This is, as noted before, the 100-year anniversary of the first year of World War I.
History is made of competing forces. Between the Great Man and the Social Movements lie all the conflicts of both. By 1914, these forces had congealed on the European continent through a combination of set nations - France, Germany, Russia, the UK, Italy, Austria-Hungarian Empire, and Ottoman Empire - and a burgeoning psycho-social ideology of Nationalism fighting over pride and global power.
It had been 100 years in the making by then. In the aftermath of the Napoleonic empire and swath of republicanism, Europe suffered through a period of nation-building border wars - the Greek independence war, Italian reunification, Prussian unification of a greater Germany - that concluded with the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-71.
What had been viewed at the time as a likely win for France - larger armies, better organized - turned into a full rout in Prussia's favor in a war that barely lasted a year. France was abjectly humiliated as a result (this is where the meme of France being terrible in wars started), Germany rose up to disrupt the standard balance of power - once it was England vs. France, no longer - in Western Europe, and the Victorian Era switched from being a period of scientific advancements to one big mechanized military arms race.
The problem was that the Victorian (and later Edwardian) Era became this period of an idealized, improved social condition. Things like personal honor, stiff upper lip, gentlemanly codes became more fetishized. A lot of it had to do with the literature of the time. Some of it with the changes in economic and social fortunes creating a middle class striving for cultural norms of its own, to where the upper classes indulged in sharing the more romantic elements of their lifestyles.
By the time the fighting in World War I actually started, nearly everyone went into it with these grand notions of honor and soldiering. That it was all parade marches and sacrificial charges into waiting hordes of bayonets and swords. Nobody really thought about the improved rifles and automatic guns, or the advancements in artillery fire and targeting, or the armored tanks that were new to the battlefield, or the effectiveness of barbed wire and hand grenades and poison gasses.
By the end of the calendar year of 1914, Western Europe's battlefields were basically two extended mud trenches and two massive armies - Germany in one trench, UK and France in the other - staring at each other across a cold no-mans-land. The Germans were the ones who made the efforts to decorate their trenches for the holidays, and via the honored soldiers' code of "Live and Let Live" (under which both sides agree to temporary cease-fires to recover wounded or personal belongings), the Germans sent messages to their British and French counterparts about holding a truce - THE Truce - during Christmas Day.
There aren't a lot of documents about it, mostly from a good number of diary entries and remembrances of those who were there that day, so a lot of the Christmas Truce has fallen into legend. Above all the legend of a football (soccer to us Yanks) game being played between the two armies. There's no evidence it happened, but the story is that Germany won 3-2. It'd have been tied but that damn ref called Blackadder offsides.
Whatever history there is of this - the legends still tell us - the generals were not amused their soldiers weren't killing each other. When the areas where the Truce were continuing on after Christmas had passed, the chain of command ordered artillery barrages and switched out the divisions stationed there with fresh troops to ensure the fighting started up again. By 1915, the generals planned ahead and made sure they had artillery barrages scheduled for Christmas to prevent the troops from making another try at a truce. By 1916, they didn't bother: the bloodshed between both sides - and the use of chemical gas weapons - ensured the troops were in no mood for cease-fires.
Looking back on the Christmas Truce, it reminds us that the war was fought by men looking not for glory - that madness was left to the generals - but because it was expected of them. Where the soldiers in the trenches had more in common with each other than the officers in their headquarters five miles back. The Truce was part of an era of that Victorian/Edwardian mindset of honor between soldiers regardless of which flag they fought for.
It was an era that was dead in the trenches by 1918.
And yet, we remember. We remember the Truce as a good thing, a moment in human history at the edge of a terrible war where there was still hope and the potential of friendship past the hardship. As a nice little Christmas candle shining in the darkness of the 20th Century.
Merry Christmas to ye, fallen soldiers of that and all other wars, before and after. The Truce remains to us as a memory of what we all can achieve some day.
A chance of playing an honest game of football and not get shot at for it.
Soon, those who remember the assassination of John F. Kennedy will fade into history. All who remain behind will know only of the Buttfumble this dark day (It already has its own separate Wiki entry!).
Feast well, this coming day of pagan sacrifices to elder gods seeking the meat of turkey. I will post more on that when the time comes.
Also, I'm currently at 40,000 words on NaNo and aiming for 42,000 by tonight.
The Berlin Wall was a big damn deal: a symbol of the Cold War struggle between the western democratic-republican nations and the Soviet-Russia dominated authoritarian regimes.
The fall of the Wall signaled the beginning of the end of the Eastern Europe communist bloc (it wouldn't be truly finished until the failed August coup of 1991).
It's difficult to describe to anyone who hadn't lived through the Cold War era: the minor but constant dread that war between East and West would flare up; the constant proxy wars in foreign lands that perpetuated social ills for Third World nations playing up to their First World paymasters; the ideological sterility of two opposing political philosophies...
The fall of the Wall changed all that. We could see in real time as it happened, as people celebrated on a barricade over which people died trying to cross, as they began bringing pickaxes and crowbars to start carving chunks of the Wall out, taking down entire sections, brick after brick falling away...
It's still one of my biggest regrets, not getting a chance to travel to Berlin and leave some graffiti on the West's side of the wall. Ah well. This is a better result.
And damn, I'm getting old... TWENTY-FIVE YEARS already?
Last year, I was worried about how the world had remained a bloody, violent place since 2001 as the Syrian Civil War was well into its third year. It's now in its fourth, and due to the extremist group ISIL it's bled over back into neighboring Iraq which still hasn't recovered from the ill-planned Bush/Cheney occupation.
Last night Obama gave a speech outlining how we were committing airstrikes against the Islamist State psychopaths. We are remaking military commitments to a nation we tried to exit back in 2011, mostly because we as a nation failed to leave Iraq in better shape than when we invaded it in 2003. Mostly because we dove head-first into a Middle East quagmire out of anger and blind rage.
We had no reason to invade Iraq in response to what Bin Laden did to us on 9/11. The reasons were fabricated by a Bush/Cheney administration that wanted to invade Iraq for other objectives (finishing off Saddam, placating our allies in the region who didn't like having a dictator for a neighbor, seizing all that oil and natural resources). We had no plan for what to do with nation-building. Well, there was a plan: remove Saddam and his ilk, put in pet Chalabi on the throne, sign up all the oil rights, exit Iraq. When it happened that nobody in Iraq wanted Chalabi and he wasn't the puppy Cheney thought he was, it turned out we had no Plan B.
Because with the Middle East there IS no Plan B. Just an ongoing, 5000-year cycle of violence and madness that will only end when everybody's dead.
