Congress, get your head out of that pineapple

"Let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own."

~ John F. Kennedy, U.S. President, 1960 - 1963



"If they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair."

~ Shirley Chisholm, U.S. Congresswoman, 1969 - 1983



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NOTE:  As of last evening, the Beatles' Rubber Soul album was available to listen, on You Tube.  Don't know if it will stay up, or not....

NOTE:  If you watch the October 30th edition of Hardball, you can hear Chris Matthews and Beto O'Rourke discuss the issues.  This Beto person is very fast-thinking and fast-talking -- in a good way.  He is really on the ball:  very specific, and positive.  (He quoted Bob Dylan -- "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.")

     He peppered his responses with references to the necessity of both parties working together.  He described his friendship with a Republican member of Congress, how they took a cross-country trip together, and then co-sponsored some legislation....  

This anecdote kind of supported what I've been thinking, which is that Congress has become dysfunctional, with members of the two parties viewing each other as "the enemy" partly because they don't live in Washington.  They live in their state where they already lived when they got elected, and then they don't move for their work, they just fly in and fly out of Washington (and who pays for that?)...  

That isn't how you learn and get acclimated and learn how to work together and get things done.  It appears to me that today's Congress is alienated, both from other members of Congress, and from the very people they are supposed to represent.


     To view the discussion, go on You Tube and type in

Hardball with Chris Matthews, 10/30/18.

You want the 40-minute one; that's the whole show.  It's all this question-and-answer thing, at a university in Texas.  (Those young people!  Their enthusiasm and sweetness gives you hope.)

NOTE:  It seems to me that the reason many American people are frustrated and grouchy is because so many living-wage jobs are gone.  It seems like the decision-making people, Congress and Big Business (and Big Business's influence should shrink) in the 90s, just said, Well, to achieve globalization, let's give away some jobs to other countries, & the jobs we'll give away will be the blue-collar working-class jobs, not our own jobs.  

We don't know those people, and we can just keep turning them against each other; keep them fighting, and distract 'em with drama and spectacle -- Look!  Look over there!!  It'll all shake out eventually, and meanwhile we grab all the dough.


------------------------------- A Reader Comment in The Guardian-UK last April reads:  "It is certainly true that the wealthiest people trousered too many of the benefits of globalization, and the areas that lost their manufacturing industries were ignored."

     That Comment was one of 1,558 (a lot, even for the Guardian) on an article titled, "Good news at last:  the world isn't as horrific as you think" by Hans Rosling.


"THE AREAS THAT LOST THEIR MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES WERE IGNORED."

Why are none of our politicians mentioning this?
Because it's the only freaking thing that's TRUE??!!
Why are our leaders not addressing this problem, in word and deed?

     And why did they let it occur in the first place?  The process of globalization could have been much better planned.  Instead, working people were "dissed."  Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, western New York, West Virginia, Indiana, Wisconsin, and New England as well....

     Decisions like that are what happens when "workers" in Congress are alienated from their jobs, flying back "HOME" all the time, and just going through the motions like zombies.

     Pres. Trump should not have one single more pep-rally until he has effectively addressed three things --

1.  jobs
2.  infrastructure (and this could solve Item 1)
3.  Tell Congress members they have to "move to where their jobs are" just like blue collar people have to do, and if they don't, they will be "left behind," as they like to condescendingly say about working people.

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     After listening to the Oct. 30 Hardall twice, I was thinking, it doesn't matter whether O'Rourke "wins" the office he's running for or not, he has already "won" because he makes excellent points, and speaks well for the people.  He calls on the students in his audience to "lead" on the important issues.  He doesn't say "I will lead" -- he says, "Let's take the lead on this..."
     Similar to President Kennedy in his Inauguration speech, where he said, "Let us go forth and lead the land we love."


     Everyone can make their contribution by setting a good example.  A president can set a good example, and so can a policeman, a mom, a dad, a sanitation worker, a talk show host, a guitar player, a neck cutter, and every other American who decides to make his or her contribution by

Setting a good example

and

"Leading the land we love."

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_______________________________

Mississippi John Hurt's next song, on "The Best Of" on You Tube (uploaded by Jim Blues Rock Channel) is Song 7,

"Coffee Blues"

...Good mornin' baby, how you do this mornin'?...

