Saturday, January 22, 2022

We People Elect President?

 In 1970, Congressional Quarterly reported that a  Senate bill (S J Res 1) to abolish the Electoral College had failed, a “victim of filibusters.”

“The Senate bill, sponsored by Birch Bayh of Indiana,(same state as Dan Quayle and Mike Pence) was similar to a bill passed by the House in 1969.” That House bill, ( H J Res 681) had passed by vote of 385 to 44. Rep. Emanuel Cellar of New York had been the sponsor. Years before he had championed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which did pass, but is currently being placed on the Grand Old Pyre for a legally ritualized sacrifice. 

If, in 1970, the Senate had not left that proposed Constitutional Amendment to die a slowly filibustered death, perhaps the most exclusive Club in these here United States of America could have mustered the generosity—the courageous noblesse oblige— to allow our nation’s most important political decision to pass to We the People, who generally can find a simpler pathway of getting things done than the Grand Old Politicians on the Senatorial side of the Hill. 

Perhaps, in 1970 our 50 state legislatures would have summoned enough democratic and republican simplemindednes to permit the American people to choose their President with a very straightforward popular majority. 

This, instead of the arcane, over-complicated, over-lawyered gamesmanship which now contorts and corrupts our 4-year selection ritual, could have been a simplifying improvement.

In its 1970 documentation, the Congressional Quarterly reported: 

“Opponents generally feared direct elections would destroy the two-party system and encourage numerous splinter parties.”

But now, our “two-party” system is falling apart anyway. So what’s left to save of the two-party system?. . . when millions of centrist voters are waking up from Jan6 nightmare grasping for a Statesman who will truly represent them and who will Preside peacefully over our nation (under God).

For the record, here’s one American who DOES still trust in God.

But I’m searching the horizons for Statesmen whom we can trust.

Now don’t think I’m a Republican just because I mention trust in “God.”

I used to be a Republican.

But The Savior I serve does not resemble, in any way, the sore loser who damn near destroyed our Rule of Law, and is still trying to destroy it.

Since I did mention "God", let me also bring to the forefront one of His statements when he walked among us:

“Blessed are the gentle people, for they shall the earth.”

WE

But I digress. Point is: The sacred two-party system is indeed falling apart, along with a few other American traditions.

Now, in 2020, both parties are splintering severely, largely over issues that originated in arcane 18th-century hoity-toity counter-revolutionary hesitancy to actually launch a true democratic republic. 

They were still so afraid of a a real democracy,  the Founders contrived an Electoral College to make it convoluted enough for the lawyers handle it. 

Their Electoral College processes for selecting and legitimitizing Electors are tearing us apart. 22 years ago we were arguing about “hanging chads.” Now we’re arguing about, about . . . who the hell’s in charge here, right here in the shadow this Capitol Dome?

Rule of Law or Mob Rule? Rule of Law or Rule of Lawyers?

Folks, this is not progress. The Electoral College has outlived is usefulness.

Now is the time for all men and women to come to the aid of our country. Now is the time to make it happen: Popular election of Our President!

 

Glass half-Full

Wednesday, January 19, 2022

Pursuit of Great White Joeby Dick

 While slipping through  the dethroning straits of  Jan6 ’21, suddenly our long conspiring chase had now begun. The crow’s nest mate did cry out that long-awaited proclamation: 

“Whale ho! There he blows, heading straight Cap’tolward, Cap’n! By yon ghostly ghastly tail, ’tis surely the JoeBy Dick himself!”

 With no delay, and driven by the devil he had waited so long to destroy, Cap’n Oathhab wasted no time in bellowing his fierce command—the obsessive order for which he had waited so longly to proclaim! 

“All hands on deck! Heave ho for JoeBy Dick!”

Meanwhile, back at the Peq’d deck. . . the clunk, clunk clunk of Oathab’s hastening pegleg thumps  more loudly and furious upon the deck than any crewman had ever heard before, he hobbles along the starboard rail, commanding:

“All hands on deck! Heave ho for JoeBy Dick!”

