Ignorance Is The Curse Of God*

Why is the Constitution important? 

The only answer I have is what Louis Armstrong said when asked to define jazz: "If you have to ask, you'll never know." 

This is the first in an occasional series of essays about the history of American government. If you remember everything from Civics 101 you can skip it, but please read the next paragraph first.

According to some polls, as many as 75% of Americans of voting age have only the vaguest understanding of the Constitution.** That ignorance has brought America to the brink of collapse. It was the primary weakness in a credulous sector of the population that ex-president Trump exploited, making them believe their own government had turned against them. It is an appalling level of ignorance made even worse by the fact that several members of Congress share it.

The soul of the Constitution is in the first three words, which everyone knows but few understand: "We the People," written in script dramatically larger than any other words in the document. That's not a stylistic conceit; it's a statement. 

That donor statement identifies who is making the proclamation and granting the benefit.

Compare the donor identification in any monarchical document, and not just in the past. Here's one from 2018: "Elizabeth the Second by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Our other Realms and Territories Queen Head of the Commonwealth Defender of the Faith . . ." Etc., etc. 

There's no such aggrandizement in the Constitution.

"We the People." With three simple words the American people granted themselves a nation. And yes, it was all the people, not just their representatives to the Congress of Confederation, which approved the Constitution for ratification. Each state called a special election for a popular vote of ratification. By popular vote the Constitution became the foundation of our government in June, 1788.

For the first time in the history of the world, a proclamation granting nationhood did not rely on the largesse of a monarch.

In plain language the Preamble sets out its purpose: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

As big deals go, that's infinitely ginormous. No other people in history have successfully thrown off an oppressor and gone on to establish a successful nation with a brand new, innovative, something-new-under-the-Sun, unique form of government. Nobody. Ever.

That's the first important thing about the Constitution. Stay tuned.

 

---Diogenes, 1/25/2021

*  William Shakespeare, II Henry VI, IV.vii.

** For example: https://woodrow.org/news/how-well-americans-know-constitution/; https://www.heritage.org/the-constitution/commentary/more-americans-need-actually-read-the-constitution; https://www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/americans-are-poorly-informed-about-basic-constitutional-provisions/

 

Constitution 46, Tyranny 0

There's a great old patriotic song called "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean," that has this line: "Thy banners make tyranny tremble, when borne by the red, white, and blue."

Donald Trump, a would-be tyrant, has learned that the Constitution of these United States of America is more powerful than tyranny. So it will always be.

Trump is now trembling in Florida, and Joe Biden is in the White House.

Barring unforeseen disaster, catastrophe, or tribulation, this will be the last message I post on Vox Populi in its anti-Trump role.

Thanks to all who have read, commented, kept the faith and spread the word. I am sincerely grateful.

--- Diogenes, 1/20/2021

Martin Luther King Jr., 1929-1968

Today is Dr. King's birthday, and now, in this bizarre and berserk world, it is especially important that we remember him.

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is at the top of the list of people I deeply wish I had met. He was a man of God, a man of peace, and a man of the people. He dedicated his life to them, served them, and died for them. In a restless and divisive time he spoke peace to violence and brotherhood to hate. We were slow to learn.

In the week following his death more than 100 American cities were wracked by major riots in the so-called Holy Week Uprising. Thousands of buildings were destroyed and $65 million dollars--nearly $500M today--of damage done. Baltimore, Detroit, and other cities still bear the scars.

Even I can't say they were unjustified. It wasn't just an outpouring of grief. For Black communities across the country it was the last straw. They had been ignored, persecuted, cheated, brutalized, and robbed by whites for generations, and the reckoning had finally come. The nationwide violence was like nothing seen before or since in this country.

The government's predictable response was to militarize police departments, leading to more decades of racial tension. Since 2016 we have suffered setbacks to laws and programs meant to protect minorities, and on January 6 we were forcibly reminded of the anger and hate still held by many whites in this country.

But we are learning, if slowly. The unrest that followed the deaths of Black people at the hands of police in 2020 was nothing compared to 1968. The 10,000 mostly Black people who gathered in Houston to mourn the death of George Floyd did so peacefully and with respect for the memory of the man murdered by Minneapolis police.

The rise of Black Lives Matter has been an important step, but it can flourish only if it focuses on racial harmony. The ball is in the whites' court.

The United States is today not just divided, but fractured. We desperately need a person with the strength, humanity, fairness, and sheer goodness of Dr. King.

We should all be praying for that person to appear.

 

 

--- Diogenes, 1/15/2101

 

2020(21) = 1984

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

 

You remember these slogans. The pithy precepts of the Party in George Orwell's novel 1984. They are slogans from the Ministry of Truth, which in fact makes up lies disguised as truth to feed the people, and is engaged in a massive project to rewrite history. 

 

As Orwell said, “Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.”¹ That control comes about by rewriting history to make it more agreeable to the Party's plan for the present and the future. 