And we are all stuck. The innocent people in the Middle East trapped between warring factions. Other nations tied to the region through all that damn oil. A United States that's morally and politically obligated to keep dropping itself into that quagmire because we've been breaking things there since World War II and we're stuck paying the bills for the next century.
We're bombing away in Iraq today. Because the Towers fell thirteen years ago. We have no idea when we can stop bombing.
It is, yet again, August 16th and time to remember back to Woodstock.
Why? Why so much nostalgia for a concert I never attended (I was born 1970, nine months later... and no, my parents were in Spain at the moment...)?
Because, as a student of history, the moment appeals to me.
Coming at the end of a turbulent decade - the 60s - the concert was a royal f-ck-up, a disorganized mess, the promoters just a bit overwhelmed by the scale of their initial attempt and ill-prepared for the turnout that showed up (eventually 400,000 to 500,000 people, practically a major city). They didn't have enough food or water, not enough security, poorly planned parking and traffic (it is not exaggeration to say that the concert shut down the southern half of New York state traffic).
It didn't help the surrounding communities either to have 500,000 show up unexpected on their doorsteps. Bethel NY in particular bore a huge brunt of the problems, primarily helping out with keeping hundreds of thousands of concert-goers fed. God bless 'em though, the people who lived there helped:
And that's kinda why I think fondly of Woodstock: people were for the most part good. Good to each other. Sure, there may have been a handful of people overpricing stuff or ripping others off, but those seem so few and far between and I can't find a lot of evidence about that.
There were only two deaths out of 500,000 people: one a heroin overdose and the other an accident involving a runaway tractor. Almost no major fights, at least nothing reported to the local hospitals. And most of what the hospitals handled were broken bones and medical emergencies.
And the key thing, about it being the Sixties: the concert-goers and the local police got along. We're talking about the turbulent protest era, over civil rights and against the Vietnam War, where nearly every major march ended up with cops in riot gear launching tear gas and swinging batons at the dirty hippies. The majority of the concert-goers were young and anti-war protesters. There was a lot of drug use: a good amount of pot, and remember watch out for that "brown acid". Any one of these things could have set the cops into Riot Control mode on top of the fact they had 500,000 people stumbling about Max Yasgur's farm.
The local police, however, tried something I'm surprised most police forces don't even apply 40 years later: a Soft Power approach of keeping the peace, where they didn't line up to intimidate the crowds with snipers and guys in body armor, but allowed the hired security people - most of them off-duty or ex-cops already - to patrol and handle the crowds. The decision came down to avoid going after the drug users: the reality that a lot of attendees were gonna get high made detaining any of them a logistical nightmare.
Somewhere and somewhen, the local police tried treating the concert-goers not as rioters but as people. And the results worked:
"...Not withstanding their personality, their dress and their ideas, they were and they are the most courteous, considerate and well-behaved group of kids I have ever been in contact with in my 24 years of police work," Lou Yank, the chief of police in nearby Monticello, told The New York Times...
Treating each other with respect tends to be a two-way deal. And it made the Woodstock Festival work well enough that 45 years later everyone involved in it can look back with some small pride of being part of one of the biggest non-violent events in world history.
Sad to say, compared to the problems we've got whenever a protest or gathering forms anymore:
These are pictures from the first few days of protests in Ferguson Missouri after an incident where a cop shot an unarmed black teen in the back under questionable circumstances. The local city and county police decided to bring in riot gear, body armor, snipers, and more personal firepower than most of our armed forces didn't deploy with during their tours of Iraq and Afghanistan (the quote sticking with me from an article from Business Insider: "We rolled lighter than this in an actual war zone"). And the county and city cops used rules of engagement that pretty much ensured rubber bullets and tear gas went flying everywhere, especially by Wednesday night.
It got bad enough that the state Governor forced the Ferguson PD and county law enforcement to stand down, sending in the state highway troopers to keep the peace. And they went in like this:
The state troopers went in talking, not shooting. Walking with the protesters. Mingling. Hugging.
Wednesday night had violence. Thursday night had hugs. Notice a difference...
This is why we gotta remember Woodstock. Everybody - the police, the civilians, the neighborhoods, everybody - went in on their best behavior, and everything worked out for the best. Lessons that need to be learned.
On this day in 1974 President Richard Nixon went before the nation and offered his resignation, effective the next day. Gerald Ford, recently installed as Vice President, would be sworn in as President on August 9.
What began as an investigation into a puzzling break-in at the Democratic Party's headquarters in the Watergate Office Complex in June 1972 turned into a revelation of reckless law-breaking by a political campaign awash in slush money, political dirty tricks, warrant-less wire-tapping, interdepartmental warfare reaching well into the White House itself, and Paul Newman being on Nixon's Enemies List.
The rot with the Nixon administration was top-down, but up to a certain point most of the damage to Nixon himself wasn't threatening to his position (when the November 1972 vote was held, Nixon still won because most voters didn't think Watergate or the cover-up attempts involved him).
By 1974 the situation changed. The revelation in 1973 that Nixon had been taping all conversations in the Oval Office (it was actually a practice begun during the FDR years, but not to the extent Nixon set up) created a Constitutional crisis. The relationship - the system of checks and balances - between the three branches of the federal government were strained to a point not seen since the start of the Civil War, especially between the Executive and Legislative branches. Court fights over the tapes and transcripts carried on for over a year. By the time the Supreme Court ruled 8-0 in US v Nixon in favor of releasing the tapes, we were facing the likelihood of a President openly defying SCOTUS as well as defying Congress itself.
Impeachment - the removal of the President for criminal or unethical misconduct - was openly discussed. And seriously - as opposed to other moments - considered...
The history of impeachment itself as a mechanism for cleaning corrupt officials out of power is kinda checkered. For non-elected and (usually) non-partisan officials like judges, the system was even-handed. There'd only been 62 proceedings in the House to consider impeachments, with only 19 proceeding to the Senate since 1789 up to today, making it a rarely used process. But when it comes to the big chair of the Presidency... well...
In the review of Presidential character I did last year, I pointed out - in cases like John Tyler and Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton - that the partisan nature of the fights between the White House and Congress skewed the need to impeach. As I said in a follow-up:
...Congress talked impeachment only rarely: in a case like John Tyler (when Tyler seemed to betray the Whig Party on a personal level); and in a case like Andrew Johnson (when party foolishness put a Democrat in the line of succession, leaving a Radical Republican Congress to reach for any excuse to purge him). The impeachment process against Tyler went nowhere because the Whigs couldn't garner enough votes in the House: the impeachment against Johnson came one vote shy of success, which historians still argue was the closest we'd ever gotten to a political coup in our nation's history. Both times, impeachment was used as a means to remove a President simply because of ideological conflict: neither one really broke the law (technically Johnson broke the Tenure of Office Act, but that law was specifically written against him, and the courts ruled it unconstitutional), they both were radically opposed to what Congress wanted...