“Reporting now, live from our man Norman Melville, onboard the Ship of State. . . let’s go to Norman now. . . Norman, what’s the scene there, thereupon the Peq’d-out Ship of State.”

“All ayes are on deck, Walter, as we see The great white Delawale gaining his long-awaited ascent to Capt’dom; meanwhile, Cap’n Oathhab pursues insurrectionally that monomaniac incarnation of all  malicious deepswamp deepsh*t—that very same deepsh*t devil which  Oathermen feel are eating their Foxified insides out. . . it’s all that deepswamp deepsh*t that most maddens and torments these insurrectioning Oathermen;

JoebyDick

yeah, I tell ya, it's all that stirs up the Lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought. All that deepstate evil, to crazy Oathab, is visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Joeby Dick.”

News at 11th hour. Stay tuned.

Glass half-Full

Monday, January 17, 2022

Dr. King on the Mountaintop

 Hear my song:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3hQNMr0A48

Mountain

And/or read:

Well I walked out; I walked out to Pisgah mountain

Well ole Martin Luther King; he’d been up to the mountaintop

and I wanted to see what he had seen.

And ole Moses—he’d been up to the mountaintop 

and I wanted to see what he had seen.

When I reached the top of Pisgah mountain

what did I see? I saw a promised land 

just waitin’ for me, and waitin’ for all of ye.

Well I walked down from the mountain and into the town

Well ole Martin Luther King—he’d been to see the big man

and I wanted to see what he had seen.

MLKing

And ole Moses—he’d been to see the Pharoah.

Yeah, he’d been up there. . . . and I wanted to see what he had seen.

The promised land is what you make it to be!

Struggle . . . struggle to unwind your unconstant state of mind.

Just take a walk up the mountain, my friend

and you will see.

What goes on down in that dirty old town

is bound to be. 

You can make up your mind, my friend

and you can make it up good.

Are you looking for the promised land?

Or are you dying, are you dying, are you dying in a wasteland?

‘cause I may be asking you now; I may be asking you:

But someday, Lord, yeah, He’s gonna ask you too

And what you gonna say, what you gonna say

when my Lord 

comes on that day?

King of Soul

Saturday, January 15, 2022

Homo Erecticus

 Back in the tender years of my youth, James Brown brought forth a great song about Man's condition in this world.  I have discovered, in my life, that Brutha James' intonement is profoundly true.

He’s lost . . . in loneliness

He’s lost . . . in bitterness

This is a man’s world. 

This is a man’s world,

but it would be nothing 

without a woman or a girl.

These passionate lines bring forth the main message of the song; but before he actually wails out this heavy truth, James sets the stage with some other challenges of living life as a man:

Man made the cars, to take us over the road;

Man made the trains, to carry the heavy load;

Man made the ‘lectric light, to take us out of the dark;

Man made the boat for the waters, like Noah made the Ark.

This is a man’s, man’s, man’s world

but it would be nothing without a woman or a girl.

In some quarters, such lyrics would be considered politically incorrect, or sexist, or misogynist or whatever all those derogatory terms are. But as a man who has been happily married for 42 years, the song’s message doesn’t bother me.

In fact, I quite identify with it. 

In my 2017 novel, King of Soul, this song becomes a part of the story. In May of 1970, two college guys are taking an improvised  road trip from Louisiana to Kent, Ohio. The main character, Donnie, LSU sophomore, has just been rejected by a girl and the trip for him is somewhat of an escape. In the middle of the night, while Donnie’s driving Kevin’s ole '57 Ford  through the darkness of Ohio countryside, the song comes on the radio.

Here’s the scene, from chapter 23: 

  Louisville was a darkened neon dream as it whizzed by in the wee hours, and the brightness of that city fades in the background, gets overtaken by the darkness of mid-American countryside and here we are again, gliding along on that long, lonesome highway, we’re tending that lonesome, solitary feeling of being all by yourself somewhere in the universe as the moon slides down the night sky while streaming through the darkened US in those murky hours between midnight and dawn—that lonesomeness is a weight too heavy to bear, and yet the load is lightened with a little help that comes through the airwaves when a voice pierces the solitariness. The Cincinnati DJ’s voice—deep like Mr. Picou who had fired Donnie back there way down there down south where he had just come from and the man’s baritone intro slides out from the car radio speaker with a little bit of buzz because the signal is not quite strong enough yet . . . and now we get the real thing—yes, tell it like it is, brother—straight  from brother James Brown, the man himself, the godfather of Soul . . . 

