Juneteenth, Part 2

The BOK (Bank of Oklahoma) Center in Tulsa is a typical indoor multievent arena with a capacity of just over 19,000 people. Its stainless steel and glass exterior wraps around its central axis in a graceful semi-spiral, contrasting with the more traditional skyline.

On Saturday it could well become the site of a mass contagion.

The coronavirus swamp will begin to bubble as soon as a hundred or so people have formed a line. This will be a festival-seating event, so that line will start long before the event, with everyone pressed tightly together, pushing forward--I can almost hear the virus smacking its lips. When the rally begins at 7 p.m. CDT, many if not all seats will be filled and hardcore fans will be on the floor in front of the stage. Let the culling begin.

At a roundtable conference June 15, Mike Pence, speaking of COVID-19, said: "The number of cases in Oklahoma has declined precipitously"¹ in the past couple of weeks.

Don't think so. Speaking of the same time period, Reuters News reported "In Oklahoma, where President Donald Trump plans to hold an indoor campaign rally on Saturday, new cases rose 68% to 1,081 in the second week of June, while the positive test rate increased to 4%, from 2% the previous week."²

Also on June 15, CNN reported "There was a 'meaningful increase' in cases of coronavirus last week in the city, according to the statement [from the Tulsa Health Department]. As of Friday, there had been 1,443 total confirmed cases of coronavirus in Tulsa County, and 62 deaths."³

Tulsa health officials are understandably concerned about the potential danger to their citizens; the mayor is at best indifferent, but has also voiced concern. At this writing an attempt to stop the rally has been blocked by a Tulsa judge, but the case is moving through the courts.

The Trump campaign claims to expect as many as 40,000 people to attend the rally, but at present they haven't decided what to do with any overflow crowd. With the heat index forecast to reach nearly 100 on Saturday, one hopes they find someplace with air conditioning.

For an outfit that spent months denying COVID-19 even existed, the campaign is doing its best to contain it. Attendees will have to consent not to hold the campaign liable if they contract the virus, and campaign representatives have said attendees will be furnished with masks and sanitizer, but they will not be advised to wear the masks. (Just where did those masks come from? Has the campaign been sitting on thousands of masks all along? If so, why weren't they donated for medical use?)

The Moron-in-Chief won't be masked, meaning most of his followers won't be, either. And the most rabid will be right up front: beer-bellied skinhead yobs whose entire vocabulary consists of four-letter words pumping their fists and hopefully spraying the Chinaman from Oklahoma with billions of coronavirus particles.

This rally is going to be big, loud, boisterous, and protested. There will likely be a sea of COVID-19 in the air inside and right-wing berserkers with guns outside. We can only hope Tulsa survives.


--- Diogenes, 6/17/2020

Bonus article: "The Remarkable Idiocy Of Holding A Trump Rally In Tulsa: https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/15/opinions/the-remarkable-idiocy-of-holding-a-trump-rally-in-tulsa-sepkowitz/index.html


 ¹ Rev Transcript Library: https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-june-15-roundtable-transcript-fighting-for-americas-seniors
 ² Reuters News: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-trends-graphic/covid-19-cases-surging-in-alabama-south-carolina-and-oklahoma-idUSKBN23N1OP
 ³ CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/15/politics/tulsa-rally-coronavirus/index.html

Juneteenth, Part 1

Juneteenth is all over the news, as well it should be. This Friday, June 19, will mark the 155th anniversary of the holiday commemorating the final emancipation of slaves in the United States. It is celebrated widely as Independence Day for African-Americans and their friends, and also as an observance of freedom from tyranny.

June also marks a great American tragedy. Over the course of two days, May 31 to June 1, 1921, a white mob invaded the black section of Tulsa, Oklahoma, burning virtually all buildings in the area and killing an unknown number of African-Americans (estimates range as high as 300). It remains the worst example of race violence in this country's history.

The weekend of this Juneteenth is likely to be the date on which America's past and present collide disastrously. Black freedom will have been celebrated on Friday, and the Tulsa massacre anniversary will still be in many minds when the Racist-in-Chief comes to town to hold one of his Hitleresque rallies.

The original schedule had the rally on the 19th, but Trump, mirabile dictu, actually listened to someone and had it moved to the 20th. Does it really matter? There will be protests. How could there not be? An openly racist politician is coming to a city on the heels of a massive celebration for people of color, and where not quite a century ago hundreds of black people were killed by a raging mob of whites.

Everyone within driving distance who has a social conscience should turn out to protest the Unspeakable One's insensitivity and blatant racism. Be careful. Given the tendency of Trump's rallies to draw right-wing crazies of all types, including the KKK and some armed berserkers, violent clashes are all but guaranteed.