This is the danger of impeachment: meant to be a tool to remove a powerful political figure that might otherwise be above the law, impeachment has rarely been used as such (only once)...
You'll notice that I gave one exemption ("only once"): that exemption was Nixon.
As Watergate's revelations unfolded, even the partisan backers of his own party - Republicans - began to step away. Unlike Tyler and Johnson, there was something criminally wrong with Nixon's White House that even the most biased supporter couldn't defend. It didn't help Nixon that the Congressional investigations especially in the Senate were fronted by respected pols - Sam Ervin and Howard Baker - known for their bipartisan work.
As long as Nixon kept hidden any evidence of criminal wrong-doing, of unethical activity, he was still safe behind the argument that Watergate was a political witch-hunt. Which was why he and his lawyers fought hard to keep those tapes away from the public. When the Supreme Court said that the tapes had to come out, there was nowhere to hide. Other than outright law-breaking, full shutdown of the government, a White House coup making Nixon full-on dictator...
If there was anything in Nixon's soul, even it balked at taking that one step. Nixon turned over the tapes.
The House Committee considering impeachment charges voted on July 27 to charge Nixon with obstruction of justice with a 27-11 vote, with enough Republicans on the committee voting for it. The "smoking gun" tape - the one that caught Nixon telling six days after the Watergate break-in to get the CIA to block the FBI investigation, specific proof of obstruction - went public August 5th.
Rather than face the ignominy of being the first President ever impeached - a legitimate possibility, one even Andrew Johnson was able to avoid - Nixon resigned.
It's never been that close a call.
In Andrew Johnson's defense, the law he was getting impeached over was a sham. In Bill Clinton's defense, his actions trying to hide his affair with Monica Lewinsky didn't rise to an impeachable offense. In all the other cases where impeachment was argued, pursued, wished for - Tyler, Bush the Lesser, and Obama (present tense) - the stench of partisan obsessiveness made it too reckless and either failed on a floor vote or failed (and should fail in Obama's case) in committee.
It was forty years ago, we came this close to a genuine impeachment trial, and for all that meant. It was forty years ago our nation pulled back from a very dangerous political cliff.
Before the day goes by, today is the 45th anniversary of one of mankind's greatest achievements:
With all congratulations to the late Neil Armstrong, to Buzz Aldrin, and to Michael Collins (who had to stay in the Command Module) for their historic flight there and back.
And also, due to their efforts, we were able to contribute to one of the best episodes of the television show Mad Men:
And with that "Bravo," Bert Cooper passes on... and later on that episode, Don Draper witnesses Bert's ghost sing "The Best Things In Life Are Free" in a mind-blowing (there are layers of symbolism behind this that would take a 20-page journal essay to spell out) closer: The song, the setting, the moment... all because we as the human race achieved the moon. We haven't really moved on from that moment - the technology can't sustain ourselves for long out there, so we're still on this fragile blue ball - but if anything out of all the wars and madness, we made it. It may have cost a fortune, but we made it. And it was a moment everyone back then shared... a moment we all share today, and it was in a way free for all.
Leading up to the 4th of July itself, we need to remember the great Battle of Gettysburg, of those who fought and died, of the causes won and the nation saved and the memories lost.
Next year. Next year I plan ahead to be there in Gettysburg for this week. It's one of those things every American needs to do...
(update: big hello to the Crooks and Liars audience, welcome back) History teaches us that the War was inevitable.
There was this... understanding across the nations of Europe at the turn of the 20th Century. The empires of the 19th Century had made treaties and agreements to protect their global power by dividing themselves into two armed camps. Revolving around the animosities between France and newly-forged Germany, the other nations and empires - Great Britain, Austria-Hungarian Empire, Russia, newly-forged Italy - chose sides to back in case France and Germany decided to start a thing.
It all came from the belief in a Balance of Power working between the nations/empires of Europe: that no one nation would become stronger or more powerful than the others, requiring nations to gang up against the growing "threat" to ensure war wouldn't happen... Except that, by the 20th Century, various powers wanted war in order to satisfy their needs or avenge some slight.
The splits had formed over slights and injuries spanning decades: France being humiliated by Prussia/Germany in 1871; Russia being slighted over Austria-Hungary's control over the Balkans; Great Britain threatened by Germany's growing Imperial Navy and open desire for empire-building in places the UK already controlled; Germany's desire to make themselves an economic powerhouse equal to a British Empire the Kaiser Wilhelm II - cousin to the British Royals - so wanted to emulate. Underneath all of this was a budding sense of Nationalism - a tribal impulse of patriotism - merged with various elements of anarchism and economic malaise.
By the early 1900s, all of Europe was a literal powder-keg: each nation building up arsenals and weapons of increasing technological lethality that few of the generals and men in power even comprehended how dangerous war was becoming. While the peace held, it was merely over the fact nobody wanted to be the idiot to start the whole thing blowing up. Nobody wanted the blame once the dust settled...
Except for the ones who didn't care.
For all the politicians and men of power who knew to tread lightly, Europe was also filled with ethnic factions subsumed by the aging Empires affected by the same Nationalist pride. Except that Nationalist pride drove them - especially the Serbians in the Austrian-held Balkans - towards a desire for self-determination, the right to form their own nation outside of imperial dominance. They'd seen nations like Greece gain their independence from the Ottoman Empire - a Middle Eastern empire on the edge of the European boiling pot - and they'd seen Italy and Germany form themselves into true nations out of divided squabbling states. So these smaller states, these ethnic groups, sought their own nations.
This brings us to Serbia.
Serbians had been suffering for centuries, a once proud eastern European culture taken over by the Ottomans in the late 1300s. By the mid-19th Century they were able to fight back to gain some independence from the Ottomans only to suffer new rule under the Austria-Hungarians as part of a Russo-Turkish treaty. While Serbia retained some independence as a nation it still had to answer to the Habsburgs in Vienna, and was blocked from expanding further influence in the Balkan region.
The resentments led to various factions in Serbia plotting for action against the Austrians. Violence and riots were common throughout the region leading up into 1914. When the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria decided on a visit to the region as part of his military duties to the Navy (Austria-Hungary had access to the Mediterranean through their hold of Bosnia), he also planned on visiting Sarajevo for a museum dedication on the date of his wedding anniversary with his beloved wife Sophie.
