Tag: Trump

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

Down the Rabbit Hole

Earlier this week, a stripper asked on Twitter if people thought it was safe for her to go back to work. The general consensus was, “Sure, as long as you wear a mask and gloves.” There’s a visual for you. You’re welcome.

We seem to be finding new levels of absurdity every day. We’re living in a cartoonish bizarro world that none of us would have recognized — or could have predicted — four years ago. Events and actions that would have dominated the news cycle for weeks are big news one day and forgotten the next. The overload is taking a toll. COVID-19 is killing thousands of Americans, and instead of pulling together, we’re all fighting each other about how to deal with the situation. Everything is tribal.

On Fox News there is a constant stream of rhetoric urging Americans to not be afraid to take risks. “It’s time for all of us to get back to normal. We can’t live in fear,” they urge, hour after hour, show after show. Of course, all of the Fox hosts and guests are broadcasting from their homes, since, apparently, going back to work is mainly for the rest of us. Chin up, America, say the likes of Ingram, Hannity, and Carlson. Masks are for losers and libs! We’ll be here at home, rooting you brave folks (morons) on. Go get ’em, patriots!

Fox has been putting out poisonous blather, propaganda, and misinformation for years, but since President Trump came into office, they’ve taken it to new levels. It’s funny how having as president a shallow, name-calling, lying, tweeting narcissist with no coherent plan — for anything — will enhance that media strategy. We’re all in constant reactive mode to Trump’s pop-goes-the-weasel “management” style. Round and round the mulberry bush we go.

Case in point: On Monday, the president casually mentioned he was taking hydroxychloroquine, which has recently been found to be worthless for treating COVID. This got the news cycle spinning for, oh, a good six hours.

“Will this drug harm the president?” the pundits wondered, since it’s dangerous for folks with underlying conditions such as, well, age and obesity. Or, is it possible that the president was lying (gasp!) about taking the drug, perhaps to divert attention away from other matters — such as the continuing rise in the national death count from COVID, or perhaps the suspicious Friday night firing of the State Department’s inspector general?

So the dividing line for the media — and soon, the rest of us — became: Is the president lying about taking hydroxychloroquine or is the White House physician really letting his most important patient endanger his health by ingesting an ineffective, possibly dangerous drug? A statement released by the president’s doctor was evasive and inconclusive. The president’s press spokesperson would only confirm that “the president said he was taking it.” Duh. That we knew.

So who the hell knows anything anymore? When it comes to the hydroxychloroquine brouhaha, I’m going with “the president is lying” — which is almost always a safe bet.

State Department inspector general Steve Linick was fired Friday night. The initial story was that the IG was looking into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s use of U.S. Secret Service agents to run menial errands for him — picking up food and dry-cleaning and walking the family dog. The agents purportedly referred to themselves as “Uber with guns.”

When asked about the situation, Trump escalated his sensitive and nuanced campaign to win the women’s vote by saying: “I’d rather have [Pompeo] on the phone with some world leader than have him washing dishes because maybe his wife isn’t there.” Smooth.

But it turns out that the actual issue in question probably wasn’t Pompeo’s egregious use of his protection services to pick up the occasional KFC family bucket. The firing came just as Linick was near the completion of an investigation into Pompeo’s approval of a quiet little multibillion-dollar arms sale to Saudi Arabia that appeared to end run Congress, and the IG wanted to interview the secretary of state about it.

Oops. Sorry, pal. We can’t have any of that pesky oversight around this administration. Enjoy your retirement. Buh-bye.

Meanwhile, the president continued to push for an investigation of former President Obama for what Trump calls “Obamagate,” which he has been unable to define thus far. We do know it has something to do with twice-confessed felon Michael Flynn, whom Obama warned Trump not to hire because of his sketchy Russian connections. Trump immediately hired Flynn anyway. Now, Trump is saying Obama used Flynn to set him up? Whatever.

It’s all nuts — a cartoon world where strippers wear masks and gloves and Alice in Wonderland logic prevails — and we all appear to be headed down the rabbit hole.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Blue Skies From Now On

Tuesday morning. I’m sitting on the deck, coffee at hand, dogs lying at my feet, alert for squirrel intruders. The sky is as blue as sky is allowed to be. Not a cloud, not a contrail. The trees are fully leafed, green as the first green. Flowers are flushed with color, birds are singing — cardinals, Carolina wrens, white-throated sparrows. The air is clear and sparkling. Spring is … magnificent.