The Trump campaign is estimating as many as 40,000 could attend the rally, twice the capacity of the event venue--although it wouldn't be surprising if that's an inflated number. There has been some suggestion of going to an outdoor venue for the overflow, but if the projected forecast of 92 degrees with a 97-degree heat index and possibility of thunderstorms holds, the weather could cause a disaster of its own.

The Tulsa police are an unknown factor. Earlier this month Tulsa Police Chief Travis Yates said, "All of the research says we're shooting African-Americans about 24% less than we probably ought to be, based on the crimes being committed."¹ That might say something about what to expect.

Tomorrow: COVID-19 goes to a rally.


--- Diogenes, 6/16/2020



¹ Tulsa Public Radio: https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/post/tpd-major-police-shoot-black-americans-less-we-probably-ought

Finding Reality In Fiction

". . . the bellwether of a crumbling democracy is always a violation of human rights. Look at Nazi Germany. North Korea. Ghana under Kwame Nkrumah. Iraq under Saddam Hussein , , ,"

That insightful statement was spoken neither in Congress nor in a campaign address. It is a line from the CBS political drama "Madam Secretary." 

From its premiere in 2014 the show took on big contemporary issues, and in early 2018 it began dealing with unpresident Trump. The Great Pretender is never mentioned by name, but issues stemming from his policies, his tyrannical views, and his actions have appeared in several episodes. 

To note just a few: the president becomes unhinged, declares himself the most powerful man in the world, and threatens an attack against Russia; he is only stopped when the Cabinet invokes Article 25 of the Constitution, relieving him of duty; a narcissistic Arizona governor declares his state to be exempt from federal law, talks about building a border wall, and begins rounding up and deporting Mexican nationals, separating children from their families; and an episode denouncing nationalism features Madeleine Albright, Hillary Clinton and Colin Powell in cameo roles.

Watching these issues unfold in a dramatic setting away from the hateful personage of Trump is instructive. When the emotional veil is lifted it becomes possible to evaluate the event objectively and get a good sense of how it would play out in the real world. This is helpful because it provides an opportunity to compare the fiction to reality and determine if our judgment on it was deserved, or if we were just having a knee-jerk reaction to Trump.
 
If "Madam Secretary" is unique it is because the producers and writers always get the laws right. Watching a season can provide great insight into the Constitution and its power.

Politics and the arts have interacted for centuries, but it was only with the advent of mass entertainment--cinema and television--that an effective message could be delivered to large audiences.     

One other example occurred in May of 1992 when a Republican vice-president from Indiana seeking re-election gave a speech about family values. In that speech he criticized a TV character for choosing to be an unwed mother. The veep was Dan Quayle. The character was Murphy Brown, played by Candice Bergen in the eponymous comedy.

In a response that made the front page of the New York Times, Bergen fired back, ridiculing Quayle for using a fictional character to make a policy point and defending single mothers. The feud carried on for only a very few episodes, but the story was picked up by late-night comedians, Quayle became the butt of many jokes, and George H. W. Bush was denied a second term.

I'm sure there are other shows being aired that also attack Trump indirectly. Please add a comment if you know of one.


--- Diogenes, 6/15/2020

 

Staying On Track

I am well aware of my tendency to slide off-message, which is why for this iteration of Vox Populi I persuaded an editor to protect me from myself.

The stated purpose of this blog, which I am downright obsessive about, is to expose, denounce, censure, and anathematize unpresident Donald Trump for lying to the American people, for flouting the Constitution, for making a mockery of the presidency, for failing to take responsibility for anything, for ignoring public health and public safety, for criminalizing victims, for violating more rules, laws and Constitutional clauses than any president in history, for excessive corruption that would make even Boss Tweed blush, and for infecting his entire administration with an attitude inimical to the American people.

Yesterday my editor politely but firmly informed me that I have recently slipped away from that mandate and that I need to get back on track. She was right.

I'm going to take a couple of days off to retool and realign my thinking. The timing is good, I think, as we enter into this unprecedented election season.

We are all going to have to be at our best throughout the next five months.


--- Diogenes, 6/12/2020

Revolutionaries Reading Redux

[Because we've just witnessed the first widespread civil uprising in quite some time, I'm republishing this list as a reminder of how important it is to stand up against tyranny] --- Diogenes, 6/11/2020

I hope that none of you have ever or ever will experience tyranny in real life,
but there are people highly placed in government who would very much like to have more power and would like the people to have less. I offer here some reading and viewing material by people who did experience tyranny in some of its worst forms that might help you recognize authoritarianism if it ever rears its ugly head.

These are standard works that will probably be in your local library. K=Kindle

Many of these works are challenging. If you start one and hate it, just grab another.

