Category Archives: Election 2018

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Quaker Statues Have to Go? That’s What George Fox Said . . .

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The work of bringing down Calhoun took all one night and most of the next day.

So– the City of Charleston South Carolina wasted no time. After the City Council voted unanimously on June 23, 2020 to take down its landmark monument to John C. Calhoun, a crew swung into action, starting at near midnight.

It was no small task to pluck the figure from its 100-foot pedestal. It took the workers until late the next day to bring  Calhoun floating back down to earth, and ship him off to a future of obscurity.

I was as pleased as anyone to see Calhoun disappear, at  least from that exalted place of honor; but I hope he lives on as a shameful memory, for a sadder-but-wiser nation that let him look down on all since 1896, as what one historian called “the Marx of the master class.” Continue reading Quaker Statues Have to Go? That’s What George Fox Said . . . →

Black & White & Other Colors, Current Affairs, Election 2018, Fire This Time, Resistance, Sedition Watch, Signs of the Times, Social Justice

Trauma & Triggers: Coping With Campaign Overload

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I don’t know about you, but late last week I hit the wall about the midterm election: the swirl of attack ads, the endless urgent fund appeal emails, the feverish palaver about polls. Not to mention the shocks of the Khashoggi assassination, the mail bombs, and the massacre in Pittsburgh. When the funerals there were basically crashed by the uninvited  ghoul, my internal needle bounced into the red “zone marked “Overload.”

I’m not dropping out: already voted (first day of early voting); urged all & sundry to do likewise; sent several hundred dollars to a list of pleading, promising candidates. And I’ve been reading & listening to the nonstop chatter & prognosticating. 

Then finally it became too much. It was driving me nuts. Had to get away.

Continue reading Trauma & Triggers: Coping With Campaign Overload →

Black & White & Other Colors, Current Affairs, Election 2018, Election 2020, Social Justice

Pow Wow Chow-Gate: Therapy for The Feverish Media

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As far as the midterm elections go, for the media and the talking heads it’s basically all over now, except the voting and the counting (and recounting).

Early voting has started.

Some reporters are still criss-crossing the country, and sending back breathless dispatches, which, if you look close, are mostly interchangeable: campaigns are all in high-gear, GOTV is everyone’s goal, voter suppression is widespread, attack ads are nonstop, the polls are inching up and down, early voting is underway, — and crazy presidential tweets keep flying.

Which is to say, there’s not much real news here. After all, unless there’s some shocking  October Surprise about to drop (no sign of such yet), this frenzy is exactly what you would expect.

And I don’t know about you, but I’m past burned out on watching or listening to talking heads yammer back and forth about, “Will the Dems take the House?” “Oh, maybe yes, maybe no.” “What about the Senate?” “Well, maybe no, but possibly yes.” After this long, it’s like  asking, “Will the market go up or down tomorrow?”

Surely many among the scribes must be fed up with this pointless speculation, and in the absence of actual new political news, many journalists and pundits — way too many, in my view — have gone rogue this week, and have decided to gnaw on the ankle of Senator Elizabeth Warren, over the six-minute video she released on October 15, about the matter of her Native American ancestry.  Continue reading Pow Wow Chow-Gate: Therapy for The Feverish Media →

Current Affairs, Election 2018, Election 2020, Resistance, Signs of the Times, Social Justice

2020 Speculations: Wanted — A Fighting Leader

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With the awful weekend behind us, we can now return to our regularly scheduled programming, namely endless speculation about the Democrats & their 2020 presidential contest.

Even during the Late Unpleasantness around the Supreme Court, many media mavens kept offering comments about how presidential aspirants on & off the Senate Judiciary Committee were (or weren’t) building their 2020 “brand” in the midst of the swirling controversy. And I admit, I was pondering all that too.

If this now sounds rather ghoulish, it’s still what they (& I admit it, we) do, and some even get paid for it (not me; I’m such a sucker I do it for nothing).

So, with that lame apologia, here’s my handicapping report:

There were three identified aspirants on the minority side of the Senate Judiciary Committee: California’s Kamala Harris, Jersey’s Cory Booker & Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar.

For my money, Klobuchar came across best, but none of them really stood out. Harris & Booker stumbled out of the gate, heckling Chairman Grassley about arcane procedural technicalities (extra points if you can remember any of them), which of course went nowhere. Continue reading 2020 Speculations: Wanted — A Fighting Leader →

Black & White & Other Colors, Current Affairs, Election 2018, Fire This Time, LGBTQ & Gender, Resistance, Signs of the Times, Social Justice, Torture & Human Rights, War & Peace

Post-Confirmation: Our World Won’t End Right Now. (But you can see the clouds gathering.)

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The confirmation vote is is done.

I won’t hold it against anyone who feels stunned and numbed by the travesty in the Senate, and needs to take some time to scream, cry & regroup. (Just don’t forget the midterms!)

Yet soon enough, those on the progressive side will need to look beyond the next election to the long work of coping with other aspects of what Kavanaugh’s arrival on the court portends.

And yes, the outlook is mostly bad; terrible, in fact. And it was a terrible prospect even before any of us knew who Christine Blasey Ford or Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick were.

The upside down flag signals an emergency. I rest my case.

Further, it’s about what we knew, or could have known, before the explosion, that I want to deal with here. Continue reading Post-Confirmation: Our World Won’t End Right Now. (But you can see the clouds gathering.) →