Done as a protest against Austria-Hungarian hegemony, for Serbian nationalism pushing for a Greater Serbia dominating all of the Balkans, it was the excuse the powers back in Vienna needed to stomp down on a Serbian nation they viewed as a threat.
Problem was, Russia had become allies of Serbia by then. Russia's interests in eastern Europe had always been there ever since the birth of their own empire. When Austria-Hungary mobilized for a war on Serbia by July 28, it triggered clauses in treaties Russia had with Serbia and with their Entente with France and UK to mobilize, which triggered Germany's mobilization, which triggered France's...
One trigger unleashed another. At no point did any national leader "man up" and say "wait, this is stupid, this is a fight between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, it doesn't involve us!" Germany didn't need to mobilize against Russia... France didn't need to mobilize versus Germany... Germany didn't need to invade Belgium to preemptively fight France, which gave Great Britain the excuse to jump in... except that there were enough people in power in each of those nations who argued that war was war, that it would be quick and easy with everybody's allies lining up to fight it, and now was the time to pitch in.
Like Blackadder said, bollocks.
Whatever ideals or hope there had been in the 19th Century that humanity as a whole was stepping towards a more evolved, artistic, sensible future died in the muddy trenches of the war fronts. Once started, neither side had little incentive to end it fearing the consequences of national collapse and panic. For four years, the European powers pummeled each other until they had placed serious strains on their manpower and resources.
None of it ended well.
Germany, trying to destroy Russia from within, unleashed a communist uprising in the heart of a frayed Russia that led to the rise of the Soviet Union and to the horrors of Stalin. Austria-Hungary fell apart through a prolonged war that drained their resources. Italy, jumping in late on the side of the French-UK-Russian Entente, found their fortunes ruined in disastrous military campaigns that collapsed their government, leading to the rise of the Fascists under Mussolini. The Ottoman Empire fell apart through British intervention in the tribal uprisings across the Middle East. Great Britain and France lost hundreds of thousands of men against the German lines. Germany used up much of its resources and men as well. Germany's desperation against the UK led to their attacking American shipping and trade interests, dragging the United States into the war.
When the fighting finally stopped on November 11 1918, it was due more to fatigue on all sides than due to any actual victory. But Germany's government fell apart as a result of the armistice, and France and Great Britain wielded enough influence on the following peace process that its lopsided punishments on Germany convinced a good number of politicians and historians to note that the peace wouldn't last (and it was because some of them like General Foch believed the treaty was too lenient and would allow Germany to rebuild). And we all know what that bloodyTreaty of Versaillesled to...
It didn't help that some of the underlying issues causing the war - the fervent tribalism that masqueraded as nationalism, for example - weren't properly resolved. France and Great Britain still had their empires to maintain after all, and they exerted their influences into the Middle East by carving up the remnants of the Ottoman Empire into nations that forced the wrong ethnic groups in the region into the wrong states. While the bloody history of the Middle East has existed long before the European map-makers made their mark in the region, the drawing up of Syria, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Palestine (without an Israel at that time), Turkey and other regional nations with reckless disregard for ignored groups like the Kurds and ignorance of the divisions between Shia and Sunni faiths certainly exacerbated tensions to where we've got the bloody chaos the world endures to this day.
It was 100 years ago the modern world was born. In fire and in blood and in death. We've been dealing with the consequences ever since, more than any other historical event preceding it.
Today is the 25th anniversary of the government crackdown on the freedom protesters in Tiananmen Square:
And it's been 25 years wondering about the guy who stood in front of the tanks:
Links to previous anniversary reminders here and here.
Seems like I need to re-link some photos in remembrance:
Dear Chinese leaders: the protesters weren't destroying your nation, they were speaking out against corruption, they wanted reforms and they wanted a government more responsive to the people's needs. Instead they got shot down, bullied with tanks, arrested, disappeared... And today, you're still dealing with the corruption they spoke against.
In a twisted way, the protesters won: they were right about corruption. They were right about needing more freedom to speak up and speak out against such things.
If the Chinese government want to be truly serious about their current fight against that corruption, they need to be frank and honest and open about it... and they need to stop cracking down and censoring what happened in Tiananmen Square. They need to admit a bad thing happened there. They need to realize that the protesters and freedom speakers are not the enemy here, but the crooks are.
China should be free. Today is a good day for them to do it. Wouldn't it be pretty to think so...?
Twenty years ago, on May 9th, I started my first full-time job.
It was a new library building in a new type of library: a hybrid large-public/community college library that supported the public reading (popular titles) and the academic (research books and journals).
It started just as the Internet exploded on the scene, before emailing took off and the demands for computer use increased. Back then the job was answering questions and finding articles off these newly networked online databases and making sure nobody was looking at porn in the far corners of the second floor.
It was my first full-time job. I had a workdesk and a staff lounge with new furniture and carpeting and chairs with rollers and everything (except a computer at each workdesk: computers back then were expensive, we had to share a staff computer to get work done).
So much has changed over those twenty years. Nowadays I suspect most of the college students and the public will come in with their own laptops and tablets to use instead of the public machines. I'd like to think the circulation numbers at North Regional has kept up (there *is* a nice-sized retirement community across the street so...), although Northwest Regional *was* the circ-checkout king of the system when I left Broward Libraries in 2003...
I hope to go back this year to the library's 20th anniversary. It started when I did. I'd like to go back and see who's left, who's coming back like I am, who's saying farewells and all...
And no, I'm not talking about the punk band or the Marvel graphic series. I'm talking about the boys and girls who were born roughly between 1965 - the year Dylan went electric - and 1980 - when Lennon was assassinated - so that they had to be three years old at least when Return of the Jedi was out and Reagan was in the White House. I'm from 1970 - Year of the Dog - so me and the Class of 1988 (Go Spongers) are right in the middle of it.
We were the following generation of the Baby Boomers, the genealogical anomaly of a birthing group (1945 to 1963) that came after the Depression / War generation. Where the War generation was defined by sacrifice, blood sweat and tears, and superhero comics, and where the Baby Boomer set defined by middle class affluence, reactionary rebellion, and rock n roll, the Generation X was defined by the X. A random elusive variable...
Gen Xers were the generation that grew up in the wake of the national malaise post-Vietnam and post-Watergate, when our political and social institutions were beset with scandals. We were the generation that was the first to be mostly self-raised as our parents both went to work (Latchkey kids), where divorce was common compared to previous generations or where single parents were becoming a norm. We had to cope with the consequences of the burgeoning War on Drugs, the spread of sexual diseases in the aftermath of the Sexual Revolution, and the disaster that was New Coke.