Bradbury, Ray: Fahrenheit 451   K
Dick, Philip K.: The Man In The High Castle¹   K
Frank, Anne: The Diary Of A Young Girl   K
Lockhart, Robin Bruce: Reilly: Ace of Spies   K
Marquis, John: Papa Doc: Portrait Of A Haitian Tyrant
Orwell, George: Animal Farm   K
Orwell, George: 1984   K
Short, Philip: Pol Pot: Anatomy Of A Nightmare   K
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr: One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich   K
Trunk, Isaiah: Judenrat
Webb, William: The Dictator
Wiesel, Elie: Night   K


Hitler, Adolf: Mein Kampf   K
Mazin, Craig and Johan Renck: Chernobyl (Five-part HBO miniseries)
Powell, William: The Anarchist Cookbook   K
¹Also an Amazon Prime series


If you haven't the time to read, then meditate on these quotes:

"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance"   Thomas Charlton

"The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair."   H. L. Mencken 

"We have the oldest written constitution still in force in the world, and it starts out with three words: 'We, the people.'"   Ruth Bader Ginsburg 

"We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."   Abraham Lincoln


--- Diogenes, 5/13/20

Cops: Defund Or Defend?

In the wake of the documented killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and the subsequent protests, a number of cities across America are moving to reform their police forces. Even Congress is getting into the act.

This is generally a good thing, but it must be done carefully and reasonably. Above all, it should not be done as a knee-jerk reaction to one case, however horrific, of police brutality.

It must be done in consideration of the public's safety. All the public: black, white, Asian, Latino, straight, gay, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, rich, poor, homeless, addicted--the entire panoply of this remarkably diverse nation.

Unlike several other countries, the United States does not have a paramilitary national police force. Instead, we have insanely over-armed local forces who routinely deploy battlefield weapons on the streets, including their favorite, tear gas, which was outlawed as a weapon of war by the Geneva Protocol of 1925. But it's OK to use on civilians.

Following the 1965 Watts riot, some larger police forces began increasing their armamentaria to include heavy automatic weapons and grenades, armored personnel carriers, and adopting military-style gear and tactics. This militarization increased during the 1980s drug wars, which saw the proliferation of SWAT forces. Since the late 1990s, police departments have been able to acquire excess military equipment of all kinds, bulking up their arsenals sufficiently to fight a small war. And they've been getting away with murder.

Since 2003, more than 1,000 Americans have been killed by police each year,¹ and the vast majority of them were not criminals. There is ample evidence that militarization is both ineffective and unequal. One study from 2018 showed that "militarized 'special weapons and tactics' (SWAT) teams are more often deployed in communities of color, and—contrary to claims by police administrators—provide no detectable benefits in terms of officer safety or violent crime reduction, on average."²

Not surprisingly, there are very few government programs that keep track of civilian deaths by police. There are a few in the private realm, but none of them agree exactly just how many non-criminals have been killed by police. One thing they do agree on is that people of color are disproportionately at risk, and that about 90% of such deaths are caused by gunshot.

I do not agree with any action that would abolish a police force or reduce it to ineffectiveness. That would invite chaos and vigilantism. But reform is unquestionably needed in many American police organizations.

Police officers are not soldiers, and police forces should not look at their communities as battlefields. Many police forces have adopted the "Protect and Defend" motto. They should take it seriously. They should know the people they claim to protect and defend. They should pay attention to the dynamics of their neighborhoods.

Needless to say, the Warmonger-in-Chief wants the police to go out and "dominate the streets." And of course he thinks they're all "great, great people."

Police should be our neighbors, not an occupying force. In the past couple of weeks we've seen the enmity that exists between communities and the forces who are supposed to be protecting and defending them. Too many Americans view the police as an enemy, in some cases with good reason.

Attitudes on both sides need to change. If an improvement in police-community relations can emerge from the recent strife, we will all be winners.


---Diogenes, 6/9/2020



¹ https://fatalencounters.org/

² Jonathan Mummolo, "Militarization fails to enhance police safety or reduce crime but may harm police reputation," https://www.pnas.org/content/115/37/9181.

The State Of Trump

"He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature."*

I am shamed by forgetfulness.

It had gone out of my head that the District of Columbia lacks a governor. Our seat of government has Congress for its legislature and the president as its governor. Poor DC.

So the National Guard, forced to "defend" the Bully-in-Chief's own little fiefdom, was apparently following legitimate orders to commit highly questionable, if not unlawful, acts when it cleared the way for him to waltz over to St. John's church with his posse in tow.

That neither excuses nor legitimizes anything the Guard did. The actions of helicopter pilots in battering the crowds with rotor wash are at least under investigation, but given the players I have to question the rigorousness of the inquiry.

The notion of the president using his "gubernatorial" powers to direct military action could be a dreadful precedent. I mean, think of it: an overgrown, self-absorbed child with 69 square miles of territory to play with real soldiers in.

Imagine--Bayonet charges on The Ellipse; Nighttime exercises in Rock Creek Park; Amphibious landings on Roosevelt Island. The Barbarian Duke of DC could see the first and last of these, surveying his demesne from the roof of the White House.

