Anything But Ordinary Times
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| The Don, Fredo, Connie and Fredo |
I started the last piece on this site by quoting Eleanor Roosevelt. At the 1940 Democratic Convention in Chicago there was a brawl among the gathered delegates over Franklin Roosevelt's choice of a running mate that year. His former vice-president, John Nance Garner of Texas (known far and wide by his colorful nickname "Cactus Jack") was adamantly opposed to the very idea of a third term and had refused to be on the ticket. FDR wanted his Agriculture Secretary, Henry Wallace, to be named as his running mate. The movers and shakers among the Democratic Party would have none of it. For one thing, Wallace was a former Republican, and secondly, he was seen as too leftwing for main stream politics. The president held his ground. They were going to accept Wallace or he would refuse the nomination.
Eleanor was sent on a plane from her home in Hyde Park, NY to the site of the convention. With another world war looming on the horizon, she told the convention that 1940 was "no ordinary time", implying that unconventional choices were inevitable. The delegates relented and Roosevelt went on to win a third - and then a fourth - term. Many decades later, the noted biographer, Doris Kearns-Goodwin, would use the words "No Ordinary Time" as the title of the best book ever written on the Roosevelt White House.
That little preamble has nothing to do with what is presently happening in America, only with regard to the fact these are - most definitely - not ordinary times. In 1940, the gathering storm was occurring in foreign lands from which two oceans buffered the United States. Seventy-eight years later, the existential threat hovering above the American landscape is not emanating from Berlin or Tokyo or Rome. Over eighty years ago the writer Sinclair Lewis wrote the novel he is most remembered for. It was called, "It Can't Happen Here". It was about a Fascist overthrow of the good ol' USA. What Lewis was clearly hinting at in the book's title was that it can happen here. It has.
These days I am at the point where I don't even like leaving my house. There's too much transpiring on an hourly basis to distract one's attention from the computer screen - and I've misplaced the damned cellphone! This black comedy has taken on a new meaning with an ominous plot-shift. The time it took for this country to get to this point was at such a glacial-nails-pace that, if you weren't paying attention between 1981 and now, you didn't notice the change. That's one of my most debilitating curses: I make it a point to pay attention to these kinds of things. I'm nostalgic for Ronald Reagan. George W. Bush is starting to look like Theodore Roosevelt. I can scarcely believe that I wrote those last two sentences. The damage that American politicians have done to this doomed nation is going to take generations to undo - if it is ever undone at all. The United States of America has become too unhinged to be taken seriously any longer. All bets are off. This is the way it's going to be from now on.
It's become a freaking mantra for me: Get used to living in a nation in ruins.
Between now and the new year promises to be one of the most interesting (and suspenseful) periods of our lives as far as domestic politics are concerned. The Trump administration is determined that the Mueller probe be thwarted and that the findings hidden from the American people forever. I believe it is their contention that by firing Robert Mueller between now and when the Democrats retake the House in January they will be able to pull this off. I don't think that they will succeed. Light will prevail. Just you wait.
By then, hopefully, most of us will be able to finally comprehend the damage that was done to us. We are accomplices in that damage. Don't you dare ever forget that.
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
SUGGESTED READING:
No Ordinary Time
by Doris Kearns-Goodwin
As mentioned above, this is the best book ever written about the White House years of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. It's still in print and is a must for history junkies.
SUGGESTED VIEWING:
Black Klansman
a film by Spike Lee
I saw this one last night. Certainly not a masterpiece but very well done. Some of it was really funny - and it was all based on a true story. Recommended!
That little preamble has nothing to do with what is presently happening in America, only with regard to the fact these are - most definitely - not ordinary times. In 1940, the gathering storm was occurring in foreign lands from which two oceans buffered the United States. Seventy-eight years later, the existential threat hovering above the American landscape is not emanating from Berlin or Tokyo or Rome. Over eighty years ago the writer Sinclair Lewis wrote the novel he is most remembered for. It was called, "It Can't Happen Here". It was about a Fascist overthrow of the good ol' USA. What Lewis was clearly hinting at in the book's title was that it can happen here. It has. These days I am at the point where I don't even like leaving my house. There's too much transpiring on an hourly basis to distract one's attention from the computer screen - and I've misplaced the damned cellphone! This black comedy has taken on a new meaning with an ominous plot-shift. The time it took for this country to get to this point was at such a glacial-nails-pace that, if you weren't paying attention between 1981 and now, you didn't notice the change. That's one of my most debilitating curses: I make it a point to pay attention to these kinds of things. I'm nostalgic for Ronald Reagan. George W. Bush is starting to look like Theodore Roosevelt. I can scarcely believe that I wrote those last two sentences. The damage that American politicians have done to this doomed nation is going to take generations to undo - if it is ever undone at all. The United States of America has become too unhinged to be taken seriously any longer. All bets are off. This is the way it's going to be from now on.
It's become a freaking mantra for me: Get used to living in a nation in ruins.