But it wasn't all bad. Ours was the generation that grew up to Star Wars, a cultural milestone akin to the Beatles. We had the benefit of cable TV bringing us more Sports (ESPN), more news (CNN), more weather. We got our MTV. We gamed to Dungeons & Dragons despite the moral outrage, we danced to Prince and Madonna despite the moral outrage, we permed our hair and wore mullets despite the moral outrage.
We are, were, still will be, a generation rather schizophrenic to the core: both jaded and optimistic, sarcastic and sincere, conspiracy-minded and complacent. We were the generation doomed to barely survive as the Boomers sucked all the oxygen out of the room as they came of age of political and economic power in the Nineties (when they all turned 40 and became CEOs and Presidents).
And we had our heroes and icons, the ones who spoke to us, spoke for us, on the national media stage.
1991 was a major turning point in our culture. The Cold War of the last 25 years was ending as the Soviet Union literally withered on the vine. The Berlin Wall had already fallen and the political threats were no longer coming from Asia but from the Middle East. Movies were about to turn into special-effects behemoths as CGI effects in Terminator II showed that anything was visually possible.
Music was also changing as the decades changed. The video-driven 80s pop and hair metal bands that dominated MTV and radio were getting stale. Rap was still having a problem getting outside of the ghettos of L.A. and New York. Michael Jackson was making a major media campaign to prove himself relevant in the 90s as he had been the previous decade, but was doing so in a heavy-handed, self-defeating way.
But it was a little-heralded band out of Washington state - part of the Seattle music scene that soon became known as "grunge" - called Nirvana that blew the speakers out of every teenager and college student's sound systems that year. A song - "Smells Like Teen Spirit" - that was part Ramones up-tempo rock, part metal, part protest - just hit the right damn notes with the Gen X age group. From epic opening riff to the fading scream of singer Kurt Cobain shouting "A denial...", it spoke to a generational apathy of teens and college students who wanted to unplug from a crazy world, couldn't, and just had to cope.
Nirvana went from a garage band that traveled to shows in beat-up vans to a headlining act filling packed arenas and stadiums. Cobain became the iconic grunge rocker: dressing in hand-me-down flannels, with shaggy hair and three-day beard growth, walking about with a dazed look in the eyes and a knowing grin. Everyone thought it was cool.
Except for Cobain. He never asked to be a hero or a rock star. He wanted to be a rocker, sure, but someone who plugged in, played a few chords, moved on. He had his own heroes - other post-punk and college radio bands that he eagerly talked up in interviews, which gave them brief bumps in popularity - but he also had his own demons.
Like a good number of other Gen Xers, Cobain grew up in a broken home in an economically-depressed town. He grew up as an artist (his family had a history of musical talent and his grandmother encouraged his drawing), which made him a target for a good amount of school bullying by the jock clique (it didn't help that Cobain's father tried to get him to play sports). It got worse when Cobain befriended a gay student which made those jocks think Cobain was gay as well (Cobain eventually made many pro-gay gestures around town in order to piss off the homophobes, and later opined he was bisexual despite all the girlfriends he lived with).
After getting thrown out of his mother's home - having dropped out of high school, having problems finding work - Cobain lived the struggling artist life, finding part-time work where he could, going to music shows across the Northwest, starting up his own attempts at music, hooking up with girls in the scene, and making his way onto the stage with one band line-up after another. Teaming up with Krist Novoselic to form Nirvana in 1987, they went through a series of drummers until they tabbed Dave Grohl for the job in 1990. Then they went in to a major studio to record the album Nevermind...
Cobain's work as a musician and lyricist focused on dynamic contrasts: the lyrics themselves would have a stanza of meaningful incoherence followed by a repetitive chorus back to another stanza before closing out with a repetitive chorus that underscored a melancholic dread or a resigned fate. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" worked that way, as did "Come As You Are", "Lithium", "Polly", later songs like "Heart-Shaped Box" and "Rape Me"... The songs were tinged with political rage and social despair, but sung in a light-hearted disconnected tone.
Cobain didn't expect so many people to get into what he was doing, and was dismayed a lot of his work was getting overplayed... or worse played out of context. One of the things that haunted him was finding out his song "Polly" - a disturbing tale of an unconcerned man raping a girl, based on a real-life serial rapist who haunted the Pacific Northwest - was being sung by two rapists assaulting their own victim. Cobain got disgusted finding out that as Nirvana got more popular they were attracting the same jerk jocks and frat-boy bullies that made his teen years a living hell, many of them not even getting the fact that a lot of Cobain's own songs were raging against them.
Not helping matters were Cobain's history of drug use - some of it psychiatric, some of it to cope with a chronic stomach ailment, some of it recreational with the hardest of them being heroin - and getting into a volatile relationship with Courtney Love. Due to the couple's drug use, they temporarily lost custody of their daughter Frances Bean and he continued to live under the fear of losing her again. In this environment, a handful of drug-using moments seem to turn into suicide attempts.
By the end of March 1994, Cobain was confronted with an intervention and convinced to put himself in detox/rehab in Los Angeles. He only stayed for about a day, then hopped the clinic's six-foot wall and fled. By April 2nd, he was spotted in a few places around his stomping ground Seattle. By April 5th, he ended up at his big secluded home. His body was found April 8th, shotgun to the head, body pumped of heroin, a suicide note nearby.
There's been the conspiracy theories, of course: Generation X grew up with Roswell and the Kennedys and King getting shot and the CIA MK/Ultra stories and the FBI Conintelpro scandals. The idea that Courtney Love had Kurt killed for some reason or another. But the sad truth is that everything we know about Kurt Cobain, the pains and the addictions, the fact he fled on his own, that he wandered (wondered) about town his last few days, by himself for the most part, alienated and disconnected... the suicide has all the markings of the bliss of a man who'd decided to unplug for good...
This was all twenty years ago. I was working as a part-time librarian in Clearwater at the time - St. Pete (then Junior) College - and I came home to my mom telling me the kids in her classroom were talking about Kurt. I turned on the news, to MTV, and watched. It was a kick in the gut.
Cobain was 27 when we died. Same age as my older brother. He was three years ahead of me. He could have been my brother, or someone I knew at school. Like him, I had to deal with bullies and not fitting in, and coping with a world that seemed so painful. Still I got some of the lyrics he sang, not all of them, but I got them. I felt the tempo of the music, understood the mood. Like Cobain and millions of other Gen Xers I had depression, but I coped.
And I hated Cobain for what he did. He chickened out. He had more going for him, more to live for (a daughter for God's sake), than I would ever know. Not just the money or the fame. He had friends despite the disconnect that seemed to be there. He had the ability to enjoy the world on his terms - with wry bemusement - that I can only barely do on my own. And still he couldn't cope.
