A Nation of Brats for the World to See

The U.S, while comprising 6% of the world’s population, has 25% of the world’s COVID-19 deaths. (Interestingly, we also comprise 25% of the world’s imprisoned people.) Coincidence, or could it be the Fates’ curious way of exposing a flaw in this nation’s character?

Perhaps it has nothing to do with the Fates, the Moiras, or the Furies. Perhaps it has more to do with a people who are not so "exceptional” as we claim to be, but who are prone to excesses – to being more emotional than the rest of the world, i.e., more spoiled, and more undisciplined. We like to talk about heroes here in America, but lately, we sound (more importantly, behave) like a nation of victims – people who complain that their lives have been upended; who pout that they have to wear masks every time they go out.

COVID-19 cases are trending down, and staying down in many countries around the world – China, Germany, Italy, Spain, Taiwan, South Korea, etc. That has nothing to do with the Fates. It has to do with people who have decided to suck it up – to put on a mask and keep it on. In Singapore, 95% of the people wear masks when they go out. They are not exceptional people; they are reasonable people. They are responsible. The irresponsible ones are in America – the ones who refuse to sacrifice their vanity for the common good. 

The Pouter-in-Chief boasts that if not for his leadership, millions of Americans would probably be dead from the Coronavirus. They would suggest that millions of nations with lesser leaders have already died. The opposite is true. COVID-19 has killed a half million people worldwide, and no single nation is close to having the 130,000 fatalities the U.S. has already sustained.

Nothing is so easy to understand as a simple graph. Put a graph of America’s experience with COVID-19 alongside that of other nations’, and one must wonder how the richest, most technologically advanced nation on Earth can be doing so much more badly than the rest of the world when it comes to COVID. Take China, for example:  It has four times the number of citizens as the U.S. – 1.3 billion people. Yet, they have sustained a quarter of the deaths from COVID that America has. 

Instead of being world leaders, the U.S. appears to be a nation of brats. And the world can see.  

As Young People Rise, Slavery's Champions Go Down

There are young folks going around this country tearing down Confederate statues. Some older folks do not like it, and they further complain when these young people, from time to time, knock down statues of the “good guys”, too. (They seem to suggest that these young people are meddling in grown-up affairs.)

First, this is the young folks’ affair. Second, let’s call the felling of some of the supposed “good guys” statues – the Washingtons and Roosevelts and Columbuses – “collateral damage.” (It is what happens to “good guys” when they stand too close to the fire.)

The conservative media would cloud the public’s perception of what these young people are doing. For instance, there is a statue of Lincoln standing over a bowed slave that they religiously hold up as a target of the statue-smashing protestors. Be not confused:  The legions of Confederate statues strung across our southern landscape is the motivating factor behind these undaunted youth. 

Such change as we see happening in America today cannot always be clean and concise. It is like the Civil War, itself. Do you think every citizen in the antebellum South was a white supremacist? They weren’t. Some of those southern whites were appalled at the idea of slavery. Still, when the North invaded the South during the war, those good southerners had to suffer alongside those champions of slavery who had brought this nation to such a sad state.

America’s young people should never have been put into a position where they are the ones who have to tear down those monuments to traitors. We should have torn them down long ago. Now, the "adults" complain that the young people are despoiling America’s heritage (when the symbol of that "heritage" is a veritable stain on America’s face.) 

The purpose of putting people on pedestals is so future generations will look up to them. Why should young Americans today have to look up to white men who fought with all of their hearts to keep black men, black women, and black children enslaved? Why should their communities, and their children, have to dignify the champions of slavery - men who repeatedly committed heinous acts against helpless black women and children, the likes of which men are known to commit against those whom they hold in bondage? What kind of “great” nation would even allow such a travesty to be perpetrated against its young people, and then threaten those same young people with prison when they declare, “Enough is enough!”

For every statue that comes down, a statue of one of these young people should go up. They are the true heroes. God bless 'em.   

Have You Lost Your Ever-Loving Mind?

At Joel Osteen’s megachurch, rap artist, Kanye West, declared that he, “the greatest artist God ever created,” was dedicating his gifts to the service of God. “Greatest artist ever created…”? Kanye, you ever heard of Leonardo da Vinci, or Michelangelo? How about Bach, Beethoven, or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?

You would place your works above Shakespeare, who once wrote: “There is a tide in the affairs of men when taken at its flood leads on to fortune. Omitted, all his life is bound in the shallows.” You, Kanye, could not deliver such profundity if God gifted you with a thousand years.

But, let's not go there. Let’s narrow this strange debate down to America – more specifically to African-Americans. Kanye speaks as though the only artists who matter are those who performed during his brief stint of cognizance – as though God’s work was middlin’ up until then. I must ask: “Kanye, are you crazy?”