In this song, he uses the phrase, "a lovin' spoonful" -- the 1960s rock band The Lovin' Spoonful, famous for such hit songs as "Summer in the City" and "Do You Believe in Magic," took their group name from the Mississippi John "Coffee Blues" lyric....

__________________________
_______________________________

------------------------ [excerpt, Fear and Loathing:  On the Campaign Trail '72] ---------------- Grossman ignored the obvious fact that he and other pro-McCarthy heavies had been beaten stupid, on the grass-roots organizing level, by an unheralded "McGovern machine" put together in Massachusetts by John Reuther -- a nephew of Walter, late president of the UAW. 

 I spent most of that afternoon wandering around the gym, listening to people talk and watching the action, and it was absolutely 
clear -- once the voting started -- that Reuther had everything wired.


     Everywhere I went there was a local McGovern floor manager keeping people in line, telling them exactly what was happening and what would probably happen next . . . while the McCarthy forces -- led by veteran Kennedy/Camelot field marshal Richard Goodwin -- became more and more demoralized, caught in a fast-rising pincers movement between a surprisingly organized McGovern block on their Right, and a wild-eyed Chisholm uprising on the Left.

     The Chisholm strength shocked everybody.  She was one of twelve names on the ballot -- which included almost every conceivable Democratic candidate from Hubert Humphrey to Patsy Mink, Wilbur Mills, and Sam Yorty -- but after Muskie and Lindsay dropped out, the Caucus was billed far and wide as a test between McGovern and McCarthy.  

There was no mention in the press or anywhere else that some unknown black woman from Brooklyn might seriously challenge these famous liberal heavies on their own turf . . . but when the final vote came in, Shirley Chisholm had actually beaten Gene McCarthy, who finished a close third.


     The Chisholm challenge was a last-minute idea and only half-organized, on the morning of the Caucus, by a handful of speedy young black politicos and Women's Lib types -- but by 6:00 that evening it had developed from a noisy idea into a solid power bloc. ------------------------------- [end, excerpt] -----------

___________________________

{Fear And Loathing:  On The Campaign Trail '72, by Hunter S. Thompson.  Simon & Schuster - 1973}

-30-

are we better than this?

headlines


Pittsburgh Cartoonist References Nazi 'Kristallnacht' In Synagogue Shooting Sketch

^ Huffington Post


Kristallnacht:  The night Nazis killed Jews and destroyed synagogues 80 years before Pittsburgh

^ Washington Post


NJ Holocaust survivor:  I worry Kristallnacht could happen again
 ^ Philly.com

__________________________________

Wikipedia:

Kristallnacht -- "Crystal Night" or Night of Broken Glass

Kristallnacht changed the nature of the Nazi persecution of Jews from economic, political, and social to physical with beatings, incarceration, and murder; the event is often referred to as the beginning of the Holocaust.  

In the words of historian Max Rein in 1988, "Kristallnacht came...and everything was changed."


While November 1938 predated the overt articulation of "the Final Solution," it foreshadowed the genocide to come.

____________________________________
____________________________________

The next song on

Mississippi John Hurt- The Best Of

is "Salty Dog Blues" -- John Hurt's velvet, intimate singing style and his confident construction of melody and rhythm on his acoustic guitar is extended to his version of this early 1900s folk song.

     [Wikipedia] - "In his Library of Congress interviews, Jelly Roll Morton recalled a three-piece string band led by Bill Johnson playing the number to great acclaim, probably before 1910."

-----------------------

     You can hit Play on The Best Of on You Tube and listen for this, it's the sixth song on there; or you can type in on You Tube "Salty Dog Blues" and get various versions of the song, including that of Mississippi John Hurt.

_____________________________________
_____________________________________

___________________________________

[Wikipedia] ----------- Eugene McCarthy was an American politician, poet, and a long-time congressman from Minnesota.  He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the United States Senate from 1959 to 1971.

