

The lead character in the article was university of North Dakota Professor Albert Levitt, who secretly married Elsie Hill, at the time an assistant law professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Elsie Hill was a self-proclaimed militant suffragette and also was the Chairman of the National Woman’s Party.

Levitt proclaimed himself the “luckiest married man in the world.”  He solemnly said he was content, “even eager to lose his ‘sex arrogance.’”

“I am in luck because I married not a plaything but a companion; not a chattel but a a chum. LA man who marries a feminist sees clearly that problems of civilization cannot be solved until they are approached from the feminine as well as the masculine point of view,” he said.

Here’s another thing about stumbling across a story such as this that gets in the way of time-efficient research: What happened to this luckiest man in the world and his feminist wife?

They turn out to have been quite a couple, actually, although his luck ran out and they divorced after 35 years of marriage.

Here’s a picture of Albert in 1937 on his way to the U. S. Supreme Court.  He was there to challenge the seating of a new member of the court as part of a historic collision between the Executive and the Judicial branches of government.   But we’re getting ahead our story.

Albert, described at his death as “the unbelievable, improbable little character,”  was born in Maryland and waited until he was about 35 to get married. He was 17 when he joined the Army and went to a seminary for a while after he got out and then picked up degrees from three Ivy League schools and served as an assistant pastor at a Unitarian  chapel before he went back into the Army where he served as an ambulance corpsman for the French and then became a U.S. Army chaplain, during which time he was wounded and survived a German gas attack.

Post-war, he became a lawyer where he helped National Women’s Party leader Alice Paul write an Equal Rights Amendment (he wrote 75 drafts before the NWP was satisfied) that failed to go anywhere in those times.

He and Elsie eventually settled in Connecticut where he dabbled in politics. He ran for office several times in his career and was never elected. Ahe helped Wilbur Cross, a Democrat, become governor in 1939 and hen campaigned against Cross’ re-election.

His support of Democrats caught the attention of President Roosevelt, who gave him a job in the Justice Department and in 1935 he was appointed by FDR as the judge of the District Court of the Virgin Islands. He lasted a year in that job and returned to the department.  But his break with Roosevelt in 1937 cost him his department job.

He objected to Roosevelt’s appointment of Alabama Senator Hugo Black, whose past association with the Ku Klux Klan and his anti-Catholic public positions made him a target of opponents, to the Supreme Court in 1937. He charged Black had violated the emoluments clause to the Constitution.

The case was based on Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution that says no member of Congress can be appointed to any civil office for which the salary had been increased during that member’s term.  In other words, a member of Congress cannot take a government job made more lucrative by the actions of Congress.

During Black’s term in the Senate, Congress had created a new pension program that allowed Supreme Court Justices to retire and continue to collect their salaries. for members of the Supreme Court during Black’s membership. When Justice Willis Van Devanter took advantage of that clause, Senator Black was appointed to succeed him. The Supreme Court refused to hear his case and held he lacked legal standing to file it, a decision that University of Chicago Law professor William Baude wrote in a 2019 Texas Law Review article was worth closer examination.

“Upon closer inspection, it turns out that Levitt’s standing is more plausible than the Court acknowledged. Indeed, such a plaintiff would likely have standing today. Worse, on the merits his claims were correct: Hugo Black was unconstitutionally appointed to the Supreme Court. The Court’s treatment of the case and the broader controversy suggests some uncomfortable facts about the role of the Supreme Court in settling constitutional questions.”

Black went on to a 35-year career on the Supreme Court, the fifth-longest term in court history.

Levitts stayed in the Justice Department until his opposition to Roosevelt’s plan to pack the Supreme Court cost him that job. He returned to Connecticut, practiced law and became involved in Republican politics although he endorsed FDR’s fourth-term campaign in 1940..

Albert and Elsie moved to California in the 1940s.  His name became a familiar one on various California ballots through the years, always as a fringe candidate (he was last in a field of six in the 1950 election that made Richard Nixon a U.S. Senator). He also became a strong critic of the Catholic Church and considered it a threat to American Democracy.  He and Elsie divorced in 1956. He soon remarried and died twelve years later, two years before Elsie’s death in 1970.

And Elsie?

She stayed a dedicated feminist the rest of her life. She was born in Connecticut, the daughter of a ten-term Congressman and his wife. In 1901, her father traveled on the first trans-Siberian train during an around-the world trip. Elsie, at the age of 84, was on Pan-American Airlines’ first New York-Moscow flight.

