The True American Story

 

    We need to widen the lens and we need more daylight on America's original sin. Strong people own up to the truth. This might be the time.

        Confronting racial tragedy, an increasing number of Americans are warming up to the idea of reparations. In some places the process is happening.

    As the discussion unfolds we need to set the starting date beyond 1619. The 1619 Project, an ambitious undertaking by the New York Times and developed by Nikole Hannah-Jones, 

    "aims to reframe the country's history by placing the consequence of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the United State's national narrative."

    Movement conservatives and old fashioned white racists,  are apoplectic about the educational programs and intent of 1619. Too, they are foaming about an old academic idea, Critical Race Theory (CRT). More about CRT later. My complaint about 1619 is that it's myopic.

the first victims

    The starting date for discussions of reparations should be moved back to the late 1400's, certainly the 1600's as European colonialists and trading companies continued a genocide of indigenous people in addition to the slaving that would stain our national character and pervert our destiny. 

    To be fair, reparation analysis must encompass the formation of the American colonies and fledgling federal system of the United States when it engaged in criminal behavior, theft, fraud and murder of those who lived here.

    The kidnapping, buying and selling of Black people and the centuries of its damaging legacy must be accounted for, but our egregious national history began before that and is larger than just the abhorrent period of slavery.

    When talking about reparations, we must discuss the theft of the very land we call home and we should atone for the evil our forebears did. Native people, their culture and the consequence of their treatment must also be at the "center of our national narrative."

      The symbols painted on the stone stand above the middle fork of the Kaweah River in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. They are a legacy of the Potwisha who lived in a village near the stone. They were a subgroup of the Monache or Mono people who were there around 1350.

      A hike here roams through land also occupied by the Yokuts and the Tubatulabal people. They were 2 of the approximately 600 tribes that populated what we call North America. 

     When a lost Christopher Columbus landed in this hemisphere there were some seven to ten million people living north of the Rio Grande.

 

    Our hikes have taken us to "kitchen" areas. These are mortars where native people ground and pulverized or refined food materials. Today they make fascinating visits to history.

        In this space some months ago I suggested we set aside 25 years for a time of national reconciliation, beginning with years of establishing the full accounting of history and the airing of all grievances, through a series of hearings in every state. 

        Once the record is established, and the truth is known the nation would enter a time of discussion including deliberations of reparations. It is the view of this old reporter that is the only way we will heal and resolve our divide.

        Generations hence, knowing the full history, will be better prepared to live with truth and each other.

    

    President Biden said it perfectly:

    "Democracy is more than a form of government. It is a way of being, a way of seeing the world. Democracy means the rule of the people, the rule of the people---Not the rule of monarchs, not the rule of the moneyed, not the rule of the mighty-literally, the rule of the people." 

        It is true this experiment of government is in a fight for its life. Democracy is under threat from authoritarianism and autocracy. One of our major political parties has become an enemy of the State.

      The republican party is in the words of historian Jon Meacham "irrational." It is  without platform or principle. Republicans have displayed abuse to the democracy, a lack of honor and disgusting cowardice. The old GOP is long dead. This party is symptomatic of the rise of aggressive ignorance.

        Perhaps this is a way forward. Either the President appoints a Commission, or the House and Senate appoint Select Committees, or both options, to investigate the 1/6 insurrection. In either case, Republicans should be appointed to the Commission and/or Committee.

        At the bludgeoning of Mitch McConnell Republicans are trying cover up and ignore culpability and seriousness of the insurrection. I wish that arrogance and naked lust for power were criminal, but future generations will see him and Republicans for the deserters and Judas like apostates they are. An appointment of a few republicans could help guide a just investigation and would in the end trump the Trump cult.

        Senators Romney, Portman, Sasse, Collins, Cassidy or Murkowski would certify a non political inquiry.

    

    When Black, and Latin kids were my classmates, friends and teammates, CRT meant cathode ray tube, the vacuum tube that enabled the new wonder of television. There were racial disparities and the civil rights movement was nascent.

    By the time this class was in high school the Democrats and Republicans were debating and then voting on the historic  Civil Rights Act of 1964. It passed in the Senate 73-27, but the party break down is illuminating.

    46 Democrats voted for it-21 voted against it. (69%-31%)

    27 Republicans voted for it-6 voted against it. (82%-18%)

    The House Vote was 290-130.