--------------------- [excerpt, Fear And Loathing:  On The Campaign Trail '72] ----------------------------

     Later, when his outlandish success in New Hampshire shocked Johnson 

into retirement, [in 1968] I half-expected McCarthy to quit the race himself, rather than suffer all the way to Chicago (like Castro in Cuba -- after Batista fled) . . . 

and God only knows what kind of vengeful energy is driving him this time [in 1972], but a lot of people who said he was suffering from brain bubbles when he first mentioned that he might run again in '72 are beginning to take him seriously:  not as a Democratic contender, but as an increasingly possible Fourth Party candidate with the power to put a candidate like Muskie through terrible changes between August and November.

     To Democratic chairman Larry O'Brien, the specter of a McCarthy candidacy in '72 must be something like hearing the Hound of the Baskervilles sniffing and pissing around on your porch every night.  A left-bent Fourth Party candidate with a few serious grudges on his mind could easily take enough left/radical votes away from either Muskie or Humphrey to make the Democratic nomination all but worthless to either one of them.

     Nobody seems to know what McCarthy has in mind this year, but the possibilities are ominous, and anybody who thought he was kidding got snapped around fast last week when McCarthy launched a brutish attack on Muskie within hours after the Maine Senator made his candidacy official.


     The front page of the Washington Post carried photos of both men, along with a prominent headline and McCarthy's harsh warning that he was going to hold Muskie "accountable" for his hawkish stance on the war in Vietnam prior to 1968.  McCarthy also accused Muskie of being "the most active representative of Johnson administration policy at the 1968 Convention."

     Muskie seemed genuinely shaken by this attack.  He immediately called a press conference to admit that he'd been wrong about Vietnam in the past, but that now "I've had reason to change my mind."  

His new position was an awkward thing to explain, but after admitting his "past mistakes" he said that he now favored "as close to an immediate withdrawal from Vietnam as possible."

***********

     McCarthy merely shrugged.  He had done his gig for the day, and Muskie was jolted. -----------------------

{Hunter Thompson.  Simon & Schuster.  1973}

Vietnamese silk painting

-30-

a sheet of his two-ply paper

"Reality itself is cast into doubt....Fascist politics exchanges reality for the pronouncements of a single individual, or perhaps a political party."

~ Jason Stanley, author of How Fascism Works:  The Politics of Us and Them.  Random House, 2018.

Yale University,
where Stanley is a professor

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_________________________________

"Say, baby, did you get that letter?
If you take me back I'll -- treat you better,
Nobody's business but mine..."

"Ain't Nobody's Business" is the fifth song on the

Mississippi John Hurt- The Best Of

album, available for listening on You Tube.

     This song is upbeat and springy, with lyrics -- like so many popular songs -- chronicling a dysfunctional love relationship.

_____________________________

_________________________________


()
On November 9 to November 10, 1938, in an incident known as "Kristallnacht," Nazis in Germany torched synagogues, vandalized Jewish homes, schools and businesses and killed close to 100 Jews.

~ History.com

()
On October 27, 2018, a man in America murdered eleven people in a Pittsburgh synagogue.

Joyce Fienberg, 75
Richard Gottfried, 65
Rose Mallinger, 97
Jerry Rabinowitz, 66

Cecil Rosenthal, 59
David Rosenthal, 54
Bernice Simon, 84
Sylvan Simon, 86
Daniel Stein, 71
Melvin Wax, 87
Irving Younger, 69


()
"We all felt the same thing:  how glad we were that our parents weren't alive to see this happen in America..."

~ synagogue member


()
"We are not alone.  We are strong enough.  We will never yield and we will lead this world to a better place."

~ Jon B. Wolfsthal, commenter on Pittsburgh story

Sixth Street Bridge
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
by Frank Harris
__________________________________
__________________________________

------------------ [excerpt, All The President's Men] -------------------------------

     When Bernstein returned to the office, Ben Bradlee was examining the statements by Ziegler, Dole and MacGregor, noting that all had emphasized the same things and had used similar language.  

At the Post, there was little doubt that the attacks were orchestrated and, if not ordered by the President, made with his knowledge and approval.

Ben Bradlee

     Reporters from other news organizations were calling Bradlee for a response.  He put a sheet of his two-ply paper in his typewriter and banged out a statement:

Time will judge between Clark MacGregor's press release and the Washington Post's reporting of the various activities of CRP.  For now it is enough to say that not a single fact contained in the investigative reporting by this newspaper about these activities has been successfully challenged.  MacGregor and other high administration officials have called these stories "a collection of absurdities" and the Post "malicious," but the facts are on the record, unchallenged by contrary evidence.

