want majority to turn their backs, that is all that’s necessary
In the New York Times opinion piece, The White House’s Latest Provocation Is ‘Grotesque and Terrifying and Juvenile’, opinion piece writer, M. Gessen writes that the White House’s Latest Provocation is:
… a White House web page, posted last Thursday. And the scary creatures in question aren’t extraterrestrials; they’re the other kind of aliens — the immigrant kind, the kind hunted by ICE.
With phrases like “They do not belong here” and “Deport them all,” the page struck me as an incitement for Americans to commit acts of violence against immigrants.
But Benjamin Valentino, a professor of government at Dartmouth College, thinks that the purpose of the page is not to get Americans to do anything:
It’s to get them to do nothing, while the government commits its campaign of cruelty against millions of people just trying to live in peace.
“They want a majority of the population to turn their backs,” he said. “That’s all that’s necessary.”
I started this bit of nonsense back in 2019 and what I wanted to do was showcase what I thought was use of words and word play worth mentioning both in current news writing and in literature.
I never intended to fall in political commentary and to tell you the truth, I would love to get out of that business and back to showcasing what use of words and word play worth mentioning both in current news writing and in literature.
But I cannot turn my back on what is happening when you read that the Department of Justice states in Federal Court, that in their opinion, the president of the United States, or at least that man currently in office, could bulldoze the Statue of Liberty if he wanted to.
society cannot help the many poor, cannot save few who are rich
To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required–not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
John F. Kennedy Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961.
Let’s rephrase that for today.
President Kennedy was looking around the world because in 1961, the status of the United States wasn’t questioned and he could confidently say, To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves.
Today, this nation has turned its back on those people in the huts and villages of half the globe.
But those people shouldn’t feel left out.
As this nation has turned it back on it’s own people.
For today we can say, To those people here at home, struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required–not because it’s woke (whatever that means) to be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right.
You might ask, why should we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves?
Mr. Kennedy had it right and that message doesn’t change.
Because it is right.
Geez oh Pete and BOY HOWDY.
So simple.
Because it is right.
On this nations moral compass with what is right pointing in one direction, we sure seem to be locked in to 180 degrees the other way.
That assumes, of course, anyone of those folks working so hard to take care for the few who are rich havn’t tossed their moral compass away.
And don’t forget the warning.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
I admit, that man currently in office and his administration seem to be doing okay for themselves right now as the work to save the few who are rich and turn their back on the many poor.
But as Dr. King said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
And deep down, I have to believe, them folks working so hard to save the few who are rich, they know it too.
Mr. Milton did say , “To reign is worth ambition though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n,” and maybe thinking that is what gets those folks working so hard to save the few who are rich, and maybe the rich themselves, thinking that, thinking that Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n is what gets them through their day.
Thinking that Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n lets them look at themselves in the mirror when they get up.
No disrespect to Mr. Milton but in response I point out something Garrison Keillor said when he talked about those folks who don’t learn anything new until the day they die.
Those folks?
They learn a whole lot of the stuff the next day.
Inaugural Address, Kennedy Draft, 01/17/1961 – National Archives
date when high court of history sits in judgment on each one of us
On January 10, 1961, John F. Kennedy was invited to address the Massachusetts State Legislature. The next speech he would give would be in 10 days in Washington, DC when he was sworn in as President of the United States.
President Elect Kennedy, looking ahead to the next four years, saying ” … our success or failure, in whatever office we may hold, will be measured by the answers to four questions …”
Here is what he said.
History will not judge our endeavors–and a government cannot be selected–merely on the basis of color or creed or even party affiliation. Neither will competence and loyalty and stature, while essential to the utmost, suffice in times such as these.
For of those to whom much is given, much is required. And when at some future date the high court of history sits in judgment on each one of us–recording whether in our brief span of service we fulfilled our responsibilities to the state–our success or failure, in whatever office we may hold, will be measured by the answers to four questions:
First, were we truly men of courage–with the courage to stand up to one’s enemies–and the courage to stand up, when necessary, to one’s associates–the courage to resist public pressure, as well as private greed?
Secondly, were we truly men of judgment–with perceptive judgment of the future as well as the past–of our own mistakes as well as the mistakes of others–with enough wisdom to know that we did not know, and enough candor to admit it?
Third, were we truly men of integrity–men who never ran out on either the principles in which they believed or the people who believed in them–men who believed in us–men whom neither financial gain nor political ambition could ever divert from the fulfillment of our sacred trust?
Finally, were we truly men of dedication–with an honor mortgaged to no single individual or group, and compromised by no private obligation or aim, but devoted solely to serving the public good and the national interest.
