crossroad coming up
zugswang or zwischenzug
and cannot go back
“If these tactics end up working to keep Trump from winning or even running in 2024, it is going to be the last American election that will be decided by ballots rather than bullets.”
So said Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on his TV show.
The former Governor has been taken to task for saying such an awful thing though I am not aware of too many folks disagreeing that this is what is coming.
It is kind of like watching this Hurricane Lee out in the Atlantic Ocean and wondering if its coming to where I live, knowing if it does, it won’t be pretty.
What I want to know is was the former Governor quoting Malcolm X on purpose or just cribbing from the a speech on April 12, 1964, at the King Solomon Baptist Church, in Detroit, Michigan where Malcolm X said, “ … if we don’t cast a ballot, it’s going to end up in a situation where we’re going to have to cast a bullet. It’s either a ballot or a bullet.”
What a year.
1964.
And the Republican Candidate for President, Barry Goldwater, would say in his speech accepting the nomination at the Republican Convention on July 16th that, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And…moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”
The last elected President had been gunned down in Dallas.
So when folks talked about guns and bullets and extremism, no one wondered what was being talked about.
I would turn 4 the day after Mr. Goldwater made his speech but I don’t remember that speech or even if there was a party or cake the next day.
With 11 kids it was easy to get over looked and my Dad usually took a week off in July and it happened a few times that I remember my Mom saying, “Is it the 17th? Your Birthday today?”
But I digress.
Things are heating up around here and maybe the Former Governor is just calling it like he sees it.
Not a threat.
Fact.
That crossroad is coming into view.
Zugswang!
One of my favorite words.
It comes from chess.
It means that it is your turn and you have to make a move and any move and every move is A BAD MOVE.
I don’t know about you but all the choices we got coming look like bad choices.
And the choice to go back to where we were, well, that isn’t a choice either.
Zugswang.
Gotta move.
Gotta make a move.
Is there a chance of a zwischenzug?
Zwischenzug (ZWEISS-chen-Zug) is another chess term.
Zwischenzug according to wikipedia is a chess tactic in which a player, instead of playing the expected move, first interposes another move posing an immediate threat that the opponent must answer, and only then plays the expected move. It is a move that has a high degree of “initiative”.
Instead of playing the expected move, first makes another move.
A move that has a high degree of “initiative”!
Maybe it IS up to us.
Maybe it is zugzwang only if we let it be so.
Maybe if we can display a high degree of “initiative” we can pull a zwischenzug out of our hat.
I don’t know if it would take a high degree of “initiative” or a miracle but we better do something.
I can here Mr. Lincoln talking to us from Gettysburg, a place to really defined the use of the bullet over the ballot, when he said:
“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us —
that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion —
that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain —
that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom —
and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
No Haiku For You 