I suggest we urge the governors of Maryland and Virginia to build a high wall along their borders with DC, allowing only helicopter access, and let the games begin.


---Diogenes, 6/7/2020


* George Bernard Shaw: Caesar and Cleopatra.  

The Power Of Power

"Power tends to corrupt," said Sir John Dalberg-Acton, "and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Power is an addictive force that some people simply cannot resist. They are drawn to it without resistance, like iron filings to a magnet. Once addicted they spend excessive amounts of time and money in a continuing attempt to get closer to the center of that power, the heart of the magnet.

For some it is a struggle. If they have religious or ethical scruples they may try to hold them up as a shield against addiction, but sooner or later the tug of that magnet will be just too strong.

Others try to limit their involvement. "I'll just go along a bit to see what it's like," they say, or "I'll only run for one term." But the magnet's power doesn't allow limits. 

Power, especially political power, is a pernicious disease that has no cure, and those who become addicted are doomed to a lifetime of fear, always watching their words and looking over their shoulders to be sure there is no threat of losing the thing they value most: Power. If they put any value on their soul it is in second place.

The reason the Great Pretender's minions are stuck to him like limpets and cannot let go is that he holds the key to their existence: their power, or access to it. In Washington, that is an existential matter. The closer one is to the center of power, the more powerful one is perceived to be. Getting kicked out to a more distant orbit is a disaster and an embarrassment. 

Most of them don't respect the man. They worship the power they perceive him to hold.

The fascistic Trump holds over his followers' heads the threat of removal from himself. These people have not only lost their direction; they have also lost track of their sworn purpose: to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; [and to] bear true faith and allegiance to the same.

In the government of the United States no person or office is more potent or important than the Constitution. It is the rock on which all things are established. Yet the addiction to temporary power and the concomitant fear of losing it has caused too many officials to lose sight of the only entity to which they own allegiance.

They need to pick up that Bible their boss had the insolence to hold up in front of St. John's church and turn to Matthew 6:24. You know the one. It begins, "No man can serve two masters."


--- Diogenes, 6/6/2020

Exit Strategy recap

This evening, purely by chance, I was watching the drama "Madam Secretary," season 4, episode 12, "Sound and Fury." The story is about the Cabinet removing a deranged president from office using the 25th Amendment, which Diogenes discussed in today's post.

There were moments when the character of the president said things that could have come from the Great Pretender's mouth. The likeness was downright spooky. The episode first aired on 14 January 2018, about a year after Trump assumed office, and before the public became aware of the worst of his delusions. It's almost like clairvoyance.

I urge you to watch episode 12 of season 4 of "Madam Secretary" on Netflix or whatever channel you may get it on. I guarantee you'll get a strong feeling of déjà vu.

There are no coincidences.


--- Richard Brown, 6/5/2020

Exit Strategy

There are three ways an American president can be removed from office other than being voted out:

1. Assassination
2. Impeachment 
3. 25th Amendment

Assassination: Unthinkable. My generation lost its three greatest heroes, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King jr. to assassination, and I never want to see that shock and pain visited on Americans again.

Impeachment: If only we had the gift of foresight. Had we any inkling of how far off the rails the unpresident would go, this would have been the best choice. But alas, the opportunity is past.

25th Amendment: The 25th has a provision whereby a president who has become unable to perform his duties can be involuntarily relieved of them. It's tricky and complicated, but not impossible.

In order to achieve removal, the vice-president and a majority of "the principal officers of the executive departments" (the Cabinet) have to vote to remove him temporarily from office.

Even if it were possible to get eight Cabinet members to vote for ouster, Mike Pence is the fly in the ointment. He would almost certainly vote no, but there's no indication his vote would count more than others, and a simple majority is all that is required.

But wait, there's more. The language of the amendment says the Cabinet members can be replaced by a majority "of such other body as Congress may by law provide." Neither size nor makeup of that body is specified.

OK, here's the thing: I know that Congress couldn't gear up to invoke the 25th Amendment before November. But if members of Congress got a lot of mail and email and tweets and phone calls reminding them that their first allegiance is to the Constitution and not to the president, and if the notion of using the 25th were to get enough attention, it could get some of them thinking about what they can and should do.

Right now, as any number of commentators have pointed out, the unpresident seems to be at a tipping point. With several current and former members of the government denouncing Trump, more Republicans might find the courage to come out against him.

The strategy is to keep pressure on. The goal is to make Trump unelectable.

I'm not delusional. I know this little blog and its loyal but small following isn't going to make huge changes by itself. But we all have friends, and belong to Facebook groups, and all our friends have friends, and if the Six Degrees of Separation theory works, who knows what could result?

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”*


--- Diogenes, 6/5/2020



* Attributed to Edmund Burke (1729-1797).