    Democrats 152 to 96  (61%-39%)

    Republicans 138 to 34  (80% - 20%)

    That kind of consensus does not exist. That kind of Republican party no longer exists. Gone are the days when each party had wings of liberals and conservatives. For more than a half a century republicans have twisted themselves into a tighter and tighter knot of absolutists driven by their right wing. 

crt is the new boogie man 

    Today the conservative to right wing of politics has gone back to the 1970s and collected writings of legal scholars looking at race and the law and have bloviated those academic theories and thoughts into a monster. CRT looks at sociology and legal rulings in trying to decipher racism. It examines how white supremacy, and racism relates to power through the law and how that can be changed. Conservatives reject underlying academic notions of communication and sociology. Some  reject the idea of racism being imbedded into social custom and practice.

    When the Civil Rights bill was passed with bi-partisan support conservatives opposed it. They drew boundaries and resisted progress. Many have continued to oppose the law and the follow-up Voting Rights Act of 1965. 

    The John Lewis Voting Rights Act is blocked now by republicans. Voter suppression is a republican strategy.

    As ugly and in need of healing as is our racial and cultural quagmire today, imagine how awful it could be and how many grievances there would be if those 1964 and 1965 acts had not been passed. It took a fight then. It will take a fight again to align with the aspirations of our democratic republic. But the times are more perilous.

the work of truth

    There is no longer an honorable second party that believes in American justice and tradition. There is however a belligerency of ignorance and the insanity of a belief in a lie.

  

    Until we tell the full story, the true American story we will be condemned to live with the consequence of our lack of honor, and to suffer the fate of unrepentant thieves, liars and killers.

    81 Million citizens deposed an evil regime. It will take that and more to hold the House, build in the Senate and clean out the vipers in several statehouses. 

    We can hope that republicans can somehow find a path back to American values and purge the fascists, racists, and authoritarian anti-democracy, dictator craving and Russian manipulated puppets and lackeys they are.

    There is truth to tell and hard work to do. 

    See you down the trail.     

      

The Cure for Disgust

Iris in Lana's garden 

California poppy by a road side

        I come bearing flowers hoping they have an ameliorative affect. I also violate every standard of story telling by beginning with an apology.

   I am disappointed to have the need to return to the insanity that passes as our political reality. I am sorry. Sorry to intrude on spring, but even more sorry that we endure this democracy threatening episode.

    So as we thread a few stitches of analysis, I hope the flowers from around here on the California central coast assuage your disgust. They have been a joy to this writer. 

    CS Lewis wrote, "Perfect love, we know, casteth out fear. But so do several other things-ignorance, alcohol, passion, presumption and stupidity." 

    Some degree of fear, therefore, is in order.

wild blooms on path to beach

 

the republican link to terrorism

  

   Before writing this post I participated in a briefing with cyber security experts from the intelligence community, academia and cyber security companies. The primary thrust was the dark web and criminal and national security risks, especially in the light of the Colonial Pipeline ransomware incident that created gas shortages on the East coast.

    Two of the experts noted that among the most active visitors to portals of the dark web, encryption services and marketplaces selling identities and credentials, are domestic terrorists involved in the insurrection. They are amongst those who propagate the lies and deceptions designed to undermine citizen belief in the credibility of our government and our electoral process.

    When Republicans cared about national security, some of their more zealous would warn that leftists were sewing seeds of doubt in America. They saw it as a Soviet inspired attempt to undermine our beliefs, our system of government, and our faith in our Democracy.

    The recent ex-president spent 4 years pleasing a former Soviet KGB officer by spreading poison about our election process, our media and anyone who dared to challenge his corrupt and complicit, though inept, regime. 

    Trumpism is a disease of the American spirit for which we must find a vaccine, or cure. 

   wild land in bloom

   The Republican party has been recast in his image, thus a party now founded on deception and duplicitous to its core. The test of fealty is to lie.

    With their vow to deceive and their moral bankruptcy it calls into question every legislative action and intent. Joe Biden, Democrats, and the US citizenry needs, and is better, with a loyal opposition that believes in a democratic republic. Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy preside over a nest of vipers. They are men without courage or honor. They are enablers. 

    As Republicans in state legislatures change voting laws, a chilling truth emerges; If they were to win control of the House of Representatives there is the highest likelihood they would not certify a Democrat presidential win. 

    They want power at all costs. They refuse to respect American history and tradition. Liz Cheney speaks truth about Trump and what he is doing to America.

