Statues? Really?– America has a multitude of intractable crises to deal with right now -- China’s increasing aggression around the globe, a pandemic that’s affected every country, huge pending climate disasters, a spiraling economic disparity between affluent and indigent countries – but guess what issue so many Americans are stewing over these days?
Statuary.
That’s correct, as ridiculous as it sounds: many of the ‘woke’ generation are worried that centuries-old statues, of which most of us pay no attention to when we pass them in a park, somehow send the wrong lessons, and must be removed, replaced with some other guy [or woman] with more worthy credentials.
In this era, advocates want the ‘racist,’ old-world statues summarily erased – they’re usually tributes to old white guys – and replaced with minority personages. This is the big deal these days. [Poor Christopher Columbus, an explorer who supposedly contributed to the white man’s conquest of South America, is threatened with extinction. It’s forgotten amidst the uproar that Mr. Columbus did indeed discover America, and that’s what he’s honored for in this country.]
Even Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, arguably the most prominent of the Founding Fathers, should be obliterated from history, according to the revisionists, jettisoned forever. Why? They owned slaves. As heinous as the institution of slavery was, in the late 18th century, many wealthy Americans owned slaves. History is history, I’m afraid: attempting to erase it is a fool’s errand, and not likely to succeed.
Isn’t this insane? It’s not difficult to figure out why this movement is occurring now: politicians are always trying to curry favor with potential voters; this issue is perfect for pandering and looking good to their urban constituencies. The actual historic validity of statue erasure is not a factor to be considered by a politician.
The hapless New York City mayor is a case in point: he [and his wife, I might add] swung a baseball bat to a hornet’s nest when she announced that a Central Park statue of an Italian saint—white -- would be taken down and replaced by a statue of a black luminary. All hell broke loose at that directive, and in just a few days, the mayor rescinded the action. Italian New Yorkers were outraged, and the statue remains.
The Mayor, indecisive as usual and not realizing beforehand that razing a statue of a revered Italian saint would set off a firestorm in the city, came off again as an ineffectual stooge; then he tries to mollify the situation by creating a task force to investigate the statue issue [Mr. Gripes hates task force initiatives: a task force is nothing but a cynical ruse to defuse a crisis with a delaying tactic, counting on a fickle citizenry to forget – but, thank God, we’ll actually never see this task force in action. It’s all BS.]
Mr. Gripes’ opinion? Politicians, please don’t touch a damn thing. Leave the statues in place: they’re history, so leave them alone so observers, if they’d like to, can contemplate their notoriety. Besides, as I said before, very few people really give a damn. Save the money for the subways.
Discerning readers of ‘Mr. Gripes’ may have noticed over the past couple of months a retreat from full-blown screeds against our previous president, perhaps signaling a more temperate approach to the misdeeds of Mr. Trump.
Why? I figure he’s doing very little, except for golf, at his residences in Florida and New Jersey, much removed from the public eye, so why bother with him. His lackeys are performing his shady work, and his golf rounds are focusing his attention away from his usual behavior of casting all-too-familiar aspersions toward friend or foe.
Please don’t misinterpret what I just posited though: Mr. Trump, whom Barack Obama in a recent interview called a ‘madman’, STILL believes he’s likely to be ‘reinstated’ as President as early as August, once a number of recounts negate some states’ certified 2020 results and the contested electoral votes move over to him. He’s counting on that.
He’s either nuts, or is continuing futile, feeble actions so that his diehards keep that gushing-cash spigot of campaign contributions flowing into his political action committee. [$250 million so far raised! And he can spend that money for virtually anything he wants.]
But his presence is certainly muted for the moment.
You know, after the post-election attempts to overturn results in a number of states, to swing the election over to Donald Trump, were unsuccessful in every instance, and after the fracas around the Capitol on January 6, and after all the hand-wringing about the fragile nature of our democracy died down a bit, Mr. Gripes for a moment felt confident enough that our republic had been rescued, albeit by the skin of our teeth.
And here’s where I give the Republicans a lot of credit. Instead of taking a breather, and simply rolling over and waiting until next year’s mid-term elections, which very likely may conclude with a Democratic defeat, the Republicans barreled ahead with the intent of leaving no doubt that they’ll win, by ‘rigging’ the 2022 elections so that they may return to power very soon.
They – the Republican strategists -- diagnosed the problems of the 2020 election absolutely correctly: their error in this past Presidential election was that Republicans, prior to the election, took the cue from Donald Trump that the election was going to be ‘fixed’, and then tried to overturn the election result too late.
That was their huge mistake: instead of going into court before the election, they made the grievous error of trying to deny the election results by suing to have vote counts thrown out after the election, when state and local certifications had already occurred – essentially a fait accompli, making the task of reversing the election vastly more difficult.
They’ve learned their lesson well: for 2022, Republican legislatures are changing election procedures and rules prior to the voting, by suppressing Democratic turnout, and maximizing the chances of Republican candidates. And they’ve followed exactly that road map in a few key states.