I can’t help but think the reduced number of vehicles roaring around the city and the relative absence of jet planes overhead has given us a glimpse of what the world could be if we cleaned up our act and learned something from the current madness. What if we took climate change seriously? What if we reduced pollution in substantive ways? Not by banning air travel or cars, but by reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. What if we learned to let more local goods and services be delivered to our door, instead of driving all over town for them? What if we gained some insight and perspective from this forced downtime we’re all living through?

I inhale deeply, grateful for the ability to do so, when so many are fighting to breathe — grateful I still have a job and a column to write. I say a quiet prayer for the sick and for those working to help them get better — and for those keeping our groceries stocked and our mail delivered and our city safe. I pray for the small businesses struggling to stay afloat. Including the one I work for.

The disease, this COVID-19, it seems far away on this gorgeous morning, but the numbers don’t lie: Around 45,000 people in this country have died; that’s nearly one-quarter of the deaths worldwide. The United States is ground zero, and much of the country hasn’t reached a peak or plateau of cases yet.

Still there is an understandable push to “reopen,” to get the economy back on track. On April 16th, President Trump laid out some guidelines for states to follow in order to restart their economies: “States should have seen a decline in COVID-19 cases for 14 days; reports of symptoms that might represent undiagnosed COVID-19 should have been in decline for the same period; and hospitals should have enough capacity to handle cases without operating in crisis mode and have a ‘robust testing program’ for health care workers.”

The president added that the guidelines “will allow governors to take a phased and deliberate approach to reopening their individual states. Governors will be empowered to tailor an approach that meets the diverse circumstances of their own states,” Trump said. “And some states will be able to open up sooner than others.”

Pretty sensible, actually. Good job, Mr. President.

But no. The very next morning, Trump tweeted out that residents of Virginia, Michigan, and Minnesota should “LIBERATE” themselves, and encouraged protests against those states’ governors.

What the hell? Why would the president lay out specific guidelines for states, then encourage people to protest against them the very next day? It’s almost like Trump wants to get people stirred up, like he wants Americans to fight with each other, like he wants chaos and divisiveness. Surely that can’t be true. That’s like something Putin would do.

Or maybe he’s just nuts.

However we got it, there’s plenty of chaos to go around. The stock market is roller-coastering, mostly down. Oil prices have sunk to negative levels. (In a classic “Gift of the Magi” situation, gasoline prices are at rock bottom, but we can’t drive anywhere.) And now, encouraged by the president, bands of protestors, many carrying assault weapons (because the ‘Rona is scared of guns, y’all), are marching and horn-honking and megaphoning — demanding their rights to go get a haircut and eat at Olive Garden and reopen the country — now!

And you and I, my friend, as Southerners, live in the heart of “reopen country.” In Georgia, Governor Brian Kemp has decreed that gyms, fitness centers, bowling alleys, beauty shops and salons, barbershops, body art studios, and more will be able to open this Friday, April 24th, despite that state’s still-surging infection rate.

In Mississippi, Governor Tate Reeves is lifting the stay-at-home decree and opening the state for business on April 27th. Reeves says he believes his state has hit a plateau. (I do not believe that word means what you think it means, Tater.)

And Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has announced that on May 1st, Tennessee businesses can begin to open up, with the exception of counties with their own health department, where the local officials will have jurisdiction. For those of us in Shelby County, that means our timetable for reopening will be controlled by our locally elected leaders. I’m cool with that.

But around the country and around our state, the human Darwinism that’s been ongoing for a few weeks will ramp up to a new level. Some businesses will open; some will open in a limited way; some will remain closed until their owners are convinced their employees and customers are entirely safe and comfortable being around others.

Some people will take the president at his word and LIBERATE themselves from wearing masks and social distancing (if they ever did either) and fearlessly go back to normal, the liberal hoax finally behind them. Others will keep an eye on the local case numbers, the rate of infections, the deaths — and the calendar — and will model their behavior accordingly.

Count me in the latter group.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

“Your Money or Your Life”

I’m writing this on Tuesday, the day Mayor Strickland’s “shelter in place” edict goes into effect. It’s the city’s latest step in trying to “flatten the curve” of the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

Shelter in place means, basically, that we all stay home, or at least avoid other people as much as possible. And if we encounter others, we should keep a six-foot distance. You can take walks or jog, you can work in your yard, you can pick up that guitar that’s been moldering in a case for four years. You name it, homeboy. And you can read this week’s cover story for all kinds of good ideas on how to pass the time creatively while ensconced in your domicile.