      

     layers of texture of spring bloom

   A video, leaked to the media, catches the director of Heritage Action for America, a right wing political action group, bragging about drafting the legislation that states have used in changing voting laws to their favor, 

    "...or we have a sentinel on our behalf give them the model legislation so it has 'that grassroots, from the bottom up' type of vibe," she said.

    They will spend millions to change state laws to suppress votes, change election rules and election boards. It is a well funded, coordinated right wing effort to take away votes from those who oppose Trumpism, or who are not white. It is part of the authoritarian mindset, out to upend democracy.

    "We literally give marching order for the week ahead," she says on the tape. "We're singing from the same song sheet of the goals for that week where the state bills are across the country."

    The threat to our way of government comes from those who spread or believed the lies, mounted the insurrection, or who aided and encouraged it including most Republican House and Senate members. Republicans on the Hill are doing all they can to avoid an investigation into the worst attack on the Capitol since the British burned it in 1814.**  

   

    echium-pride of madera 

    You probably read of the New York Times investigation about how the right wing Project Veritas ran a scam to try to discredit Lt. General HR McMaster, a Silver Star  combat Veteran. He was the National Security Advisor at the time. Why? The Republican dirty tricksters didn't think he was loyal enough to Trump. A Republican staff member of the Senate Judiciary Committee was involved.

    The Trump anti democracy cancer is rampant. Liz Cheney is absolutely correct, Trump and his Republican supporters remain a threat. They diminish the standing of the US on a global measure.

blooms on the back hill

    I expect Trump will be ensnared in legal entanglements in the not too distant future. The brainwashed populism, white supremacist nationalism and deglobalization grievance culture he motivated is up for grabs. There is no shortage of poltroons who have been to pay supplication to the authoritarian would be king, while they hope he is not a bigfoot candidate in '24.

wild bloom ocean side

wild radish in bloom and a thistle

(ranchers hate the thistle but the Scots DNA in me gives it a cheer)

    The use of news clips from the Trump years demonstrate the sheer ineptitude and doltishness. Still those who take their cues from right wing media are stuck in a deceit that has stolen their judgement. 

    That was the theft of the last election, along with the abandonment of honor, and democratic principle. 

    ** In 1856 a pro slavery congressman beat an anti slavery Senator with a cane. Two years later 30 Congressmen got into a fist fight. 

    In 1860 pro slavery advocates threatened anti  slavery congressmen with pistols. 

    Three sticks of dynamite exploded in 1915 in a protest to US help in WW I.  

    In 1954 four Puerto Rican independence supporters fired guns shooting five congressmen who survived. 

    A 1971 bomb did damage but no injury in what was claimed to be a Weather Underground protest of the bombing of Laos. 

    In 1983 a bomb damaged the Senate side in an action by a the Armed Resistance Unit protesting military incursions in Lebanon and Grenada.

    The January 6, 2021 actions of the Trump mob of insurrectionists trying to stop the certification of the election and seeking the assassination of Vice President Pence was the deadliest Capitol assault in history. 138 police officers were injured. 

    Doesn't common sense demand an investigation?

a couple of Lana's orchids

    A little more about the berries. They were harvested from a planter box patch that Lana labored to protect from birds, raccoons and a grandson. We cannot grow strawberries in our ridge gardens as we did in the loamy soil of our Indiana gardens. So those five are a bit of a trophy, though the real champs were those we raised in our truck farm patch in the glacial hills of Morgan County. We had a lot of berries, and that was a good thing because we had to protect them from the birds, raccoons, our daughter Kristin and her lab, Inkie.

    Stay safe. 

    See you down the trail. 

Adventure in the Pacific

 

         The surf and warm sun had worked me toward a meditative trance when a flash of red, ripping through my view had me ambling for the camera.

        The kite surf rig was in free drift. We had noticed a couple aloft just up Highway 1 north of where we parked to walk across a bench of land to the beach.

    In a moment I saw the rest of the gear, the pilot, ocean swimming in a steady surf. I thought he must be exhausted as he alternated between a back stroke and breaststroke. We wondered if we should alert beach rescue as we trained our attention on him.

        He stood up, saw his rig traveling south in a stiff breeze so it was back into the swim.

        He caught a kind of break- the rig was headed toward a cove further south.

        He was able to walk the shore watching as the gear moved toward a landing. What he may not have expected was playing the game of chase amongst a few elephant seals snoozing on the shoreline. 

        I thought he must be drained. Keeping the kite aloft while surfing would be demanding enough. The extra output of ocean swimming and then a long beach walk may have been more than he bargained for.