_________________________________________________

{All The President's Men, by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward.  Simon & Schuster, 1974}

Ben Bradlee, Jackie Kennedy, Toni Bradlee, President Kennedy

-30- 

somebody been fishin' in my pond

     Fascinating, and I don't know why:  on You Tube there are all these people who make videos showing themselves living in their RVs.  

They range from people living and traveling in huge rock-star-type buses that are like luxurious houses driving down the road, to regular-sized motorhomes, to truck campers, fifth-wheels, to camper vans, conversion vans, people who have a bed and cooking facilities in the back of a pickup or a car....


     Reasons people do this:

save money on rent or mortgage;
adventure;
see America without staying in motels;
be outdoors more;
take photographs;
paint;
write;
blog....

And some people's reason for doing it might be -- to make You Tube videos...

     There are whole philosophies, belief systems, and mission statements behind this lifestyle, for some of the people who do it.  They find new ways to do things -- save space -- have less stuff...  I find it really interesting, although it would not be practical to do it myself.  I find it almost addicting to watch their videos.


     The views of the inside spaces in these campers etc. are just intriguing to the max.  A couple living in their van -- I was playing their video -- and they were discussing how they built the interior themselves.  They have a dining table, and a -- Creativity Table.

     The man was describing his idea for something he built in there -- he said, "I'm not a carpenter, but..." and continued to explain his van interior concept.  The phrase "I'm not a carpenter but--" reminded me of when I was lobbying, in the '90s, sometimes you would hear a lobbyist testifying before a legislative committee begin a sentence with, "I'm not a lawyer, but..."  They had a Lobbyist Axiom about that.  

Many lobbyists are lawyers, so of course only the ones who weren't could invoke that caveat....

     Later in the Van Video, the guy said, "I'm not an electrician, but..."  It's also kind of like "You know you're a redneck if..."  The unfinished sentence... a vast plain of possibility....

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     Mississippi John Hurt, The Best Of album has on its fourth groove the song, "Baby What's Wrong with You" -- it's a song whose jumping rhythm depends upon a regular strong downbeat.  This would be provided by bass guitar and/or drums, in a band, but Mississippi John does it himself on an acoustic guitar:  Bomp, ba-da-dah-da-da...    His thumb....

Type on You Tube:
Mississippi John Hurt - baby whats wrong with you
and Play

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---------------------- [excerpt, Woodward and Bernstein] --------------------------
But the first priority on that Monday was Hunt.  The Miami suspects' belongings were listed in a confidential police inventory that Bachinski had obtained.  

There were "two pieces of yellow-lined paper, one addressed to 'Dear Friend Mr. Howard,' and another to 'Dear Mr. H.H..,'" and an unmailed envelope containing Hunt's personal check for $6.36 made out to the Lakewood Country Club in Rockville, along with a bill for the same amount.


     Woodward called an old friend and sometimes source who worked for the federal government and did not like to be called at his office.  His friend said hurriedly that the break-in case was going to "heat up," but he couldn't explain and hung up.

E. Howard Hunt


     It was approaching 3:00 P.M., the hours when the Post's editors list in a "news budget" the stories they expect for the next day's paper.  Woodward, who had been assigned to write Tuesday's Watergate story, picked up the telephone and dialed 456-1414 -- the White House.  

He asked for Howard Hunt.  

The switchboard operator rang an extension.  There was no answer.  Woodward was about to hang up when the operator came back on the line.  "There is one other place he might be," she said.  "In Mr. Colson's office."


     "Mr. Hunt is not here now," Colson's secretary told Woodward, and gave him the number of a Washington public-relations firm, Robert R. Mullen and Company, where she said Hunt worked as a writer.

     Woodward walked across to the national desk at the east end of the newsroom and asked one of the assistant national editors, J.D. Alexander, who Colson was.  Alexander, a heavy-set man in his mid-thirtites with a thick beard, laughed.  Charles W. Colson, special counsel to the President of the United States, was the White House "hatchet man," he said.