If you do have to go out to a store or to other public venues, it’s a good idea to wear a mask, at least it is according to the information I just got from physician and city councilman Jeff Warren. Warren asked me to tell Flyer readers that if you’re in a high-risk group (a senior or with underlying health issues), if you have a fever or “vague symptoms with an unclear cause,” or if you’ve been exposed to anyone with fever or symptoms, wear a mask of some sort when you go into a public space. Warren said even a bandana or scarf can help reduce exposure to others. So be advised. It sure can’t hurt.

Meanwhile, during his daily press conference — performance art? — on Monday evening, President Trump made it clear that he wanted to end public measures to curtail the spread of COVID-19 as soon as April 12th — Easter — in order to revive the tanking economy. This flies in the face of all legitimate medical thinking and all evidence from other countries who’ve been dealing with this disease.

But we shouldn’t be surprised, really. It’s just the latest version of the ongoing political sideshow called “science versus ideology.” This variation could also be called “your money or your life,” in which the GOP tries to come up with the ROI for the number of Americans we’re willing to sacrifice in order to fix the stock market. Republican governors in Mississippi, Texas, and Florida, to name three, have all declined to take any significant steps to reduce the public’s exposure. The GOP is betting your life (or your grandmother’s or your diabetic sister’s) on Trump’s belief that COVID-19 will magically disappear by Easter, despite overwhelming evidence from around the globe that it’s just getting started. Farewell, Dr. Fauci. We hardly knew ye.

On that note, I’ve got some updates from the control tower here at the Flyer. If you’re reading this in the print version, you’ll notice the paper is thinner than usual — 24 pages. That’s because the calendar and After Dark events and music listings are gone, as are the advertisers who support them — and us. There’s no getting around it — like most small businesses right now, the Flyer is taking a huge financial hit.

We are working to adjust a decades-old business model at breakneck speed. This week, because of the many closed businesses, community centers, libraries, etc., we printed a substantially smaller number of papers. We’re out there, but we’re harder to find. Like paper towels. In the interim, I suggest you join us at memphisflyer.com on a regular basis. We post and update numerous stories throughout the day. And every Wednesday we publish an ISSUU version of the print paper that replicates exactly what you see in print, including the ads (which you can click on).

As of this writing, we are still determining what makes sense going forward. Options include migrating to digital-only for a while, printing every other week, and/or continuing to print a lesser number of papers each week. We’ll keep you informed, regardless of what we decide.

Meanwhile, please consider clicking the Frequent Flyer link (Support Us) on our website and joining the hundreds of Memphians who support us with a modest monthly contribution, or who have chosen to make one-time contributions. We welcome whatever support you are able to provide. Also on our website, you can sign up for our newsletters. And please follow us on Twitter, IG, and Facebook. We want to stay in touch.

Finally, our thanks to everyone who has stepped up to support the Flyer financially in recent days. We’re humbled by and grateful for your generous response. We’ll do everything in our power to continue sharing news, information, and opinions with you — now and after we all emerge from these difficult times.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Trumped by Facebook

If Senator Elizabeth Warren wins the Democratic nomination, her prime opponent in the general election will not be President Trump. It will be Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

That’s because Zuckerberg refuses to halt even the most obvious lies from popping up in political ads on Facebook.

Juan Williams

“I think we are in the right place on this,” he told The Washington Post last week. “In general, in a democracy, I think that people should be able to hear for themselves what politicians are saying.”

That’s great news for the Russians and President Trump. The Russians continue to use social media, principally Facebook, to stir political division, racial division, and hatred, according to the FBI, the CIA, the Mueller Report, and the Senate Intelligence Committee. Meanwhile, Trump’s team is acting on its own to swamp Facebook with lies about former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter — and there are no consequences.

Facebook allowed a manipulated video of Speaker Nancy Pelosi to go viral, even though Pelosi pointed out that it was fake and asked for it to be taken down.

Now Warren is campaigning on a promise to break up big tech companies. They are so powerful and so wealthy that they are able to ignore questions about how they are enabling propaganda. By selling politicians the chance to twist the truth and deceive voters, Facebook profits at the expense of the public good.

Warren put it bluntly: Facebook is guilty of taking “money to promote lies. … A handful of monopolists” should not “dominate our economy and our democracy.”