    The frame below is from his relative position as he came ashore. The rig was heading for the cove at the end of the beach in this shot.

        If you look carefully you can see it nestled to the left of the frame below.

        Below he has his back to one of the larger elephant seals who is letting loose with one of their snort roars.

        Sorry for the soft resolution and fuzziness of the shot, but it places the red rig in the collection of molting elephant seals.

In the frame below you see him at the far right retrieving something. 

        In the shot above a couple of the elephant seals appear to be taking an interest in that new red visitor to their domain.

            I was trying to decide what to do as we hiked back to our car, thinking I'd drive up to where I had seen the other rigs.

        We met a guy in a wet suit heading toward the beach. He said he was there to help a friend. I told him we had been a bit worried as his buddy had been stroking and chopping hard in the surf.

        "Oh, he's not happy, I can tell you that," he said smiling.

        "That's a lot of hard work for a sport" I said.  He just chuckled as he continued his long hike. 

                I suspect the story will be told a few times.

          Stay safe.

          See you down the trail.

The American Spring

 moonrise on pineridge, cambria ca

        A new season is upon America, and it births a time of decision. Is the nation changing and are citizens raising the expectation of government? Are we watching an historical shift in political tectonics?

the end of the Reagan revolution?

         Is Reaganism and its anti government doctrine in demise? Will America return to the belief that Federal government is not the problem, but the solution? These questions are working toward resolution at a time when the party of Reagan, and Bush I and II has become the property of Trump and insurrectionists.  

         Since Reagan first exhorted "the federal government is the problem," Republican fiscal policy, and cultural mantra has been to diminish the role of the government in a wide array of American life. Republicans embraced an economic theory that wealth would "trickle down." The conservative gospel was that government should barely exist while the economic fruits of capitalism would abound for all.  

        Before Reagan the foundational relationship of citizen to government was the legacy of Roosevelt's New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.

        The American belief in the federal government was denigrated by the Reagan gospel of a smaller federal government, cuts in programs and services, lavish defense spending, budget breaking tax cuts for corporations and the most wealthy and actions like closing mental hospitals, busting unions and running up the deficits.

 

is Biden's popularity seismic?

        Will Americans embrace the history that government is transformative, that citizens should be served by a government that fixes problems and provides ways for a better life? 

        Analysts and historians suggest Joe Biden is returning the premise that guided FDR and Lyndon Johnson during their defining years of leadership as American excellence prevailed.

    American Presidential history has a pattern. 

    Republicans trigger recession, engage military actions, and run massive deficits while social services are starved. Democrats get stuck with the clean up and the amping up of government service. 

    The wealth gap, the shrinking of the middle class, the loss of American jobs, cultural divide and isolation was rampant by the time the Republican guardianship crashed us into near depression in 2008. 

        Barrack Obama rescued the economy, and authored the affordable care act, but Republican control of the Senate doomed any sweeping return to classic Democratic policy. 

        The Biden approach offers a return to the governing principles put into place when Franklin Roosevelt was elected in the midst of the Great Depression, the worst economic crisis in US history after another disastrous Republican rule. Government came to the aid of US citizens in myriad ways. 

      Biden came to office in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the depression, combined with the pandemic mismanaged by a divisive, corrosive and incompetent authoritarian Trump Republican rule.

      Citizen needs, infrastructure decline, and economic injustice welled up in the 40 years since American attitudes about government were assaulted by Republicans and their propaganda media, which they do effectively. 

        After 40 years of the Republican Party calling the government broken, Americans are hearing another vision.

a new twist

        Biden's proposals for the American Family, and his Infrastructure plan are popular with most American voters of every persuasion. His personal approval rating is high, but his edge in congress is razor thin and the poison of the big lie and the insurrection infect those who feed on the mind numbing propaganda pablum of Rupert Murdoch's Fox News or the looney fringe right wing media. 

    The potential of an American Spring with sweeping reenergizing of government is there, but these times are precarious.

        

            On a personal note I applaud Biden's desire to adjust the American expectation of education to 16 years, up from the 12 established historically. My coverage of and friendship with 30 year Congressman Andy Jacobs Jr led me to appreciate how important the pre kindergarten years are to children, especially those from economic or socially challenged homes. Jacobs, a member of House Ways and Means, and the Judiciary committees, was an early advocate for the idea Biden now advocates. 

    Jacobs sighted experts and research making the case for the personal and social benefits of getting children into a stable, secure and educationally stimulating environment during the critical first 4 years of life. This is the sort of program  Democrats believe in and Republicans oppose because it requires funding. 

