Month: February 2021

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Probably another question I shouldn’t ask.

Where are all the pictures of the Capital building surrounded by 7 foot tall fences with concertina wire at the top?

I managed to find two. Plus one on a Russian web site… The Russian site showed the fence being assembled not it’s completed form.

A Russian website? Since when are Russian publications presenting more of the truth than American publications?

Surely someone is visiting Washington DC and taking pictures of the “Fear Fence” right?

Apparently not. If they are, those photos aren’t being published in mass on the ‘net.

I call it the “Fear Fence” because if congress wasn’t afraid, they wouldn’t need a fence like this.

The photos look like the capital complex is a prison camp. Perhaps we should make that “look” a truth. All we’d have to do is move the national guard from one side to the other.

I’m pretty convinced that the occupants of the Capital complex are in fact criminals. Maybe we should just imprison them until they actually started doing their jobs.

What I was looking for, was an overview of the fence. I’m just curious how badly Congressional fear of the people has defaced our nations capital.

This is not the look of a free nation. This is the look of a nation whose leadership is not obeying the will of the governed.

I guess that’s why the media is dutifully ignoring this particular set of optics.

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Ugh! The News and politics is already back to the Obama era.

I was reminded this morning why I’d lost interest in politics and the news during Obama. It wasn’t that I was actually disinterested, it was that no matter what, there was almost zero serious discussion about anything Obama or his minions did. Anything and everything was amazing and just wonderful. That makes me suspicious. No president, administration, politician, or government is wonderful and amazing all the time.

Just as it is untrue that anything and everything Trump did for the past four years according to the media, was; wrong, evil, bad, racist, or whatever negative descriptive you can think of.

Then I remembered the movie Protocol with Goldie Hawn. I’ll be digging it out of the library later today.

Just thinking about it made me smile, and I could use a laugh or two.

I honestly don’t give a runny crap about who is in power. But I absolutely care about fair play, and politicians that actually work for the people.

I don’t believe that we have either now and doubt seriously that we’re getting fair and accurate news reporting about the goings on in Washington DC.

It’s the imbalance in reporting that makes me question. Now that we don’t have a President that the media can target, the Media and many of the politicians have switched to targeting anyone who disagrees with the prevailing narrative, or who supported the former President.

This is not a hallmark of a democratic republic. It’s a hallmark of a totalitarian state.

I’d stopped watching the goings on in Washington during the last four years of Obama. Every time I sat down to watch the Obama press conferences or state of the union I found myself having far more questions than were answered. I found that I fundamentally disagreed with the direction then President Obama was taking the country.

Apparently so did many in congress which led to nothing but wasted time and money because nothing was getting done. I was very displeased with Obama’s use of executive orders because it felt very much like he was a King, not an American President.

To be fair Trump also used executive orders, but not the the extent that Obama and now Biden have.

I think we’re in for yet another four years of congressional deadlock and infighting rather than congress doing the job they exist to do. How long can a country survive doing nothing for the people? 12 years? 16 Years? 20 years?

About 1/2 this country no longer believes in voting. Not because Biden won, but because no-one in the courts would even hear the voices of the people upraised in protest.

Last week there was an article in Time magazine that essentially says there was something going on designed to make sure Biden won. Whether this collusion behind the scenes is illegal or not we will probably never know, because the courts will refuse to hear any cases about it.

The article is here. The article could be read to imply that votes don’t actually matter in this country anymore. But that politicians and corporate oligarchs are deciding our fate.

I’ll grant you that American politics is, and always has been a dirty business. That doesn’t mitigate the fact that a very large number of people were demanding answers as is their right and were dismissed like spoiled children from the dinner table.

That was insult enough. But those in power are compounding the insult with what appear to be blatant misuses of their power by continuing to silence all opposition, engaging in what looks a lot like settling vendettas against their enemies.

It hasn’t gone un-noticed that the nation is suddenly calmer, that protests and riots are no longer front page news. Many predicted this would be the case. It’s also worthy to note the SPLC has designated, (and the party in power agrees,) quite a few right leaning groups (note I said leaning, not right wing) as terrorist organizations, but that the groups responsible for billions of dollars in damage in cities nationwide have not earned a similar designation.

It is also interesting that states which had been locked down for COVID are opening up. One could say that is a result of the vaccine, but the timing is somewhat coincidental especially in light of the limited availability of the vaccine itself. Many also predicted this would happen.

I find myself once again wanting to turn a blind eye. But I’ve tried that, hoping that the problem would go away.

It didn’t work

I hoped that the politicians would correct the problem because it’s their job.

They didn’t.

I hoped that my vote still counted.

It didn’t.

I believed that the rule of law still held sway in my country.

It doesn’t

I thought that justice was blind.

It isn’t.