 

We have seen our past rewritten in school textbooks that downplay or deny the ugliness of slavery in America; that recast the Civil War as an economic struggle rather than a battle for the freedom of a race; that ignore the violent and extra-constitutional governmental persecution of WWI antiwar protesters; and that carry no mention of the forced internment of Nisei (American-born Japanese) into concentration camps during WWII.

 

In order to sell its disinformation to the public the Party has brainwashed the population with doublethink, the ability to "hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, . . ."²

 

We have witnessed doublethink in the remarks of Donald Trump, who has routinely ascribed to his opponents bad acts that he himself has committed. In his four years as president he has established a personality cult of frightening size, and has instilled doublethink in a great many of them, including several members of Congress. Any time you hear a member of the Executive branch or a Republican member of Congress talk about their devotion to the Constitution, you can bet they're doing something to damage it.

A few Congressional types are now finally saying what I and other bloggers and commentators have been saying for months: The senators and representatives who follow Trump blindly and without question have betrayed their oaths to the Constitution and put Trump in its place. Their mouths proclaim defense of the Constitution but their actions say they are doing their best to negate it.

 

It's been refreshing today to see a number of Republican representatives actually embracing reality and denouncing Trump during the House impeachment proceeding. But it's been sad to watch several others, clearly affected with doublethink, predictably spew out glib, duplicitous Trumpspeak. 

 

It's sad because their minds have been hijacked. They are themselves, yet they are not.³ They are capable of carrying on perfectly normal conversations until the subject of Trump comes up. Immediately their consciousness opens a different channel. Out comes the Trump praise, the Trump-can-do-no-wrong rhetoric, the denials and the lies. 

 

The really scary part is that I don't think most of them are even aware of it.

 

They are frightened. They think they've reached their exalted state thanks to Trump's blessing, and they will fight ferociously to stay on his good side. They fear his displeasure and they fear their constituency, who they know will vote them out if they don't toe the Trump line. Having tasted the power of being in government they can't bear the thought of leaving it and will do anything to stay.

 

It would be easy to simplify this as a class struggle, trailer trash rising up against the elite intelligentsia, but it really isn't that simple. The mob that attacked the Capitol appears to have been a cross-section of American society. I've explored the demographics of Trumptopia, and while its firm foundation is unquestionably low-income, minimally educated white people, such is not its totality. Highly placed professional people and members of Congress and state legislatures don't fit the mold of the base, yet there they are, and they didn't spring up fully formed from America's cultural sub-basement. They come from good homes and good schools and polite society, and they want to overthrow the government of the United States of America.

 

"How did we get here?" is a question that a lot of Americans are asking. I don't have an answer, but unrepentant educator that I am, I have a suggestion for further reading: "How Did Hitler Happen?" is a concise essay on Hitler's rise to power, published online by The National WWII Museum: https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/how-did-hitler-happen

 

Before you read it I suggest you make a simple side-by-side graph with one side headed "Trump" and the other "Hitler." Then, keeping recent events in mind, see how many commonalities you find and let me know. If you find none, you might want to get yourself tested for the Doublethink virus.

 

I'll give you one hint: the flag. 

 

Hitler had a flag: Bright red with a central white disc containing a black swastika. Like most highly effective symbols it is simple and bold. Hitler designed it himself to be used as both a flag and a poster. To be precise, this was the flag of the Nazi party, but Hitler and the party were inseparable; moreover, during his incumbency the banner was also the de facto flag of Germany. Germany was Hitler and Hitler was Germany.

 

Trump also has a flag. There is no "official" design, but it generally fits the pattern of his other campaign literature: His last name, all capitals, in a bold sans-serif font, usually white on a blue field, sometimes with stars. There is no other name, no hint of a running mate. Trump is a solo act.

 

The point is, there is a flag. Flags proclaim power, dominance, and sovereignty. In constitutional republics no individual, not even the president, has a personal flag.

 

Hitler's flag became Nazi Germany's flag. Trump wants his brand to be stamped on and flown above the United States of Trumptopia.

 

Never. We shall never let it happen.

 

 

--- Diogenes, 1/13/2021

 

¹ George Orwell, 1984. (Sorry--I can't find my copy of the book for a full citation; I'm relying on Wikipedia for the quotes).

² Ibid. and ditto.

³ Not quite like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but similar.

Way Too Little, Far Too Late

Now we know what it takes to get Congress off its collective ass: Insurrection, mob action, bombs on the Capitol grounds, barbarians in the halls of Congress, theft of possibly sensitive papers and digital material, emergency evacuation of the Capitol, treason, anarchy and chaos, and five more dead Americans including a Capitol Police officer. All done by a mostly white mob cheered on by the president.

Trump was able to accomplish all of the above in a few hours. Can anyone now really doubt what damage he could do in two weeks if he's allowed to remain in office?