Courage–judgment–integrity–dedication–these are the historic qualities of the Bay Colony and the Bay State–the qualities which this state has consistently sent to this chamber on Beacon Hill here in Boston and to Capitol Hill back in Washington.
For a historical exercise, shall we ask these four questions of the current administration?
Well, why not?
First, are they truly people of courage?
No, not as I understand the word courage.
Secondly, are they truly people of judgment?
No, not as I understand the word judgment.
Third, are they truly people of integrity?
HA!
No.
Just recently, I can give you 1.776 billion reasons and earlier, I had another 11,000 reasons to say NO to integrity. It is to laugh just to ask this question.
This last question is tricky.
If we ask, are they truly people of dedication?
They people of this current administration are certainly dedicated to the cult of following, blindly, that man currently in office.
But if we ask the complete question, are they truly people of dedication–with an honor mortgaged to no single individual or group, and compromised by no private obligation or aim, but devoted solely to serving the public good and the national interest?
I think that once again, the answer is no.
An honor mortgaged to no single individual or group?
HA!
Compromised by no private obligation or aim?
HA!
Devoted solely to serving the public good and the national interest?
DOUBLE HA!
Courage–judgment–integrity–dedication.
It’s like sadly remembering the life and times of our childhood when the everyday things of our lives, a long summer break in summertime, the sound of Ernie Harwell’s voice in summertime, the excitement of summertime in summertime are gone forever.
Here is the twist.
Somewhere deep inside myself, I cannot write these people off.
I feel that deep in their hearts, they know what they are doing and what they are giving up and what they are throwing away.
I feel sorry for them.
I feel sorry because at some future date the high court of history sits in judgment on each one of us–recording whether in our brief span of service we fulfilled our responsibilities to the state–their success or failure, in whatever office we may hold.
For of those to whom much is given, much is required
afforded the most spacious ample life that has ever been witnessed
Adapted from the passage in the essay, “Roosevelt from Afar” in the book, Great Contemporaries by Winston Churchill, (Thornton Butterworth Ltd.: London, 1937) where Mr. Churchill writes.
It is a very open question, which any household may argue to the small hours, whether it is better to have equality at the price of poverty, or well-being at the price of inequality.
Life will be pretty rough, anyhow.
Whether we are ruled by tyrannical bureaucrats or self-seeking capitalists, the ordinary man who has to earn his living, and tries to make provision for old age and for his dear ones when his powers are exhausted, will have a hard pilgrimage through this dusty world.
The United States was built upon property, liberty and enterprise, and certainly it has afforded the most spacious and ample life to the scores of millions that has ever yet been witnessed.
This was in 1937.
Pretty much the world was still the grip of a global depression with Nazi Germany picking up speed.
And Mr. Churchill wrote of the United States of America that it:
was built upon property,
liberty
and enterprise,
and certainly it has afforded the most spacious and ample life to the scores of millions that has ever yet been witnessed.
Mr. Churchill writes, Life will be pretty rough, anyhow.
Mr. Churchill writes, the ordinary man who has to earn his living, and tries to make provision for old age and for his dear ones when his powers are exhausted, will have a hard pilgrimage through this dusty world.
And still Mr. Churchill writes, built upon property, liberty and enterprise, and certainly it has afforded the most spacious and ample life to the scores of millions that has ever yet been witnessed.
How did we do this?
Mr. Jefferson said, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
All are created equal.
Accepting that and somehow, it afforded the most spacious and ample life to the scores of millions that has ever yet been witnessed.
asked her whether she meant I hope or in a hopeful frame of mind
The first time we heard the word “hopefully” used to mean something it doesn’t mean was from the lips of a pretty woman whom we were wining and dining in a restaurant.
We asked her when she expected to move into her apartment, and she answered, “Hopefully on Tuesday.” We laid down our fork and asked her whether she meant “I hope on Tuesday” or whether she meant “On Tuesday in a hopeful frame of mind.”
She then laid down her fork and wanted to know what the hell we were driving at.
She confessed that she saw nothing wrong with “Hopefully on Tuesday.”
Rather than labor the thing, we shifted subjects; it is not our policy to badger pretty women. Since that memorable occasion, we have encountered this use of “hopefully” at every turn.
It is all over the place and has, we suspect, come into the language.
Time, always elegant in its rhetoric, appeared not long ago with this sobering sentence: “The Government would like to bring the case to a quick trial, hopefully before the end of January.”
Lacking a fork to lay down, we simply laid down the magazine.
EB White in Notes and Comment, The New Yorker Magazine, March 27, 1965.
Not sure about but lunch with EB White and his wife, Katherine Angell White, the editor who made the New Yorker Magazine into the New Yorker Magazine … sounds terrifying.
I am full of hope not to ever have to explain these essays to them.