Between now and the new year promises to be one of the most interesting (and suspenseful) periods of our lives as far as domestic politics are concerned. The Trump administration is determined that the Mueller probe be thwarted and that the findings hidden from the American people forever. I believe it is their contention that by firing Robert Mueller between now and when the Democrats retake the House in January they will be able to pull this off. I don't think that they will succeed. Light will prevail. Just you wait.By then, hopefully, most of us will be able to finally comprehend the damage that was done to us. We are accomplices in that damage. Don't you dare ever forget that.
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
SUGGESTED READING:
No Ordinary Timeby Doris Kearns-Goodwin
As mentioned above, this is the best book ever written about the White House years of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. It's still in print and is a must for history junkies.
SUGGESTED VIEWING:
Black Klansman
a film by Spike Lee
I saw this one last night. Certainly not a masterpiece but very well done. Some of it was really funny - and it was all based on a true story. Recommended!
posted by Tom Degan @ 5:58 AM
8 comments
8 Comments:
"The Trump administration is determined that the Mueller probe be thwarted and that the findings hidden from the American people forever. I believe it is their contention that by firing Robert Mueller between now and when the Democrats retake the House in January they will be able to pull this off." ~~ Tom Degan
This will be one of the most turbulent holiday seasons we've seen as a nation. As the saying goes, the s#*t is about to hit the fan.
Knowing Trump, he'll not mind resorting to a scorched earth policy to avoid indictment, prosecution and whatever looms ahead. We all know by now that he was knowingly lying when he took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
An enemy of the people - of the nation - resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. This will become very apparent in the weeks to come.
As Bill Maher called it, the Slow Moving Coup has arrived.
The Cold Civil War is here. It is Democracy's last stand against the Beast bred of white nationalism and corporate oligarchy.
Good luck with that, America...and world.
Clucky said "Is there any way I can slip some 'whataboutism' in here?"
True asylum seekers do not "rush" the border and throw rocks at law enforcement agents.
How about we use some common sense and admit that this is nothing more than another political ploy of the Democrats trying to expand their voter base? I know honesty amongst the left is even more rare than it is among Republicans, which is pretty damned pathetic.
Mozart, what you said is fake, not the truth, a lie.
Take it from an expert:
How about we use some common sense and admit that this is nothing more than... far Right partisan dogma.
Why would Democrats want to expand their voter base? They have been the majority in the last six of seven presidential elections. Oh, that's right. Their votes don't count as much as white rubes, bumpkins, racists, and rednecks. But my, oh, my how they whine and bitch as they play their patented far Right "Victim Card".
I know honesty amongst the left is even more rare than it is among Republicans, which is pretty damned pathetic.
How many Trump Cartel members have LIED to Congress and Mueller about Russia now? IOKIYAR, amirite?
Too bad those America-hating libs can't be as honest as Trump and his party of sycophants and appeasers.
Say, has anyone seen photos or video of agents being hit by rocks? Me neither. Are there no cameras on the border?
So far no evidence of injuries from rocks has been shown. Yeah we know. accusations are all that matter to the Right. Evidence shmevidence.
I would say it's a good thing to identify any rock throwers, so we know which ones not to admit for asylum. Treating them all as criminals is cruel and stupid. Is that too difficult for the cons and tough guys at the border to figure out?
Immigrants must be INSIDE the border to request asylum. They are being shut out deliberately to manufacture and inflame a crisis.
Cons see only criminals and future democrats, so they are naturally terrified and resentful, like delicate little snowflakes.
Mozart is correct.
This is whataboutism:
Dave, is the mayor of Tijuana a white nationalist?
So far we have seen ZERO facts from Just the Facts. Just sayin'.
"True asylum seekers do not 'rush' the border and throw rocks at law enforcement agents." ~~ T. Paine
True protectors of democracy do not gas innocent women and children, across borders into sovereign territory.
The media, specifically Fox News, also ignore the fact that asylum-seekers are arriving at our border because United States foreign policy allowed the intervention, illigitimately, in the domestic affairs of sovereign Central American nations.
The United States created this situation. As I already told Timmy, your perpetual lap-sitter, the United States broke it. Now, it has to buy it.
"How about we use some common sense..." ~~ T. Paine
Good idea! Why don't you?...
"...and admit that this is nothing more than another political ploy of the Democrats trying to expand their voter base?" ~~ T. Paine
Nice try. You know this is conservative hogwash. Why do you continue to recite Republican memes that went out of style decades ago?
It's plain human decency. Of course, I realize "decency" is a foreign concept to you...especially when it involves "foreigners".
Dave,
get your facts straight just once, Mozart claims I said something , which I didn't, hence Mozart lies. You take my question and instead of answering it, claim it is whataboutism. Frankly Dave, if President Trump's actions at our border are those of a "white nationalist" so are those of the Mayor of Tijuana.
You just can not bring your self to step out of your handlers play book.
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