     Woodward called the White House back and asked a clerk in the personnel office if Howard Hunt was on the payroll.  She said she would check the records.  A few moments later, she told Woodward that Howard Hunt was a consultant working for Colson.

     Woodward called the Mullen public-relations firm and asked for Howard Hunt.

     "Howard Hunt here," the voice said.

     Woodward identified himself.

      "Yes?  What is it?"  Hunt sounded impatient.

     Woodward asked Hunt why his name and phone number were in the address books of two of the men arrested at the Watergate.

     "Good God!" Howard Hunt said.  Then he quickly added, "In view that the matter is under adjudication, I have no comment," and slammed down the phone.

     Woodward thought he had a story.  Still, anyone's name and phone number could be in an address book.  The country-club bill seemed to be additional evidence of Hunt's connection with the burglars.  But what connection?  A story headlined "White House Consultant Linked to bugging Suspects" could be a grievous mistake, misleading, unfair to Hunt.


     Woodward called Ken W. Clawson, the deputy director of White House communications, who had been a Post reporter until the previous January.  He told Clawson what was in the address books and police inventory, then asked what Hunt's duties at the White House were.  Clawson said that he would check.

     An hour later, Clawson called back to say that Hunt had worked as a White House consultant on declassification of the Pentagon Papers and, more recently, on a narcotics intelligence project.  Hunt had last been paid as a consultant on March 29, he said, and had not done any work for the White House since.

     "I've looked into the matter very thoroughly, and I am convinced that neither Mr. Colson nor anyone else at the White House had any knowledge of, or participation in, this deplorable incident at the Democratic National Committee," Clawson said.

     The comment was unsolicited.

_______________________________________

{All The President's Men, by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward.  Simon & Schuster.  1974.}

-30-

W. House, and W.H.

     The third song on Mississippi John Hurt's The Best Of album (You Tube, Jim Blues Rock Channel) is "Nearer, My God, to Thee" -- a traditional folk song, or hymn, sung with soul & played on beautiful country-style guitar.

     It can be listened to by Playing the album and listening for Song #3, (after "I Shall Not Be Moved") or type in on You Tube:

Mississippi John Hurt, Nearer my God to Thee

and we get a video of just that one song, and we can play that.

_____________________________

------------------------ [excerpt, All The President's Men] -----------------------------

Woodward typed out the first three paragraphs of a story identifying one of the Watergate burglars as a salaried security coordinator of the President's re-election committee and handed it to an editor on the city desk.  

A minute later, Bernstein was looking over the editor's shoulder, Woodward noticed.  

Then Bernstein was walking back to his desk with the first page of the story; soon he was typing.  

Woodward finished the second page and passed it to the editor.  

Bernstein had soon relieved him of it and was back at his typewriter.  

Woodward decided to walk over and find out what was happening.  Bernstein was rewriting the story.  Woodward read the rewritten version.  It was better.

*       *       *

That night, Woodward drove to McCord's home, a large two-story brick house, classically suburban, set in a cul-de-sac not far from Route 70-S, the main highway through Rockville.  

The lights were on, but no one answered the door.  After midnight, Woodward received a call at home from Eugene Bachinski, the Post's regular night police reporter.  The night police beat is generally considered the worst assignment at the paper.  

The hours are bad -- from about 6:30 P.M. to 2:30 A.M.  But Bachinski -- tall, goateed and quiet -- seemed to like his job, or at least he seemed to like the cops.  

He had come to know many of them quite well, saw a few socially and moved easily on his nightly rounds through the various squads at police headquarters:  homicide, vice (grandly called the Morals Division), traffic, intelligence, sex, fraud, robbery -- the catalogue of city life as viewed by the policeman.  

Bachinski had something from one of his police sources.  Two address books, belonging to two of the Miami men arrested inside the Watergate, contained the name and phone number of a Howard E. Hunt, with the small notations "W. House" and "W.H."  

Woodward sat down in a hard chair by his phone and checked the telephone directory.  He found a listing for E. Howard Hunt, Jr., in Potomac, Maryland, the affluent horse-country suburb in Montgomery County.  No answer.

____________________________________

{All The President's Men, by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward.  Simon & Schuster, 1974.}

-30-