BEHIND WHICH EYES?

 As the Democratic ticket hangs between its choices, certain questions must be asked: of the thirty-some representatives and four senators begging Biden to withdraw, how many have significant racial minority populations in their districts? What are they afraid of? Do they think their soccer moms will either go the other way or stay home in November? Allow me to suggest that, if the party keeps the issues of reproductive choice, public education (for) and a vibrant economy alive, that happening gets less and less likely? Or are they afraid that the cash spigots from what are still probably mostly neo-liberal donors for them may dry up?
Or do their districts still have relatively large percentages of those pale males I call doughfaced dinkyjohnnies? How many 'shiny object' voters might these districts have who will respond more positively to someone who only looks and sounds 'commanding' but with no truth behind it as opposed to a commander who is sometimes not very commander-like, but who knows his/her business thoroughly and has used, and continues to use, that knowledge for the benefit of the people s/he serves?
Maybe we should push harder on that point. The representatives who serve districts with either high racial minority populations or even high proportions of struggling whites within the Democrats (looking at those Philly suburban districts which were red and are now blue) are still silent or, now, openly supportive of Biden/Harris. This ought not to be ignored; no block of voters is more loyal to or works harder for Democratic candidates across the ballot than politically engaged African-American women, especially (I guess) the church ladies among them.
There was once another Democrat at the top of the ticket who many 'pros' thought would go down in thumping defeat and they were terrified lest he should take the party with him. But he ran--and he won. And this was with defections on both the party's right and left! Anyone care to guess this man's name?
Harry S. Truman. Good ol' Harry.
And now we hear rumors that the 'Republicans' now want to force an outright resignation from Biden!
I think only Roger Daltrey and The Who have words for whence this noxious nonsense emanates!
Allow me to explain: the MAGAts, who now own and run the formerly Republican party, are lineal (mostly political) descendants of those who wanted ol' Milhous to fight to a finish and who probably bear a mighty grudge against onetime Establishment Republicans as well as nearly everyone else who ain't one of them! So, to The Who's lyrics from the song with the intriguing title of Behind Blue Eyes:

I have hours only lonely
My love is vengeance that's never free

Remember, vengeance is what Trump and indeed most MAGAts, now live for! And a few more interesting lyrics which stir the pot:

No one knows what it's like to be the bad man
To be the sad man behind blue eyes

And a little further on:

No one knows what it's like to feel these feelings
Like I do--and I blame you!


Do you understand? They blame us for their half-century of butthurt and they now seek any kind of revenge including forcing the resignation of a well-working Democratic president! And also they blame anyone else but themselves for something else. Back to Roger again:

No one knows what it's like to be hated
To be fated to telling only lies

FATED? Like hell, you doughfaced dinkyjohnnies! NO ONE is FATED to that! You--yes, YOU--have CHOSEN to be among the ones who, according to the Book of Revelation, 'loveth and maketh a LIE'
You have the power to turn and repent as have a growing number formerly among y'all--but yet you cling to the lies which act as walls between us all!
Well, let me tell y'all something: those to whom you've made yourself feel superior by hating them know very well how it feels to be hated for something about your person you cannot change! Nearly everyone with skin darker than raw dough knows how that feels, beginning with Jews and going right on through skin shades to Africans and those of African heritage in our common hemisphere!
And so your toxic bread which YOU have cast upon the waters comes back to you now! I am also a pale male and any patience I might have had for your butthurt whining is LONG gone! And Trump also lies to you when he says, it's all right to hate. Now you know the feeling you've inflicted on others and, Jaye (my late first wife), forgive me for using a phrase you never liked to hear from me--you are justly served!
Forgive this digression; I mean my point to be that, while the African-American community, especially the women, stand with Biden/Harris, so will I. It is they that uphold democracy, the rule of law and the truth in general most steadfastly and among whom big mouths with fat wallets and shiny-object chasers seem to have the least influence. And no group works harder for Democratic candidates up and down the ballot. And that those calling for Biden to withdraw are those least influenced by these worthy women. We cannot afford to mutilate their enthusiasm in the way some neo-liberals seem to want to do, because without that--it they stay home--we really are done for!

LADIES, FORWARD MARCH!

