The tactic of innuendo used to hold hostage the Affordable Care Act is nothing new on the American political stage. It has a history in the theater of American politics – the substitute of demagogic character assassination for substantive, rational, discussion of public policy. Here Edward R. Murrow exposes the tactics of Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
They want you to believe that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a sinister plot. They do not call the Act by its name. They call it “ObamaCare” after the man they love to hate, President they paint as either a secret Muslim or Socialist or Communist. We’ve seen this kind of demagoguery before. Those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it.
This 1954 video of Joseph Welch brought the tsunami of demagoguery, led by WI Senator Joseph McCarthy, to a screeching halt. An exasperated Welsh, Chief Counsel for the Army in the Army-Senate Hearings, finally put the question directly to McCarthy: “Have you no decency, Sir?” The same question pertains to the Right Wing ad scaring the public about a lecherous Uncle Sam (government). Views from the Edge posted that video an hour ago.
January 28, 1998
He gave the State of the Union address
the night before, and flew on Air Force One
to our college town in the middle-west
to check out press and public reaction.
(The sex with an intern story made news
the week before.) For six years he had met
not politicians, but “Local Heroes”
at airports (Do-Gooders the Democrat
Party chose.)
Our church worked with homeless men.
As Pastor, I was picked to shake his hand
as he came off the plane (in a long line
with 14 other folks.) He called each one
of us by name. He firmly gripped my hand,
looked in my eyes, pretending to be fine…/
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, January 28, 1988
Steve Shoemaker with President Bill Clinton
Join Steve next Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. at Shepherd of the Hill Presbyterian Church.
This sermon connects the interruption of Paul’s journey to Syria with the recent U.S. threat to bomb Syria to destroy evil in the name of goodness.
Anticipating Shepherd of the Hill Dialogues’ “Voices of the Slaves” program celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, we offer Sojourner Truth’s speech here on Views from the Edge. The Tuesday Dialogue on Oct. 15 (7:00 P.M.) will feature dramatic readings like this one and the music that originated in the cotton fields.
Sojourner Truth
A Sermon at Shepherd of the Hill Presbyterian Church in Chaska, Minnesota.
EXCERPTS
“I have always been bemused by time and place. I am a toddler on a train listening in the night to the eerie sound of the train whistle and the constant click-clacking of the wheels. Where were we? Where are we going – and why, just my mother and I?”
“We are all in transit. But from where to where and from when to when have become less and less my questions.”
Gravel and motorcycles don’t mix.
Even though the 73 year old Dean
(Emeritus) was only going 5 mph
on the last gravel mile to his
daughter’s lake house, when he looked
at the passing motorboat,
the big quiet bike slowly slid sideways
and down on his left leg.
A passing lake visitor helped lift
the bike off his bruised, he thought,
limb, and he limped the half-mile
to his daughter’s place carrying
his helmet–the same red as his bike.
After resting, she drove him back
to the unharmed motorcycle,
which he rode the 30 miles home.
He drove his pick-up truck to the
Walk-in Clinic to check the leg
that kept hurting as he walked.
After the X-Rays showed two
breaks, waiting for surgery,
his daughter said, “I’ll bet you
are smiling because your bike
wasn’t even scratched!”
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, September 10, 2013
Lost in Chicago
Parking now is privatized,
on-street prices very high,
all hotels have also raised
valet costs in the same way:
everybody wants to make
as much money as they can
before bankruptcy will take
everybody down just like
Detroit.
Mile Magnificent is still
mostly white except for men
parking cars or begging on
sidewalk sides. Inside, women
wear their diamonds on pale hands–
colored hands wear vinyl, fill
buckets, pails, trash bags, and cans:
garbage left behind by all
the rich.
Foreigners drive taxis, make
more here than at home. Send back
salaries and tips to help
families survive. I stop,
lost on lower Wacker Drive,
lower Michigan, no help
here from GPS, “Now drive
east 500 feet and stop.”
(I’d be in the lake…)
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, September 9, 2013
P.S. On Tuesday, October 1 Steve will bring his poetry to Tuesday Dialogues at Shepherd of the Hill Church in Chaska. Free and open to the public.
The same day America honored the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington most remembered for Dr. King’s “I have a dream” speech, America’s first black President appeared on the Newshour to discuss military strikes in Syria.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was as deeply committed to peace and to NON-VIOLENT, non-military solutions to global problems as he was to ending racism. As his analysis of the national, international, and human condition continued to develop, he became an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War, capitalism, and imperialism. He grasped as well as any public figure of his time the institutional power of an unelected, undemocratic web of the economic-military-corporate power at work behind the scenes of American public life.
I was proud of President Obama’s speech from the same spot where where Dr. King had stood 50 years before at the March on Washington. I can’t put that together with his entertainment of military action in Syria. For whatever reason, the media did not seem to notice the incongruity.
Last night’s PBS Newhour featured a conversation about the advisability of “punishing” Syria. University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer’s statements, in my opinion, hit the nail on the head. “Stay out militarily.” Click HERE to listen to the conversation.
The military-industrial-technological-corporate complex feeds of mistakes like Iraq and Afghanistan. Martin Luther King, Jr. never lunched on their food. Nor should we.
Martin Luther King, Jr. 50 years ago
2013 MLK: “What happened?”
Glock owner at State Capitol hearing. Photo by David Joles, StarTribune.
Views from the Edge 