Man made the cars, to take us over the road. . .

Back to the present, I was walking along a road when I happened upon this:

Ice

For some odd reason, the ice reminded me of James' passionate song, because 0f Man making the cars that go across the road . . . and when man makes a road, sometimes he cuts the earth so the road can be flat. And when he cuts the earth to make the road flat, Earth bleeds. The earth bleeds water because water is the blood of this earth and when the earth bleeds in winter the ice forms and the man who is passing is reminded of what life would be like without the woman who stirs his blood, summoning forth his erectitude.

Or maybe you'd have to be there . . .

If you care to listen to Brutha Jame’s great song, you can find it, “live” here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOvKal4nhU0

King of Soul

Monday, January 10, 2022

Attorney General's Report on Jan6 riot

We Christians often strive to simplify the complications of this life by inventing simple proverbs. Here’s a good one for you:

When the Lord closes a door, he opens a window.

Such was the case for Merrick Garland.

Our Congress denied the man a seat on our highest court.

But now he serves the high, holy (yes true Justice is holy) cause of Justice as our U.S. Attorney General.

And this is good.

If you care to question my “good” assessment of his role as Attorney General, let me submit this evidence. The man is doing his job. Listen:

    https://youtu.be/3dqO8_hnDsM

What Attorney General Garland presents in his January 5th address to the nation is convincing evidence that our Justice Department is bound and determined to get to the bottom of who was responsible for the infamous Jan6 storming of our U.S. Capitol.

AttorneyGeneral

Our Justice Department’s thorough investigation of that destructive riot is appropriate and necessary, especially as you compare its official investigative function to the alternative, which is: every tom, dick and harriet out there on the web spouting opinions—or even lies—about what happened or did not happen on that fateful day.

I recommend that any and all Americans listen to Attorney General’s update on our national search for truth about that tragic riot last year about this time. See the link above. 

Here are a few quotes that provide an indication of where our nation’s chief law enforcement officer is headed with the Justice Department’s investigation of that infamous insurrection:

~ “In circumstances like those of January 6, a full accounting does not suddenly materialize.”

~ “Investigators methodically collect and sift through more evidence. . .”

~ “The facts tell us where to go next.”

~ “We continue to seek the public’s assistance in identifying those individuals . .”

~ “We will follow the facts wherever they lead.”

In his last week’s report to the American people (linked above), Garland presents some basic update information. So far, our Department of Justice reports:

~ 725 defendants arrested and charged with crimes

~ 325 defendants charged with felonies

~ 20 guilty pleas for those felonies

~ 40 persons charged with Conspiracy to obstruct a Congressional proceeding

~ 17 defendants scheduled to stand trial for conspiracy roles

All of this serious, lawfully mandated investigation will take some time. Rest assured, my fellow Americans, that we have professional, career investigators following all those leads, just like you see on tv, only here it is the real thing. 

We have law enforcement officers whose job is to get the bottom of this mystery and bring the guilty parties to Justice.

Even so, our Justice Department’s responsibilities extend beyond investigation and prosecution of crimes. The truly just administration of Justice includes vigilance and oversight in the fair administration of our legal system and all the courts that determine who is guilty and who is not guilty. 

In his capacity as overseer of Justice, Merrick Garland also reported some current developments in the legislative area of our nation’s legal system. His update includes these comments:

“There has been a dramatic increase in legislative enactments that make it harder for millions of eligible voters to vote and to elect representatives of their own choosing.

“ Those enactments range from practices and procedures that make voting more difficult, to redistricting maps drawn to disadvantage voters and citizens of opposing parties, to abnormal post-election audits that put the integrity of the voting process at risk, to changes in voting administration meant to diminish the authority of locally-elected or non-partisan election administrators.