            The benefits of better educated generations seem obvious. Also obvious, it won't happen unless the government enables it. That is the sort of detail the Biden Presidency is trying to return to the work of government.  

        How will we have it? What will be our expectation?

          It's interesting that our season of decision comes as the most senior of all US Presidents, a working class Irishman with  a long history in and love for the Senate, is being compared to iconic Democrats who shepherded government through history making eras. It might happen again.

        Stay strong.

        See you down the trail. 

 

The true Kings and Queens and Political Optimist or Pessimist?

        Sequoiadendron Giganteum are the royalty worthy of a bow.

    The Giant Sequoia groves, found only on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada in California, are amongst the oldest and largest life on this planet.

     Being in their presence is being on sacred ground.

        There is palpable sense of something more grand than human. 

          The oldest Sequoia is estimated to be 3,200. 

        They stand as tall as 279 feet and can be 26 feet in diameter. 

        They prompt a sense of reverence and wonder.  Some native people called them Wawona. The Tule River Tribe named them Toos-pung-ish. 

    English speakers named them in honor of Sequoyah, who developed the symbols for the Cherokee language.

        It is more than size and the history they have endured that make them extraordinary organisms. To a point, they survive fire.

      Unless the fire or heat reaches to the top branches, they will endure, scar, and live on. Their fibrous bark is thick and serves as a kind of insulation.     

        In a bit of perplexing nature, the Giant Sequoias seed only in the aftermath of fire, or extraordinary heat. 

        It is stunning to consider what has occurred on this planet in the last 3000 years and to know these regal forms of life have endured that span.

        Science speculates there were more of these giant redwoods in pre-historic time, but things changed in the ice age. It is said the climate has been right only the last 4000 years, but now that is changing. The future for these giants is uncertain.

        From majesty to monsters

         As conservative republican David Brooks wrote in his column, "The level of Republican pessimism is off the charts." 

       Some of them are urging murder.

       Brooks tells of an Economist survey that asked Americans what was closest to their view: 

        Option A-- The world is big and beautiful mostly full of good people and we must find a way to embrace each other and not allow ourselves to become isolated.

        Option B--Lives are threatened by terrorists, criminals and illegal immigrants, and our priority should be to protect ourselves.

         75% of Biden Voters chose the good world. 66% of Trump voters said our lives are threatened. 

        The more the world witnesses the competence and skill of the Biden Presidency, the sillier it is that some cling to the Trump big lie. News clips of his toxic and unhinged presidential moments gain greater vulgarity with time.

        It is a shame so many American citizens have their heads so deluded and hidden in another portion of their anatomy. Their blindness presents a problem to all of us.

        Brooks wrote "This level of catastrophism, near despair, has fed into an amped-up warrior mentality."

        "The decent know that they must become ruthless. They must become the stuff of nightmares," Jack Kerwick writes in the Trumpian magazine American Greatness. "The good man must spare not a moment to train, in both body and mind, to become the monster that he may need to become in order to slay the monsters that prey upon the vulnerable."

    I share Brooks' concern about the massive disconnect from reality that Trump loyalists are infected by, and that in turn has destroyed the traditional Republican party. We are not talking about a small fraction of people. There are tens of millions who have been so propagandized, fed distorted information and flat out lies as to be functionally politically illiterate and/or psychotic.

    Here is a measure of how sinister the savaging of truth is. Fox News viewership is declining as poor misguided and sad souls flee to two bozo outfits who made it their goal to be more right wing propagandized swill than Fox. 

    The evil that Joseph Goebbels launched and that Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch practiced has spawned a new mind damaging seed. 

    Ever the believer that truth wins out, I take succor in the wide Biden public approval rating, and the bipartisan support of most American voters for his programs. The more they see, the more they like. That dose of excellence is likely to be an antidote to the poison of deception and corruption that so many suffer from. It is not unlike the wonder of the vaccine that lessens the horror of the virus. 

        It is liberating when humans appreciate science, knowledge, history, and practice intelligent functioning. Some folks are starting to throw away those red hats, and are embarrassed about believing in Q. For the benefit of those who resist the truth and for the of us, we need to find a way to heal.

        Intelligence is standing it's ground, but there is more work to do. It might help to think of those former friends or family members as being victims. They have been damaged by lies, poisoned by hateful division, and some simply don't know the truth, or are not willing to challenge their suppositions.

        Stay strong.

        See you down the trail