I’m a relatively moderate conservative leaning person. If I’m thinking things like this, I have to wonder what other more disenfranchised people are thinking. I wonder if Germans in pre-Hitler Germany were asking the same questions.

If they were, then along comes Hitler who promises them their place in the world. He promises to restore their national pride, and tells them he will make it happen, and has a plan…

We all know, or should know how that turned out.

Logically I have to ask, “What happens if a gifted orator comes along and manages to speak to the masses of disenfranchised Americans who are asking these same questions?”

Despite what the media pundits said about Trump being Hitler. We can all agree he wasn’t a gifted orator. Neither is Biden or Harris…

But what happens when a really gifted orator comes along?

Somehow I can’t get past the feeling that we’re all sitting on a powder keg and someone is playing with matches.

I can have that opinion, it’s been demonstrated time and again over the past four years that what we feel is true… Actual Facts be damned!

So I’m going to watch Protocol, and perhaps The American President both are sweet comedies and make me smile.

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I caught a deal…

I was wandering through the Apple TV Movies and noticed that Good Night and Good Luck was not only available, but on sale!

For those of you that may not know this movie, it’s a dramatization of Edward R. Murrow taking on Senator Joseph McCarthy while Murrow was working at CBS.

The movie was released in 2005 and I’d purchased a copy of it on DVD, but never replaced that copy once it was lost.

The movie has an all star cast, including amazing performances by Jazz singer Dianne Reeves.

Edward R Murrow

The subject matter of the movie is timely. It could be argued that Murrow was among the first victims of cancel culture.

He called out Joseph McCarthy at the height of the McCarthy hearings and essentially said what you’re doing is wrong and un-American.

For those who don’t know who Joseph McCarthy was, here’s a brief synopsis of what I remember from history.

McCarthy in the late 1940s and early 1950s chaired a house subcommittee that was supposed to root out communists that McCarthy said had infiltrated the State Department. You need to remember that the cold war was raging and America was just out of World War II.

McCarthy subsequently targeted LGBT people as easily compromised. His lasting legacy was that gay people were considered a security risk well into the 1980s.

Joseph McCarthy

McCarthy terrorized Hollywood, created black lists of suspected communists and through these black lists ended the careers of many average people, and writers, actors, producers, and journalists.

The movie mentions one journalist killing himself over the accusation that he was affiliated with communist subversives.

There’s a great deal more negative that the McCarthy hearings did. Look it up for yourself.

Although, in the context of today’s events, I do sometimes find myself wondering if McCarthy might have been right. Perhaps he was just 50 years ahead of his time…

I hadn’t seen the movie in many years, but remembered the jazz. So I bought it last night and sat back to be entertained. There was an irony in the movie because as I watched, I was struck by how the names, causes, and political party has changed but the persecution today is much the same. McCarthy was a Republican, but could as easily have been one of todays politicians of either party.

Edward Murrow, effectively won. But winning cost him his prime time Tuesday evening show. He went on to produce numerous shows until about 1960, and died in 1965.

I remember his voice from my early childhood. I don’t remember the context in which I heard his voice, only that it was distinctive. He was a true journalist, based on what I recall from some of the things I recall reading about him.

I ran across some of his writing at the UK library when I lived in KY. His words were clear and what he said was said plainly and directly. I don’t recall him being apologetic in his writing. What I think I remember most was his somewhat terse style and his eloquent use of English. I learned some new words reading him. (no, they weren’t dirty words.)

He seems to have stood by his words believing in presenting the truth of a situation as he saw it, but assumed that the audience was intelligent enough to draw their own conclusions.

I recall reading an apology to a viewer where he said something to the effect; “Reading your letter, I have rethought my position and you may be right. I apologize for any harm my words may have caused you.” That’s not an exact quote but I remember that it struck me how this fairly powerful journalist saw fit to actually put in writing that he’d reevaluated his position and told a viewer so.

After watching the movie, I still appreciated the vocals of Dianne Reeves. As I watched the credits roll I thought, “We need journalists like Murrow again.”

As is pointed out in one scene, Murrow tried to behave as if he was above editorializing, but he did editorialize to some extent. I thought it was interesting that he was portrayed as accepting the criticism and the consequences as part of doing business.

I thought about that, and have concluded we’re all human, we all editorialize, but a journalist is supposed to keep that natural tendency in check. They’re supposed to present the facts as dispassionately as they possibly can.

One line in the movie is, “We report the news, we don’t make it.” If only journalists still operated on that premise, we’d all be better informed and perhaps less prone to passionate outbursts based on half the information and our emotional response to it.

If you get a chance, check out the movie it’s 94 minutes of your life well spent. Especially if it makes you stop reacting and start thinking.

Oh, if you play the movie, your TV isn’t broken… The whole thing is shot in period correct Black & White.