 Yesterday, I heard there was a new petition signed by above fourteen hundred African-American ladies which expressed a disinclination to have Biden step down from the nomination. I don't know what else that petition contains yet, but I've also heard a rumor or two that, behind the mostly elite clamor for that action, is the desire to remove Kamala from contention for the top spot.
I don't know about any other pale males, but this one smells a large white rat at this point.
On my dad's side, I come from the Southern white minority that were called 'scalawags' by the ex-planters during Reconstruction. The ex-planters called them that because they were willing and able to participate in the Reconstruction state governments which also included freed people and Yankee carpetbagger transplants. They were mostly independent farmers, artisans and shopkeepers who refused to use slave labor and whose voices had been muzzled in nearly all the slave states by 1840. That is, before the war.
If anyone reading these words cares to, y'all just try and convince this scalawag in his late sixties that something other than racism and sexism are in motion here!
I am only too used to party bigwigs, most of whom are still also pale males, living in terror of more doughfaced dinkyjohnnies skittering away from tickets headed by anyone other than a pale male who at least can convince others he's more than just another d.d. But now we must all ask ourselves, aren't most of our d.d.s already gone, either to MAGA or the next world? I mean, if Georgia--Georgia, for Pete's sake!--can elect Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock, albeit by squeaker margins, maybe we'd better re-examine our old assumptions!
If Biden really has to go, maybe it really is time for a Democratic ticket headed by Kamala and with, say, Governor Josh Shapiro or maybe Mark Kelly as her Number Two! If Georgia can elect both a Jew and an African-American as its U.S. senators, why not?
But I also strongly suggest that, nobody knows the answer to this, be it affirmative or negative, better than politically engaged African-American women. And I also strongly suspect that being one of their church's ladies also helps in this respect. Or, sometimes, even a rabbi. Tamar, could I possibly forget you? Jamais de ma vie!
Is any group of voters more loyal to the Democratic party than these good ladies? And who does more of the legwork for, spends more time on (including persuading others to vote and vote our way) campaigns for Democratic contenders at all levels of the ballot? And who contributes a growing proportion of campaign budgets to boot?
One mistake too many 'officers' make, in nearly any organization, is: they don't listen enough to the foot soldiers and the non-coms (or their counterparts)!PleasepleasePLEASE, let's not be making that hoary, ancient mistake yet AGAIN!I just heard some members of the CBC might be wavering; but this aging 'scalawag' will wait until the good African-American ladies--those most loyal of party members, who are probably the most hardworking, at least proportionally and who are the canniest pragmatists of voters themselves--speak out, one way or another.
These black pearls certainly have been in the background much too long, but it's not for me, nor any other pale male, to 'put them up where they belong' or to do anything but make way for them and welcome them to all our ranks, including the top ones! And this pale male, for one, waits your call!

A MESSAGE FOR A CRUCIAL FOURTH

    Fellow citizens, this is a crucial July 4th.
Either this will be the start of a rejuvenation of democracy or it will mark the last time the 4th was celebrated under a democracy for the foreseeable future.
The election still looks like it will be uncomfortably close. Not a good thing when one of the two major parties is openly fascistic and six 'justices' on the Supreme Kangaroo Court have begun the process of shaping a crown and sceptre, and mixing some decidedly unholy chrism, for the crowning and anointing of a King-Emperor.
Our fascists act as if they cannot but win, although they also know that if enough of you knew what they really intend, they'd be headed towards a public rendezvous with Madame!
Fascism is fueled by a sense of losing power and/or security of 'place' in society. The current fueling of Fascism began when Reagan started to sponsor greater and greater accumulation of wealth at the tippy-top of our society, with, initially, 'Christian' white nationalist words for those whose buying power was, and still is to some extent, shrinking. Now, in the wake of the election of the first African-American president and our hidden racial hysteria boiling over, those anti-Christians are now howling for blood which their Orange Julius Caesar has promised them they'll be able to shed with impunity if he wins.
Howling for the blood of uppity (fill in the blank, really, with racial, religious, sexually-oriented, and, yes, political designations as well. I'm an aging pale male, yet they'd be glad to have at me because I actually believe in equal justice under law, for example) whomevers!
The victory of the Democrats, and of democracy, needs to be as crushing as We The People can possibly make it! All of us, and everyone we can reach by any means, needs this message shared with them with this addition: fascists are bullies and the toadies of bullies. If you, a free American citizen, want to be part of the spirit of the Declaration whose adoption we celebrate today, you will vote straight Democratic on all levels from president on down to the lowest-level local officials! If you're a mewling toady of bullies, be they political, economic, social or anything else, then you're also a MAGAt!
Somehow, I think this approach might prove pretty effective!
If anyone brings up the recent debate, ask them: how can anyone debate when one party in the debate is throwing lies like a wheel of buckets can throw dirt (or s**t) unrelentingly? That's not an easy thing to do, is it?
MAGA cares nothing for fairness, nor for the truth: they don't even wish to serve you but to rule over you. And if their rule immiserates you, they take it as evidence they're succeeding!! They want to rule us all with the Rod of Iron they convince themselves that GAWD Himself has given them!
I am a believer myself, and I tell you that MAGAts are blasphemous liars in this and nearly all other matters except when they tell us who they really are!!
Who do you want at the ticket's top? A decent man who has served We The People for most of his adult life and who has proven himself quite able in the Oval Office, or a failed businessman, a rapist, an inheritor who lies as easily as he breathes and produced little else but chaos when he was president?
And are you free American citizens or subjects-in-waiting for a wannabe despot? If you're free citizens then vote straight Democratic this November and advise everyone you know to do likewise! Share this message with them and tell them that, if they want July 4, 2025, to be worth celebrating at all, we will crush fascism with our votes! Because if we don't, that date may not be worth celebrating at all. And that'll probably be true of July 4th for at least a generation.