“ Some have even suggested permitting state legislators to set aside the choice of the voters themselves.As I noted in an address to the Civil Rights division (of the Justice Dep’t) last June, many of those enactments have been justified by unfounded claims of material vote fraud in the 2020 election. Those claims, which have corroded people’s faith in the legitimacy of our elections, have been repeatedly refuted by the law enforcement and intelligence agencies of both, the last administration and this one, as well as by every Court—Federal and State— that has considered them.”

As an American citizen who attempts to pay attention to these things, I remember all those wild attempts, post-election, by Guilliani and Sidney and other Donald lawyers who were striving desperately to throw a monkey wrench into our legitimate Presidential election process by discrediting the reported election results of our local officials in certain key states.

(Don’t get me started on the Electoral College. That’s one Constitutional construct that was inserted by our Founders who, as bold as they were in constructing our new nation and its laws, were still too timid in their 18th-century worldview to extend their confidence in We the People to the level of direct election of the President.)

We need a Constitutional Amendment to delete the Electoral College. We the People should elect our President directly. 

Bottom line: Our judgements about what happened on Jan6 2021 need to be guided by bona fide official investigations, not be every tom dick and harriet on the internet.

Glass half-Full 

Sunday, January 9, 2022

Why our Liberty Bell is Cracked

  The tragedy of our 235-year American Contention goes all the way back back to our Constitutional Convention.

LibertyBel

In Section 2 of Article 1 of our founding document, the very breaking point of our egalitarian resolve was implanted.

Representatives . . . shall be apportioned . . . according to their (each State's) respective numbers . . . including those bound to Service for a Term of Years (slavery), three-fifths of all other Persons.

Our corruptive legislative compromise--intended as an agreement to prevent strife and enable progress--has proven to be foundationally toxic. That provision for 3/5, or "second class" legislative value has forever hobbled our efforts toward true equality and justice. In multiple applications of government, federal, state and local, we have continuously failed--and continue to fail--to live up to our high calling of true equality among citizens.

Most notably now, we are still failing to obtain true justice in law enforcement, although recent judgements in the Chauvin/Floyd case and the McMichael/Arbery cases may represent a glint of hope on our dark Justice horizon.

Dred Scott decision, Civil War, Plessy v. Ferguson, Ross Barnett, George Wallace, Byron de la Beckwith, James Earl Ray, Derek Chauvin, the McMichael duo and many more abusive manifestations of white supremecy have exacerbated our failures to obtain an egalitarian nation throughout our entire history, even now.

The liberal journalists, editorialists, academics, eggheads, idealists who campaigned as Abolitionists before our Civil War are now represented as the Eastern Establishment: aka (formerly) liberals, now progressives or Democrats. Their presence and their impact on Law and public opinion goes back two centuries, but it is not enough to bring us all around to a societal fulfillment of true Justice.

We do have a deep chasm of contention here in the land of the free and the home of the brave. This enmity will not disappear by itself.

Now, because the oversimplifying contentions of social media are disabling forever whatever Constitutional agreement and compromise we had managed to attain . . .especially under the spell of  the self-glorifying demagogue who used his mussolinic rhetorical alchemy to totally corrupt our nation's (formerly conservative) conservatives . . . we are at a chasm that will not be crossed without serious trouble and, tragically, more bloodshed.

Those who warn of the dangers to come are not playing chicken little. Although our sky is not falling, the ground beneath us is erupting; we are descending into a chasm of contention that is unlike any we have ever seen, but nevertheless imitative (hopefully less extreme) of the war that divided us in 1860.

But this time we do not have the simplifying factor of a Mason-Dixon line. The complexity of our mess looks something like this:

MessOffice

There is only one way out. In God we trust. Pray. Turn or burn. 

Glass half-Full

Wednesday, January 5, 2022

The Trashing of America

 Trashing of America, phase 1:

Trashing

Trashing of America, phase 2:

TrashLinc

Trashing of America, phase 3:

Insurrection

Trashing of America phase 4:

GlassBrokn

Defense of America:

We the People must not allow the trashing of America to destroy our nation. 

Be it resolved!   Can I get a witness?!

Glass half-Full