Cobain fell.
It's 2014. On Facebook recently I saw a shared photo of famous dead artists with the poster asking which of these artists would you like to see perform one more time? For me, that poster isn't asking about whether we'd want to see them perform, it's if we want to see them... meet them, before the moment those talented souls fell to their fate, to drugs or illness or madness or worse. Warn them, save them somehow, so that they'd still be here in the real world rather than in our fading memories.
Generation X are now in our 40s, mostly. We're well within the age of being parents, raising our own kids, coping as always only now we're on the older side of things bearing witness to this new generation - the Millennials - learning to cope on their own with their hopes and fears and cultural touchstones ("Call Me Maybe"? Sigh...). We're about the age of becoming CEOs and Presidents ourselves, although the Boomer generation hasn't ungripped the reins of power just yet and we're suffering - much like our own kids among the Millenial crowd - from the short-sighted Boomer self-indulgences...
Except for Cobain, who fell behind, stuck at 27 forever. Stuck as a reminder that not all of us got out of the Nineties alive. Stuck on the same last repeating lyric.
A denial... A denial... A denial... (bemused grin that quickly disappears as the video ends)
Yeah, back on Dec. 17 2008 I lost my employment with Pasco County Libraries.
Between then and now was a long struggle: filing for unemployment, filing for WIA re-training funds, taking more computer classes, job-hunting, tweaking resumes, job-hunting, not getting interviewed, never getting interviewed, not even getting looked at by the retailers for part-time (the sins of getting a Masters degree education, you make yourself overqualified for a sh-tload of part-time jobs) work...
It was hard as hell on my family, especially my parents who helped out financially as best they could, and they couldn't understand why no one would even interview me for office work or anything like that. My twin brother once chewed me out (on our birthday no less), accusing me of being a lazy-ass living off our parents' largess. They couldn't understand I was up against 60, 100, 150 (!) applicants for every job opening (it wasn't just the unemployed I was competing with, it was employed people looking for something stable during uncertain times), and that I was going up against HR departments being finicky with who they interviewed (younger and cheaper were better, less educated and less prone to look elsewhere were better, etc.).
I found a part-time job in 2009, but it was will-call... By 2010 I put in for the Census work, but that turned out to be shorter than I expected... 2011, nothing, not a peep. Things picked up by 2012 with 5 different libraries and computer-oriented workplaces interviewing, but I ended up not making the cut... I finally got a part-time with a tech firm doing contractual installs for offices, but that was will-call as well... by Christmas 2012 Dad threatened and began plans to ship me up to my older brother's in Maryland (WINTER?!) to look for work in what he felt was a better employment environment.
Thank God this January I had three libraries interview me one right after the other... with Bartow, GOD BLESS THEM, offering me a job as their Reference and Computer training librarian.
I'd like to think I'm doing well here, that I'm fitting in (truth be told, my struggles losing a job and then trying to find one has left me with a bad case of "Oh GOD Don't Let Me Eff Up" that's got me more jumpy about how I'm doing than usual).
To everyone out there still looking for work, I hope and pray the best for you. If you need help looking, check at your libraries for job-hunting help and resume tips. Stay active in politics to vote the right people - the ones pushing for REAL JOBS, not tax cuts for companies already rolling in profits - into office at the state and federal level. Hell, GO to the local political (okay, go Democrat, because I honestly think the Republicans would ignore this issue or defame it) offices and sign up to run for state office on a Jobs-Jobs-Jobs platform. The more candidates we've got out there pushing for real job creation, the better our chances.
Good luck. Here's hoping your anniversaries for firing fade quick and for hiring come quick.
Prepare for the horror that is... creamy Asparagus dishes! Artichokes! Swedish meatballs! ...no, seriously, some people do meatballs for Thanksgiving. Why? I mean, stick to the traditional meats like turkey, or honey ham, or fish. Fish is legal, it's a Pilgrim staple... ya, ya...
So anyhoo, for the benefit of the seven people who follow this blog, here's the keystone to our holiday festivity:
Now, about the proper way to sacrifice your turkey to the pagan Gods of the Harvest... First, lay out a table in a geometric pattern with silver stabbing weapons and ceramic plates in which the ritual offerings can be placed. Light some scented harvest-themed candles in the center of the table... Have the participants sit within an order decided by rank and by age... Bring forth the SACRIFICE! Offer a prayer to the appropriate deity of the house... AND BEGIN THE CUTTING...!
Multiple sacrifices AKA seconds may be granted depending on the satisfaction of the house deity.
TONIGHT! THERE WILL BE SATED GODS. ALL WILL BE WELL WITHIN THE PANTHEON OF DEITIES.
Also, it's the one-year anniversary of the Butt Fumble. Sometimes, we must wonder which Gods the Jets displeased...
Next up, SATURNALIA! I need more computer desktop wallpapers for Saturnalia, graphics artists! NOW...
ADDED BELOW I'm of the belief that you need to ask an American just three questions to ever figure out exactly who that person is: ask about the American's name; ask about what he/she does for a living; and ask what he/she thinks happened to JFK in Dallas Nov. 22 1963...
The assassination of John Kennedy remains one of the most traumatic moments in American history. Up there with the Civil War, Pearl Harbor, 9/11 attacks, and the rollout of New Coke.
As a librarian I can tell you the importance of a historical event by the number of books filling up the shelves. Civil War books, usually the biggest section of the 900s (DDC) alone can take up a full shelf (with six packed rows of books) in a small library, and take up an entire stack of shelves in a big library.
The Kennedy assassination is getting up there in the number of books written. It's been the cornerstone of conspiracy thought ever since the Warren Report came out and people hooked onto certain flaws found in it. It's been 50 years of arguing over the assassination, over the report, over how history got screwed (the number of What If plotlines and time-travel-to-save-JFK stories are pretty numerous).
For myself, I grew up in the shadow of the Sixties, a young child of the Seventies and a teen of the Eighties. I was engulfed with the conspiracy talk ever since we got to this part of U.S. history in the classroom. Having grown up reading non-fiction books about mysteries – UFOs, witchcraft, ghosts, Bigfoot, the Bermuda Triangle – the allure of conspiracy about JFK's death was pretty irresistible.
So. Shall we play a game of Whodunnit and argue over the various conspiracies over who shot JFK?
Lone Gunman
The official take. Oswald, ex-Marine who defected to Russia and returned disillusioned, acts alone in the planning of the assassination and is the only one pulling the trigger. He kills a police officer while fleeing on foot before getting captured in a movie theater. Oswald himself is killed by a lone gunman, a paranoid club owner Jack Ruby.