Congress has wasted time and energy for months, dithering and blathering over nothing of import even as Trump was plotting to overthrow the Constitution and nearly 4,000 Americans were dying of COVID-19 daily.

But let even a hint of harm threaten their worthless carcasses, and they turn tail and duck into hidey holes like a pack of whipped dogs.

If you're an American and you're not outraged there's something wrong with you. If nothing else, you should be outraged that Congress, who have watched Trump closely for four years, isn't 100% outraged. They should be marching en masse to the White House with torches and pitchforks.

Of course there's talk of the 25th Amendment and of impeachment. They have to cover their shivering asses with something. Talk is cheap. Watch for action and see who votes. 

The 25th is DOA because there's no way Mike Pence will put himself in the driver's seat, even for two weeks. He's a frightened marshmallow, tharn in Trump's gaze. All he wants is out. I'm not even going to give him credit for reading off his scripted lines during the certification proceeding. It shouldn't be news, but he has been complicit in making it news by leaving his man parts behind when he took on the VP job.

And speaking of complicity, the entire body of Congressional Republicans should be tarred, feathered, and run out of office and out of DC. By allowing what was once called the Grand Old Party to become a cult of personality based on Trump, they have together threatened the very soul and fabric of this democracy. Mitch McConnell deserves imprisonment, and the rest of them should be dismissed from office.

Make no mistake. What we have witnessed in the last several months has been nothing less than a coup attempt. Donald Trump's primary goal has been to remain in office indefinitely by using whatever means he deems necessary.

To that dastardly end he has repeatedly tried to diminish the authority of Congress and to arrogate powers to the Executive branch in violation of the Constitution. He has overridden the proper allocation of federal monies by falsely proclaiming a state of emergency in order to divert funds to the border wall. And he has launched an all-out assault of the electoral process by trying to force the courts to overturn a legal election.

Failing in that he incited a mob to lay siege to the Capitol, hold Congress hostage, and force them to deny and vacate the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Five people died as a direct result of his order to the mob to march on the Capitol.

Those deaths should be laid directly on Trump, and he should be charged and arrested before his term ends.

Sic semper tyrannis.

--- Diogenes, 1/8/2021

 

How Long?

²"O, Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and thou will not hear? Or cry to thee 'Violence!' and thou wilt not save? ³Why dost thou make me see wrongs and look upon trouble? Destruction and violence are upon me; strife and contention arise. ⁴So the law is slacked and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous, so justice goes forth perverted." (The Book of Habakkuk, 1:2-4).

Sound familiar? Haven't many of us said something similar in the past four years, and maybe especially in the past few months? These are the words of the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk, taking God to task for ignoring the plight of Israel, where the wicked lord it over the righteous, the law is slack, and justice perverted.

Even prophets get frustrated. 

Habakkuk is the only prophet to actually criticize the deity and question his motives. I sympathize. The entire nation has witnessed the president of this once proud nation attempt to dismantle its fundamental structure and make it into an autocracy. And done nothing.

To our everlasting shame, Donald J. Trump still holds the title of president when he should have been put down long ago. He has, to all intents and purposes, transformed the Republican Party, which once prided itself as the party of Lincoln, into a cult of those who would undo the liberating work of Lincoln and his successors in favor of white supremacists, bigots and xenophobes.

Trump has proved the adage that anyone can become president, and his presidency has also proved that the people we elect to Congress to represent us have no time for us, and we the people certainly don't have their ears.

Perhaps we shouldn't feel bad. We're not alone there. The media, who thank God still have free voices, have documented, revealed, and broadcast the president's malfeasance, and every ear in Washington appears to be deaf to them.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has issued an Interpol red notice against Trump; but in this country neither the attorneys general of the several states, the various U. S. attorneys, the FBI, nor the Department of Justice have lifted a finger to bring him to justice for his crimes. Nor has the Cabinet, which has the authority to relieve him from duty via the 25th Amendment, acted. 

Fools, cretins, cowards, and toadies the lot of them.

And Trump's crimes? How shall I count them? Well--just off the top of my head: 

•  fraud; 
•  tax evasion; 
•  incitement to violence; 
•  conspiracy to overthrow the Constitution; 
•  obstruction of justice; 
•  violations of the Hatch Act; 
•  perjury; 
•  attempts to suborn foreign government personnel;
•  attempted intimidation of elected officials; 
•  attempted electoral fraud; 
•  conspiracy to disrupt the electoral process;
•  bribery; 
•  sedition; 
•  conspiracy to defraud the United States; 
•  sexual misconduct; 
•  violations of the 1st, 15th, and 26th Amendments; 
•  violation of the Foreign and Domestic Emoluments Clauses; 
•  endangered the public health by withholding information about COVID-19;
•  false declaration of a state of emergency to get money for the border wall;
•  responsibility for 354,000 American deaths from COVID-19.
  

Incumbent presidents are not immune from criminal prosecution.

 

How long, O Lord? How long?

 

---Diogenes, 1/5/2021