I’ll reiterate: as much as I find their electoral schemes reprehensible, Mr. Gripes offers grudging praise for the Republican efforts. The Democrats? I think they know they’re in deep, deep trouble. And, unless the Supreme Court gets involved in negating vote suppression legislation, which they will not do, the Republicans are in a great position to take control of Congress once again.
Quick Hits….
Joe Biden, to these eyes, looks considerably older now than before his January inauguration. Only an impression, but he appears a bit shakier and more vulnerable as well. Mentally, he seems fine, but it just looks like Mr. Biden may not have foreseen how grueling and burdensome the job is. Being President is an impossible job if you take it seriously, which Joe Biden certainly does, and the never-ending stress would humble anyone. Mr. Biden at times seems like four years of this is going to beat him up badly.
I am amused, though, how all his sharp-tongued opponents pounce on his presumed mental deficiencies —‘doddering’, ‘mumbling’, and ‘slobbering’ are favorite adjectives – months after, as readers recall, his detached-from-reality predecessor advocated – to a national audience of millions – that the kitchen cleaner Lysol, taken internally, could cure anyone of COVID! A diagnosis of that Trump blunder is not a task I’d like to take on, but let’s just say Mr. Biden is eons away from the innumerable mental gaffs and lapses that his predecessor voiced all the time.
But, back to Joe Biden, and his plans for 2024: My bet is that the President does not run again. The burdens of the office will take a huge toll physically, I think, over the next few years. Mr. Biden seems to be a reasonable, rational, realistic being; at some point he’ll examine what he may face with four more years, and simply declare, ‘Enough.’
Kamala Harris: A lightweight? Her six months as vice president, to this observer, have been very disappointing, to say the least. I expected a lot more, honestly. I certainly understand a President does not cede easily the spotlight to his vice president, but what has Ms. Harris accomplished that has made any positive difference at all? Her tenure so far has been a big nothing. In fact the one time she had a significant issue that caught the interest of Americans, she goes down to Central America to discuss the border imbroglio, and intones, ‘Don’t come’, to potential refugees. Uttering those two words was a terrible look – how about, instead, some kind words for these desperate souls? Yes, it’s true that immigrants are not welcome here right now [we have our own problems, after all] but, come on, Ms. Harris, instead of behaving and talking like a low-rent hack politician, couldn’t you have demonstrated at least a modicum of empathy and maturity?
Dumb Jocks, eh?...Today’s July 4th, so enough verbiage about the dreary events of the day, and let me end this column with a purely American tale. And a rags-to-riches one, to boot…..
Professional major league baseball was founded 150 years ago, with the creation of the National League, and the American League soon after. For almost 100 years after, the actual professional ballplayers were treated as if they were indentured servants, legally tethered to one team in perpetuity, with no flexibility whatsoever of moving to another team, and operating under miserable working conditions as well. The owners of the ball clubs, knowing that their players were basically without rights, took full advantage of them, demeaning them for a century.
Over that time, most of the baseball players acted as if they were Uncle Tom automatons, making no effort to band together and organize in solidarity. They accepted what their masters chose to dole out to them. What union they did form was completely ineffectual, probably doing more harm than good.[ Robin Roberts, head of the players union, used to joke, ‘The four or five union reps who showed up for meetings talked among themselves for about a half-hour and then we played cards for the rest of the night.’]
Eventually, and this is the inspirational bit, things began to change. The players hired a professional labor organizer who had worked for the steelworkers union, a tough bunch for sure.
Three or four years into his tenure, he called for a meeting of team union player representatives in Pittsburgh. The session took place in a hotel ballroom, with the reps seated and the organizer, with his aides, up on a stage, elaborating on the possibility of going out on strike. He droned on and on, as the bored players, heads down in the audience, half-listened to his explanations and exhortations.
The organizer, Marvin Miller, comes to the end of his talk, and announces, ‘We’re just not in position to go out at the moment, in terms of financial risk to the union and weak public support. We have to wait.’
At that instance, according to the account I read, every ballplayer’s head in the room jerked up, thinking, individually and collectively, the same, ‘F__k that, we’re going out. No more kissing their asses.’ That was the moment everything changed.
[Ballplayers, let’s emphasize, were and are quintessential alpha males – their DNA template means they have an extraordinary compulsion to win, or more to the point, not lose, at any cost: they’d compete against each other over everything – gin rummy, checkers, games of HORSE, women, golf, beer-chugging, ping-pong, you name it. And backing down from a fight for their rights against fat-ass owners was NOT going to happen this time.]
Three weeks later, the professional major league players union went out on strike, and games were cancelled for months. The players eventually won the battle against the owners, securing some rights and security, and never have looked back. Today, astonishing as it sounds, as the players continue to accrue even now bigger and better contracts and benefits, the baseball players union is presently considered the most successful labor-organizing movement in history. Amazing.
‘Mr. Gripes’
July 4 2021
By Jim Israel