While teaching high school French in Washington, D.C. in 1913, she became involved with the College Equal Suffrage League and quickly moved into the leadership. She was a big supporter of the 19th Amendment—the women’s suffrage amendment

She was arrested for speaking at a rally in Washington in 1918 and later in Boston. She did some jail time.

She kept her own name after marrying Albert, chaired the NWP and led the party’s national council for four years.

Her marriage to Albert merited a story in the New York Times that referred to her as a “militant” who was “Chairman of the Executive Committee of the National Woman’s Pary and a prominent picketer.” It was a secret event with only relatives present. He told some of her suffragist friends about it the next day.

“Miss Hill will not change her Christian or maiden name, thus following the example of several other women—artists, authors, actresses, suffrage leaders and others.,” said the Times. The two didn’t have much of a honeymoon.  Albert had to return to his law-teaching duties at the University of North Dakota while her duties with the NWP kept her in Washington until June when they could get together for the summer in Connecticut.

. The ERA that Albert drafted was submitted to Congress in 1923 and was not ratified.  It was reintroduced in 1971 and approved by the House and, in 1972, by the Senate. It lacked three states of being ratified when its time limit ran out in 1982. Nevada (2017), Illinois (2018) and Virginia (2020) have passed ratification resolutions.

Missouri has never ratified the ERA.

Traditional?

Posted on by
Reply

Donald Trump, who often has accused his accusers of engaging in witch hunts, appears to be off on a witch hunt of his own, a witch being anyone who does not advocate “traditional views.”  HIS “traditional views.”

We hope somebody asks him for a comprehensive definition of “traditional views” so that I know whether I am involved in “domestic terrorism,” another subject that it would be entertaining to hear him define.

During the weekend a memo written by loyalist Pam Bondi, whom Trump has designated to supervise the Justice (rather loosely defined these day) Department, was leaked. It tells the DOJ to put together a list of “domestic terrorism” groups.

What constitutes such a group?

It is what the Trump/Bondi DOJ chooses to consider “extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment.”

In other words, it’s those who disagree with President Trump who, in our observation, is never going to rival Noah Webster in defining words and terms.

Reporter Ken Klippenstein revealed the memo.  And who is he?

An interesting character. Young, used to work for The Intercept, a nonprofit news organization considered to be well into the political west wing, a former correspondent for The Nation, a  liberal magazine, and a part of the growing online news world. His father is a theoretical chemist at the Argonne National Laboratory. He says his mother’s family was undocumented immigrants from El Salvador.  College grad with a degree in English literature. He has broken other stories using leaked material, too.

We wonder how quickly his name is in a Pamagram sent to the list.

Trump is not the first ruler to impose his “traditional views” on the people.

Tomás de Torquemada, the Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition from 1483 to 1498 under appointment of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, the patrons of Christopher Columbus who ventured forth during a period of extreme persecution of Jews and Muslims to spread those traditional (Christian) views to whatever heathens he found when he arrived someplace that he did not know he was going to.

Going back even earlier, we can talk about Pope Stephen VI, who in a remarkable fifteen months pulled all kinds of stunts including the calling of the infamous Cadaver Synod in which he put his dead predecessor on trial for perjury and the illegal assumption of the papacy.  He dug up the corpse of Pope Formosus, put papal vestments on it, propped it up on a throne and had a mock trial.

The corpse did not mount much of a defense and after being found guilty was stripped of his vestments and ceremonially maimed (three of his fingers were cut off) before the remains of his remains were thrown into the Tiber River. There was widespread disapproval of Pope Steve’s definition of “traditional views” and he wound up in prison where he was strangled to death, apparently by non-traditionalists.

Long before Russia had Stalin and his “traditional views,” it had Ivan the Terrible—Ivan IV—who reigned for more than fifty years. He, too, started by promising reforms but quickly was consumed by paranoia and formed his own secret police that terrorized and murdered his subjects by the thousands, one of who was his own son.

Romania in 15th century had Vlad III who once ordered 20,000 enemy soldiers impaled, their bodies remaining on display as a warning against disloyalty. Vlad the Impaler, he is still called.

His cruelty wasn’t just reserved for outsiders; he targeted his own people as well. Vlad would punish dishonesty and laziness with extreme torture, sometimes impaling entire villages. Laziness and dishonesty also were abhorred by our Puritan ancestors, but they just stuck people in the stocks for a few hours—

—Unless they were witches.  Hanging, pressing, and drowning seemed to have been the Puritan Christian cures for those tendencies.

As far as I know, nobody has accused President Trump of being a Puritan. So we’d appreciate it if he’d offer a clear explanation of his terms sometime when he’s awake and not playing the Game of Invective all night on his social media account.