You would casually pass over Marvin Gaye, who iconic “What’s Going On?” challenged billions worldwide to think about what we are doing to ourselves and our planet. Ever hear of Ray Charles, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald? How about Sam Cooke, Dinah Washington, Curtis Mayfield, and Michael Jackson? And what artists have dug grooves so deep as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Charlie “Bird” Parker, and Louis Armstrong? When Aretha Franklin sang “Respect”, you must have been asleep. How else could you discount her artistic excellence, as well as the heights achieved by Dionne Warwick, and Diana Ross? Hey, ever hear of James Brown?

These people were imbued with a thing we called “soul”. It ran like a river through the black community. Long a hallmark of the African-American experience, this sublime spirit became the thoroughfare by which the passion African-America was unleashed. It was especially evident in the music and dance of black folk throughout the 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. That precious commodity began to wane in the 80s and 90s. It, perhaps reared its head one last time on the shoulders of Whitney Houston. With her demise, it settled into the moribund state that characterizes “soul” in the black community today. This new bread of African-American artists, lacking the soul of their predecessors, now load up on whatever they think will sell. They do a lot of sellin’, but it sho’ ain’t soul.

The hip-hop artists of Kanye’s ilk are not such great artists as they are revolutionaries. They have influenced young African-America to make a severe left turn, and speed down a highway devoid of the sense of history that fostered its soul – that sense that had made African-America a great and viable community. These rap artists reflect a vanity that is terribly self-destructive – that has replaced “rhythms and blues” with “nigguhs” and “bitches.” They think they have arrived. They are very proud. 

Some may say I over-reacted to Kanye’s controversial remarks. Perhaps, except that would suggest that Kanye was merely speaking in jest. That would also lead one to imagine that Joel Osteen had brought Kanye before his church to crack jokes. Joel is a serious man; Kanye is delusional. Delusional men do not crack jokes, they believe. 

Trump Creates Black Hole Into Which All Matter of Morals Fall

While listening to a couple of Fox News pundits commiserate about the lack of "positive coverage" President Trump receives, I thought, "What do they expect?" During Donald Trump's 2016 presidential run, a videotape surfaced of his boasting that because of his stardom, "I can grab a woman by the p----y... do whatever I want." 

Today, Trump's presidency lies in the wake of that vile remark. Any subsequent press coverage must languish within its shadow, whose reflection captures the true nature of the man. 

The other day, I watched "Outnumbered", a Fox News program co-hosted by Harris Faulkner. Faulkner - who, along with her husband, raises two young girls - is a staunch Trump defender. Yet, according to her own statements on that very show, she is also a fierce mom when it comes to her girls. One must, then, wonder how this woman reconciles her position on Fox (which is obviously important to her) with maternal instincts? Trump will pass from the political scene, probably sooner than later. But, Harris will ever be reminded - perhaps haunted - of her impulse to paint positive images of President Trump despite his profound misogyny.  

Imagine how Harris Faulkner must flinch each time she is reminded of how willingly she turned a blind eye to a bully who, with one foul blast, eviscerated the dignity of young girls everywhere.  

D-Day: American Heroes or Americans Hero-Mongering?

Hitler, to assure his wary generals, said this of his impending invasion of the USSR in 1941: “All we need to do is kick the door in, and the entire rotten edifice will come crashing down.” Hitler was wrong. The Russians fought like hell. That fight became, by far, the greatest armed conflict in human history. In one battle alone – the Battle for Kiev – German troops took over 600,000 Russian soldiers prisoner. In another – the Minsk encirclement – the Germans took another 300,000. Such amazing victories were common to the German juggernaut early on. But, the Russians come storming back, fighting tooth and nail. The celebrated soldiers of D-Day would not have kicked up a thimble-full of Normandy sand had not the bloodied Soviets paved the way with 25 million Russian dead.

The Soviet leader, Josef Stalin, had implored America to open up a front against the Germans as early as 1942. America was not ready for that, and for good reason. A Normandy invasion in 1942 would have been an American disaster, as would have been such an attempt in ’43. It was not until 1944 that the Germans were convinced of their defeat on the eastern front. It is then that what was left of their once mighty Wehrmacht tucked tail, and went into full retreat mode. 

Americans speak proudly of their victory in Hitler’s iconic “Battle of the Bulge”, as though it was some titanic struggle between good and evil. Compared with the bloodbaths at Stalingrad, Leningrad, Moscow, and Kursk, “the Bulge” was no more than a gimmick – a last-ditch effort that dissipated as quickly as the sun could clear away the clouds, (which were all of the air cover the Germans could afford.)