Why this theory works: all the official evidence points this way. What is known of Oswald fits into the psych profile of other assassins. There are other parts of Oswald's activities before the assassination – an attempted shooting of a retired right-wing general – that points to a man desperate to prove himself via Propaganda of the Deed.
Why this theory falls apart: the “official evidence” could have been manipulated: there have been enough complaints about the Warren Report having errors and unfinished tangents deserving of investigation to make that report suspect. While Oswald fits the profile of an assassin, he's unique among all of the other shooters and would-be assailants in that he refused to take credit. He's the only one on record saying he didn't do it, and that he was a “patsy”. Having Oswald killed prevents any truth of his actions from getting out. Considering the number of political enemies Kennedy acquired over the years, having some nobody be the one killing him just doesn't seem kosher.
The Russians/Commies Did It
The first possibility, considering we were at the height of the Cold War. Kennedy had just stared down the Russians from putting nuclear warheads in Cuba, and the Berlin Wall had just gone up. Eliminating a political opponent wouldn't be out of the question for the KGB.
Why this theory works: Oswald had defected to the USSR and had just returned, reportedly kicked out by a Soviet Union that found him useless. He could have been conditioned or encouraged by his Soviet handlers to pull the trigger on Kennedy.
Why this theory doesn't work: If this were true, we'd have started launching nukes at the Soviets inside of thirty minutes of finding out. This would have been such an act of aggression that war would be the only logical response. The Soviets may have been cunning, but they weren't crazy. They could deal with Kennedy, and they didn't need to kill him.
The Castro Cubans Did It
Independently of their Soviet allies. Castro had been surviving attempts on his life and was probably pissed off enough to turn the tables. Oswald had been positioning himself as a fan of communist Cuba, and may have shot Kennedy to curry favor with Castro.
Why this theory works: It actually doesn't. Because...
Why this theory doesn't work: There has never been any conclusive proof that Castro or Cuban communists were in contact with Oswald. The FBI and CIA made serious efforts to find one, but never could (the possibility of Oswald going to the Cuban embassy in Mexico is disputed with the fact that the documented photos of someone claiming to be Oswald doesn't match the real thing). Castro pulling something like this without the knowledge of the Soviets is unlikely; and if found out would have forced Soviet Russia to either cut ties to Cuba while the US invaded out of revenge, or else sign on to nuclear Armageddon.
The Anti-Castro Cubans Did It
While there were a lot of people angry at Kennedy, none of them were as driven as the exiled Cuban community. They considered themselves twice betrayed: first when JFK refused to provide air support for the failed Bay of Pigs, second when JFK refused to invade Cuba over the missile crisis. It hurt that Kennedy's deal with Khrushchev included a full stop to all covert attempts to overthrow Castro.
Why this theory works: As noted, these guys were PISSED at Kennedy. That fateful trip through the southern states originally had Kennedy stopping in Miami (the center of anti-Castro activity), but that was canceled when it was deemed security wouldn't be tight enough. Given some of the evidence of Oswald being involved with some elements of the anti-Castro covert ops, it's possible Oswald got recruited by a small band to assist either directly or indirectly with the shooting. As part of of this conspiracy theory, they then get Ruby to shoot Oswald to cover their tracks.
Why this theory doesn't work: There's little evidence that the anti-Castro Cubans had this amount of power to pull of an assassination like this. Or have this much control over the investigation. If it ever got out that the anti-Castro groups killed our President, the American people would have turned against the anti-Castro crowds and their government handlers like the CIA. The only way this theory works is if you add it to the larger conspiracy theory such as...
The CIA/FBI/Shadow Government Did It
What quickly became the most prominent theory among conspiracy buffs. Somehow, Kennedy was a threat to their covert operations and overt attempts at starting World War III. It's common knowledge nowadays that the Joint Chiefs and other key government officials viewed Kennedy as soft on Communism (it was more that Kennedy refused to ignite a nuclear war, something the war-hawks viewed as survivable). Kennedy had threatened to dismantle the CIA after the Bay of Pigs fiasco, blaming them for misleading him with false intel.
Why this theory works: If Kennedy had enemies within the government, it was most likely here. The heads of the CIA and FBI both disliked JFK along with the upper echelon of the military. The CIA could have been in contact with Oswald as part of the theory that Oswald was an attempt to infiltrate the Soviet Union. The FBI had tabs on Oswald right up to the assassination. And the FBI basically had control of the whole investigation that created the Warren Report, meaning they could hide any incriminating evidence they didn't like.
Why this theory doesn't work: a conspiracy of this size and scope would have had to involve hundreds of people through various agencies, any one of whom could have slipped up on a detail or betray the secrecy in some fashion. Having this covert group pull off a very public assassination would have drawn too bright a light on their activities. And this shadow government would have had other means of killing Kennedy – through poisoning to make it look like a natural death. How many people knew about Kennedy's Addison's Disease? Did his Vice-President know...?
Johnson Did It
As part of the government conspiracy theory, where the CIA and FBI didn't do it, but Vice-President Johnson did and the government merely helped cover it up. There'd been stories that Kennedy was thinking of dropping LBJ from the ticket in 1964, that Johnson's ties to a crooked land developer was the key reason, although the Kennedys (including Bobby, Jack's confidant) and Johnson didn't get along very much to begin with. As Johnson desired the Presidency, if he got booted off the ticket that'd be the end of that hope, so killing Kennedy to get promoted sounds like motive...
Why this theory works: It really doesn't. Because...
Why this theory doesn't work: There's no direct or indirect link between Johnson, nor Johnson's people to Oswald. We'd be better off thinking it was a massive government cabal with Johnson on the side benefittng from the results. Kennedy may have disliked LBJ but he needed Johnson's negotiating skills to keep Congress in line. If Johnson knew about Jack's Addisons, he could have easily created a situation that would have triggered the illness and have Kennedy die of natural causes...
Cabal of Business Leaders Did It
Kennedy wasn't popular among various business leaders, especially the oil men in Texas. One major conspiracy theorist leaned on this as his go-to theory, even making a rather dull movie about it.
Why this theory works: These men would be far enough outside of government to avoid accountability, while having enough ties to various agencies to ensure they would cover their tracks. They would be able to hire the best assassins and covert ops types of the day.
Why this theory doesn't work: Again, there would be too many people involved in the planning, staging, and execution of the attempt, let along the hundreds more needed to cover up something of this scope.