We don’t want to spend any more time—although we could—listing other rulers who sought to protect “traditional values” as they defined them. And we certainly don’t want to suggest that President Trump fits the mold of those we have cited and others on various lists of vengeful rulers. But punishment for differing with any ruler who considers himself the only one to define “traditional values” has a past that must raise questions about a person of questionable personal ethics setting a national agenda for you and me.

The Trump memo also demands creation of “a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts.”

The President’s definition of “domestic terrorism threat” as being any organization that uses “violence or the threat of violence” to oppose “law and immigration enforcement, extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders, adherence to radical gender theology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government” and the aforementioned “hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality.”

Except for MAGA and January 6, 2021 celebrants.

You will excuse me, I hope, if I cannot consider Donald J. Trump in any way fit to determine nation’s views “on family, religion, and morality.”

The Constitution aside, this is a pretty broad mission for our national ruler. Just about everybody falls into one of these categories in one way or another, including me. And you.

Apparently, however, there is a way that we can become immune to prosecution under this policy. We just have to cough up a nine or ten-figure amount to pay for decoration of the monstrosity of a Trump Worship Center that will stand for decades as a tribute to his bad tase and his desire to have more monuments to himself than anybody since the ancient Egyptian pharaohs.

I’m going to put an orange jumpsuit on my Christmas gift list to make sure I’m properly dressed when the traditional values Pamgoons come for me.

 

 

Sister State

Posted on by
Reply

I want to tell you about a special place that should be our sister state.

Most of us are familiar with sister cities and other sister states—-usually, in Jefferson City’s case, a town with similar cultural roots in Germany.  Missouri has a sister state relationship with Nagano Prefecture in Japan. Jefferson City’s sister city is Munchberg, Germany.

Missouri, a state, should have this place as a sister CITY for a reason I’ll mention later.

The scenic town is six-thousand feed up in the Himalayan foothills of India, about 180 miles north of New Delhi and is known affectionately as the “Queen of the Hills.”

It’s a Hill Station, a British phrase used to describe a popular tourist town at higher elevations where people who visit to escape the summer heat in the valleys below. Although the phrase has been used in other countries, India has more hill stations than any other country.

The city has been a popular tourist destination since a British miliary officer established it in 1825.

Seven years later, the Surveyor General of India, George Everest, wanted to make it an anchor of the Great Trigonometric Survey that provided a detailed map of the Indian subcontinent.

The what? It was a comprehensive survey that used mathematics to provide a precise map of the whole Indian subcontinent. It was started in 1802 by the East India Company in the days when the British Empire was being put together.  The company was created in 1600 as a trading company that at one time controlled the subcontinent and Hong Kong and was the largest corporation in the world—so large that it had its own army of 260,000-man army, double the size of the regular British Army at times.  The survey took almost seventy years. Its most important feature was the first measurement of the highest peaks in the Himalayas, including the one named for Surveyor General George Everest.

By the start of the Twentieth Century, the town had about 65-hundred permanent residents. But the population more than doubled in the summers. Among the prominent families to spend summers here were the Nehrus. For a time, the Dalai Lama lived there. The population in the first decade of the Twenty-first century had gone past 30-thouand.

It is said that a good set of binoculars will provide a nice view of the Himalayas

Visitors today can travel on Camel’s Back Road, named for a rocky outcrop that reminds people of a camel’s hump. It’s a popular hiking trail that includes the oldest Christian Church in the Himalaya Mountains, on a nearby road.  The snowy peaks of the big Himalayan peaks are visible through binoculars from the road.

The forty-foot high Kempty Falls, one of several waterfalls in the area, is about nine miles from the town, and Lake Mist, where the Kempty river flows, is a popular stop for hikers and other tourists. There’s a municipal garden and a lake where visitors can rent padd  boats.

The remains of Sir George Everest’s laboratory are in a park. Happy Valley includes an academy, a municipal garden and a Tibetan sanctuary. An ancient Hindu temple dedicated to the Snake God Shiva is nearby.

And then there is Cloud End, a dense forest, and Van Chetna Kendra, a bird sanctuary that was the last refuge of the now-extinct Mountain Quail.

One of the oldest and most highly-regarded colleges in India, St. George’s College, is there. It’s been run by the Patrician Brothers since 1893.

There’s a lot more to see and to do in the multinational community of Mussoorie, the “Queen of the Hills” of India.

Sounds like an interesting place.  Maybe we should get to know it better.

Save me a place on the flight, Governor.