Americans on the western front killed thousands of German troops in ’44 and ’45. On the eastern front, the Russians killed millions. In their march across France and into Germany, the Americans were soon killing capturing German soldiers as young as 15 and 16. This is because the Russians had already killed most of Germany’s fighting men.

I do not wish to diminish what took place at Normandy on June 6, 1944. It was truly the greatest amphibious landing in military history. But, it was successful only because Russia had bled Germany so until barely a skeletal force remained to guard Germany’s western gate.

--> The allied invaders of D-Day kicked open Hitler’s rickety door at Normandy and the western edifice crumbled. From there, the American soldier in Europe performed mop-up duty all the way to Berlin. They did not defeat Nazi tyranny, as D-Day enthusiasts like to proclaim. The Russians did that. This is what the Allies did: They marched quickly across western Europe, right up against what would become known as the “Iron Curtain.” If not for the D-Day invaders, perhaps the entirety of continental Europe would have fallen under Soviet control. This is the true significance of D-Day. The rest is hero mongering.

Kindness, Exceptionalism, and Historical Perspective

How is it that in a land of 330 million "exceptional" people, this nation will have to pick from two 75-year-old men - neither of which is very bright - to lead them? Makes you wonder about our so-called "exceptionalism", if not about our democracy.

*****

People must maintain a historical perspective. It is everyone's foundation. Yet, there are young people - many of them in the black community - who have no historical perspective. They think the world began with them. So, they write the rules - inevitably stupid rules - and then they convince like-minded, non-historical individuals to help perpetuate their vision. One of their more recent rules: "Let's call everybody 'Nigguhs'".

*****

All human being are affected by kindness. Some are even shocked. They are the ones who need it most.

The MDOC's Newton Principle: A Body in Chains Tends to Remain in Chains

You want to keep someone in prison in America, ask anyone familiar with Michigan’s parole board. They will tell you that any of these pat constructions might do: “Doesn’t take responsibility… Shows no change… Shows no remorse…” or the old stand-by, “Poses a threat to society.”

These responses uttered over and over, thousands of times, continue to send prisoners and their families hurtling backward into America’s prison system. And they are words not based upon facts, but rather dependent upon a type of subjectivism that is devoid of substantive content. (If you’re going to give a 66-year-old man like me another five years in prison, it should be for substantial reasons.) They are words – words that carry such weight that they effectively deny prisoners and their families the most precious commodity America affords – freedom. That those words leave prisoners with little ability to resist must challenge the notion whether this is truly the “Land of the Free,” at all. And, considering no one steps forward to champion these most deprived of Americans, it certainly calls into question whether this is the “Home of the brave.” 

This parole board routinely asks prisoners, “Have you changed?’ The prisoner responds, “Yes.” How can a prisoner know if he has changed when he has been in a controlled environment for the past 20 years, shielded from the temptations (and corresponding emotions) that drove him to prison? This is an example of a system that would keep a man imprisoned who hesitates to answer that question, as I did. I hesitated because I wanted to be careful to speak the truth.

The parole board, too, speaks the truth and then struggles with that truth when it clashes with their official narrative. Of course, this parole board gets “wide discretion,” which is code for a license to obfuscate, cherry-pick, an even create auras of prescience, (which must convince the public that the parole board hears things and sees things in defendants no one else can hear or see.) In other words: They become unimpeachable. The problem with that: In America, no one should be unimpeachable. That dubious distinction must be reserved for despots in distant lands. Yet, watch how Americans cover their own heads when others are denied their freedom.

Injustice is not a force of nature; it is a force of man. John Brown did not stand up and rage at the moon. He stood up and raged at men and their unjust laws. Harriet Tubman did not challenge earthquakes and tornadoes. She challenged laws that said one man can own another man. The Michigan legislature recently passed a law, and the governor signed it, that allows one group – prosecutors and victims’ families – to appeal a parole board decision, but the group most directly affected by that decision – the prisoner and his family – cannot. In the face of such blatant injustice, where is the outrage that should be in the DNA of all true Americans? 

Where legislation is passed in America that insulates any agency of the government from equal and accountability, then it, in itself, is an open door to discrimination. Yet, what do Michiganians do about it? They collect their paychecks, repair to their safe homes, and turn their backs to these injustices; albeit, not before advising me to “conduct yourself well” over the next five years in prison.

First, I do not conduct myself well because I am hoping to get parole. I conduct myself because that is how I was raised. Second, at the time my parole was denied, I had zero disciplinary points – a prime indicator of “good conduct.” That is a real reason to parole a 66-year-old prisoner. But, what does such good conduct matter to a parole board that prefers prolonged incarceration? 

This nation has lost its way, and with it, its soul. Where are the men and women of guts in this America? Where are the John Browns and Harriet Tubmans of today? Who are the Lincolns? Not you, not you, not you…