Decoration Day

Here it is, Memorial Day weekend. 

Have you been anticipating the long weekend? Making plans? Let's see--so much to do: Break out the grill, brats, and beer; go to the beach; have the gang over for a cookout; take a weekend vacation; tune in the National Memorial Day Concert; go someplace to get a good seat at a fireworks show; go shopping for holiday deals; take the kids to a favorite theme park; get started on that big outdoor project you've been planning for months; go camping; settle in front of the TV to watch racing from Indy, Charlotte, or Santa Anita; go to the cemetery.

Huh? Wait--what?

You do get the word "Memorial" that gives this day its meaning, right?

Memorial Day, as designated by Congress, is the last Monday in May. The day is set aside specifically as a time to remember and honor deceased members of this country's armed forces who gave their lives in defense of the Constitution.

At this time, when the very foundation of the United States of America is under attack by domestic forces inimical to democracy, it is important to remember that members of the armed services, like all federal officers, take an oath of allegiance to the Constitution.

From the Revolutionary War to the continuing actions in the Middle East, approximately 1,264,493 Americans have given their lives to defend this nation "conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." 

To the end of her days my grandmother called this day Decoration Day because that was its name when she was a girl. It was proclaimed and so named in 1868 by General John Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic as a day “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion [Civil War], and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”

Perhaps we should revert to the original name. It would provide a somewhat more concrete notion of what the day is about than the rather ephemeral "memorial." The act of decorating would help us remember and honor our dead.

Then maybe we could move that visit to the cemetery to the top of our list.

 --- Diogenes, 29 May 2021

QED

QED is the abbreviation for the Latin term Quod Erat Demonstrandum, which roughly translates as "Thus it is shown." The term has historically been used by mathematicians, logicians, and philosophers to indicate that an argument has been proved.

It's a pretentious way of saying "So there!"

I am neither a mathematician nor a philosopher. I refer to my post of yesterday, May 27, in which I discussed the lengths to which Senate Republicans will go to block passage of any civil rights or democracy-enhancing legislation, specifically the For The People Act.

Today they proved my argument by defeating the bill that would have established a bipartisan commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection. 

QED.

The commission would have investigated the root causes of the insurrection. Of course it would have looked into Republican involvement including that of DJ Trump.

"If they're innocent they have nothing to worry about." How often have you heard that line on television cop shows? Defeating the bill that would have created the investigative commission is clear evidence that Republicans have something to worry about. We all know Trump was the spark that lit the fire and that some Republican congresspeople were complicit.

QED.

What next? Speaker Nancy Pelosi should form a select House committee to look into the insurrection. Such committees have historically been successful in finding the truth behind clandestine activities.

President Biden could create a commission with an executive order. That would be a last-ditch act that would bring accusations of partisanship, but so what? Republicans are nothing if not rabidly partisan. Let them repeat their pot-calling-the-kettle-black arguments. They are, as the Bard said, "a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."

Today's vote underlines the importance of continuing to push senators to pass the For The People Act. Call or email them, regardless of party, to let them know they need to pass the act if our society is to remain the land of the free.

Act now. Time is short.

--- Diogenes, 28 May 2021

 

Of, By, And For Whom?

Senate Republicans lack a conscience. Senate Democrats appear to lack cojones.

There is one--precisely and only one--bill that should be at the top of the Senate Democrats' agenda. It is called S. 1, aka the For The People Act.¹

S. 1 is sweeping legislation that will clean up decades of bad and unfair electoral policies and practices, including racist gerrymandering and voter suppression. It will quash the neo-Jim Crow laws now pouring out of several state legislatures like so much sewage. 

That is if the Democrats show some spine, some gumption, some moxie.

The Republicans are already gearing up to defeat the bill, which has yet to come to the Senate floor. When it does, you can be assured they will be armed with motions to delay, to gut, to filibuster it into the next decade.

The highest hurdle the Democrats have to clear is the filibuster. The practice with the funny name is the GOP's favorite weapon. It's a delaying tactic that allows a senator to hold the floor for as long as she can keep talking. (The subject doesn't have to be legislation. Some filibusterers have read from cookbooks.) This ersatz debate can only be stopped if 60 senators vote to end it.

Because it requires a super majority to close it, the filibuster allows the Republicans to build a wall blocking a floor vote on S. 1, which itself requires only a simple majority to pass.  

The Democrats need to deny the Republicans an opportunity to filibuster it either by making an ad hoc change in the filibuster rules or by voting to do away with the filibuster altogether.

The filibuster is a Senate tradition that has neither constitutional nor legal standing. It was brought about unintentionally in the early 19th century.² Republicans will fight tooth and nail to keep it, as it has become an effective and often-used tool of theirs for blocking civil rights legislation

It is imperative that the Democrats mount a rapid and hard-hitting counterattack. A perennial problem with Democrats is they invariably try to play nice: to reach across the aisle, to seek bipartisan consensus, to get their opponents on board.

Have they learned nothing from the past four years? The Republicans care not a bit about fairness or about consensus. They want to kill the bill and crush the opposition. They want to move ever backward to a time when races were divided and anyone not white lived in a second-class world and was not allowed to vote. If some Republicans had their way that lower class would include women.

Democrats, in government and in the public, need to rise up. Leaders of Black organizations must get behind the Democrats and exhort them to action. We the people need to get busy flooding Senate e-mailboxes with polite but firm demands that they listen to their constituency and get that bill passed by any means necessary.

For those who think this is all hyperbole, allow me a simile: Let's say a person has a heart attack while undergoing plastic surgery. The surgeon can drop what he's doing and save the patient's life or continue the scheduled procedure and have a pretty corpse on the table. Is there really a choice?

Our right to vote, to elect our leaders in fair and free elections in which every eligible American participates, is the very emblem and definition of the United States of America. 

If we lose it we lose everything. Congress might as well disband and go home. Without the freedom of universal suffrage America will lose its moral and ethical high ground and any respect it may have in the community of world governments. 

We will make a beautiful corpse.

--- Diogenes, 27 May 2021    

 

¹ From The Brennan Center For Justice, a guide to the act: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/annotated-guide-people-act-2021

² Here's a link to a very good and concise history of the filibuster: https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/the-history-of-the-filibuster/

On Blogitis

Being human, among other things, means we're prone to periodic crises. I confess to a recurring crisis regarding this blog. It's best expressed as "Why the hell do I bother?"

I reach very few people, and I'm grateful for every one of them and for the feedback they provide. But like everyone who writes, plays music, or has a message of any kind, I wish for a larger audience. 

When I was teaching I frequently asked myself why I was disseminating good information that was apparently lost on the majority of my students. The answer I kept coming back to was the biblical parable of throwing seed onto different kinds of soil: some, even if just a small fraction, is likely to flourish.

So it is with this blog. I haven't the time or the resources to make it more than it is, but what I can do is to make it the best it can be. As to why I do it, the answer is I have to. 

I can no more remain silent in the face of social injustice, dirty politics, and public indifference than a rooster can remain silent at dawn. I'm driven to speak because it's the duty of all of us to call out dishonesty and corruption in public offices. We must do this because, to paraphrase: The only thing required for evil to triumph is for good people to remain silent.

And, paraphrasing two poets: I do my best, I know it's not much, . . . I tell the truth [and] I sound my yawp across the internet, hoping for a few syllables to land in ears that will hear.

"I'm back."

--- Diogenes, 24 May 2021