The Mafia Did It
Stories abound of how Kennedy relied on help from mobsters to secure certain election results to win the Presidency... and then unleashed his brother Bobby as Attorney General to hunt the Mafia down. Feeling betrayed by someone who was literally in bed with them (well, in bed with one of the mob boss' mistresses), the mobsters would have felt the need to strike back...
Why this theory works: The Mafia tended to be a group that, when confronted with a problem, uses bullets to remove said problem. There were ties to the New Orleans mob with some of the more interesting characters in the various conspiracy theories, although ties to Oswald are tenuous at best.
Why this theory doesn't work: Again, anything on the scale of what the mob is accused of doing involves too many people, any one of whom could have blown the whole deal. The risks of trying were too high, even if they did succeed.
Aliens Did It
Why not?
Why this theory works: Aliens hated Kennedy for some yet-unrevealed reason.
Why this theory doesn't work: Haven't found any aliens at all, let alone aliens with a grudge against JFK.
You and Me Did It
The Rolling Stones argument. WE are the ones who killed the Kennedys.
Why this theory works: Society is to blame.
Why this theory doesn't work: You first have to believe the Rolling Stones were capable of waxing philosophical.
The truth?
We can never be really sure of it now. It's been fifty years: most of the people involved with that tragic day are dead, and while some documents have been released over the years there's still a ton of evidence locked away for a long time.
For myself, I tend to lean towards the Anti-Castro elements being the culprit as they had the greatest motive and opportunity, but to prove that would require getting to the bottom of whether Oswald was a serious attempt by the CIA to infiltrate the Soviets, and what ties Oswald might have had to any of the Anti-Castro groups operating along the Gulf of Mexico.
The more I've looked at the Warren Report, the more I see an investigation that was more cover-up than revealing, but not for sinister reasons: a lot of it seemed to be an attempt to hide any failures of inaction on the FBI itself. The conspiracy theory about the government behind it all doesn't the basic scrutiny test of Why? Why commit an action fraught with risk when simpler, more subtle methods were at hand?
Although I still have a question about one thing: when Oswald got kicked out of the USSR and came back to the US, why didn't anyone arrest him for desertion from the Marines when he fled to Russia? He was technically AWOL when he did that. The House UnAmerican Activities congressional committee was still operating at the time: why didn't any eager Congressman looking for media interest bring Oswald up on charges and make a public show of it? I'm still kinda bugged about this point. If someone can point me to a detailed answer to this question, I'd be grateful.
So, until next time, when we unravel the possibility that the emerging American Football League of that decade were in cahoots with Oswald after all...
ADDED: I know this is a bit sick to point out on the anniversary and all, but this bit from Red Dwarf just nails it... What? Too soon?!
Just got a reminder from one of the references I work with at the library.
Today is the 150th Anniversary of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
As oratory goes, the address is short and simple. The keynote speaker, Gov. Edward Everett, gave a more formal and better received speech at two hours length.
So why was the Gettysburg Address so famous while Everett's barely gets cited in any reference?
The Address has several advantages. Its shortness made it perfect to fit on a single page and column of a newspaper. It also makes it easier to memorize.
Above all, its simplicity in stating in such short words the cause of the war, and what the objective of the war should be: A New Birth Of Freedom, from the end of slavery and the emancipation of blacks into American society.
...It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
The thing about sitting on the outside looking in, to be honest, is that this makes you a critic.
It's easy to sit on the sidelines and complain about the stupid moves your football team makes. To be fair, today for the Tampa Bay Bucs was a stupid "why the hell did you waste everyone's time with this crap" day. Anyway. It's easy to look at the political circus inside the Beltway and go "What. The. F-CK." Criticizing is easy: you just point and mock.
But there's gotta be something more than that. Mockery doesn't do much other than generate laughs and make the targets unhappy, if they even care about your opinion. The best type of critique is the constructive critique: recognizing an honest attempt and building on it, noting a flaw that can be fixed and suggesting how that fix can be made.
When I started this blog 499 posts ago, it was designed to be a place to provide something constructive: suggested amendment ideas that would reform the flaws in government and law that had been weakening our system and letting things fall apart. Of course, things being what they were this place quickly revolved around the "things p-ssing me off" at the state, national and global level to where I changed the title and intent. (That was Post 400, just in April of this year. I'd been blogging like crazy since then... )
But I'd like to think I can still do some constructive work here. Something of importance. Something that could get a dialogue going. Something to stroke the ego... wait no, even better the SUPEREGO! ...what do you mean, I've gotten that confused with my Id? Dammit...
So, here now, if you can indulge in my fantasies a little bit, is Post 500:
Let's just say, just humor me for a moment here, that on Nov. 8, 2016, through no fault of my own I'm able to convince 60 million of my fellow Americans with enough Electoral pull into voting for me as the 45th President of the United States. In a three-way race between myself, Democratic Martin O'Malley, and Republican Rick Santorum 60 million would be more than enough to win the popular vote (O'Malley having earned the Dem nomination when Hillary Clinton bowed out to health issues and Santorum surviving a brutal 50-way primary fight between every Tea Partier rabblerouser on the circuit), and the Electoral count for me getting Florida as a Favored Crazy Resident, winning over moderates in the Midwest states, and a surprise win in California when my roast of Kevin Smith turns into a laugh riot highlight of the year (O'Malley comes in second with key wins for Texas and New York, Santorum a distant third getting only South Carolina and Mississippi).
If I've won over 60 million voters I'd like to think it was because of my key platform position of Jobs Jobs and JOBS. Hell, this would be my bumper sticker:
I admit I will need a graphics design office when I campaign...
That blue line is CEO pay. See those flat lines at the bottom? That the minimum wage and also workers' wages.
With regards to other platform issues I'd run on, it'd mostly be the amendment ideas I've been hawking over the years, with a focus on making Congress more accountable to their ethical requirements (i.e. STOP LYING) and a focus on ensuring fair regulation of businesses to ensure workplace safety and consumer protection. I'd have a foreign policy platform of diplomacy over military action, a domestic program to reform the NSA to require more stringent warrants and strict oversight, and a requirement to stop Hollywood from making unnecessarymovie remakes. Seriously, we're at the point the studios are going to remake a movie released two months ago...
Can I get any of my platform enacted by a Congress riven by partisan strife? Sure. Of course. Dear reader, please note: this is my fantasy. Let me indulge in the belief that I would march right into the halls of Congress and get every critter in office fainting over my mere presence. With my State of the Union speech in hand, I will parade before the nation and say for all to know... (gets shouted down by wingnuts crying all "Liar!" "Socialist Fascist HitlerStalin!" "Smelly pants!" "Booooooggggggeerrrrrrrrrrrrr...")
Wow. Even in my fantasy, they're not gonna let me get a word in...