Zuckerberg could largely solve this problem by simply refusing to accept political advertising. It is not a significant source of income for his company, which is worth upwards of $500 billion. Another solution is for Facebook to set its own rules to stop political lies and propaganda. That is what newspapers and cable television companies do.

In both cases, Zuckerberg refuses to act. He did nothing even after the documented abuse of Facebook was proven to be the No. 1 pathway for foreign interference in the 2016 election.

Zuckerberg claims he is protecting America’s free speech rights by allowing political spin, distortion, and mockery to flourish on Facebook. People can decide if a politician is telling the truth for themselves, he says. He says he is open to having the government put rules in place. That position allows him to use political paralysis in Washington as a smokescreen.

Warren has a quick, simple solution: Break up these reckless firms. As you can imagine, Zuckerberg opposes Warren’s plan.

“If she gets elected president, then I would bet that we will have a legal challenge, and I would bet that we will win the legal challenge. And does that still suck for us? Yeah,” Zuckerberg told his staff in audio leaked to the website The Verge. “But look, at the end of the day, if someone’s going to try to threaten something that existential, you go to the mat and you fight.”

In other words, Zuckerberg has no interest in Warren becoming president. Meanwhile, Trump and his campaign are betting big on the power of social media platforms like Facebook to carry the president to re-election. That explains the elevation of Brad Parscale, whose primary experience is as a digital media guru rather than in political organizing, to be campaign manager.

Thomas B. Edsall, writing in The New York Times, noted that Trump’s campaign has spent more than all three leading Democrats on social media. According to CNN, in the last week of September more than 1,800 ads ran on Trump’s Facebook page mentioning “impeachment.” Those ads wildly distorted reality to make Congress and Democrats into villains attacking a blameless president.

CNN reported: “The ads have been viewed between 16 and 18 million times on Facebook, and the campaign has spent between $600,000 and $2,000,000 on the effort.”

Just as the right-wing smear merchants put bogus stories about Uranium One into the 2016 election to damage Hillary Clinton, they are doing the same in 2020 with anti-Biden smears regarding Hunter Biden’s position with a Ukrainian gas company. If Facebook continues to allow their platform to be abused by propagandists, they will be giving Trump a giant advantage in the 2020 campaign.

Juan Williams is an author, and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Love It or Leave It: Again.

There’s this memorable lyric from Bob Dylan on his classic album Blonde on Blonde. Maybe I remember it so well because it came from his song, “Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again,” which was recorded in Nashville in 1966. It goes:

“And I sit here so patiently/

Waiting to find out what price/

You have to pay to get out of/

Going through all these things twice.”

I have lived through LBJ, George Wallace, Richard Nixon, and the Vietnam era. I’ve seen the golden idol with the feet of clay — Ronald Reagan — say that “Government is the problem,” which was arguably the beginning of all our problems. I’ve seen the hapless Poppy Bush, the lascivious Bill Clinton, and the war-mongering Dick Cheney with his malleable puppet, George Bush “The Lesser.” But never in my life would I have expected to relive this “love it or leave it” bullshit. I thought we’d put that jingoistic, racist rubbish to bed along with “go back where you came from.” But then, I also believed in the evolution of man, a theory sorely tested by the current squatter in the White House.

The old “love it or leave it” slogan was the conservative redneck’s response to the anti-war protesters of the late 1960s. The “go back where you came from” probably dates from the post-Reconstruction era and into the Jim Crow South, when cracker assholes forgot that black people were brought here as slaves and had no place from which to go back.

I have heard these remarks — aimed at African Americans, hippies, feminists, and others — dripping from ignorant cretins all my life. Those who proclaimed it or repeated it were on the wrong side of history then and are on the wrong side of history now. And it will be remembered long after this bulbous, bilious aberration of a human being has been driven from his hideous presidency.

This latest horror began, as per usual, with Trump’s barely literate Twitter feed. After being provoked by a segment on Fox & Friends about the four freshman Democrats known as the Squad, the Ignoramus in Chief went off on an angry and racist Twitter tirade. I’ll reprint it here, but to avoid writing sic after every word, the punctuation and misuse of capitalization are all Trump’s: “So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democratic Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe … now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States … how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”

The twits on the Fox & Friends couch laughed when they read the tweet and said that Trump is “very comedic” but he’s “making an important point.” Yeah, Trump’s a regular laugh-riot. He has since learned, or maybe not, that the congresswomen in question were all born in the United States except for Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who came to this country from war-ravaged Somalia and became a naturalized citizen at age 17. The common denominator is that these are four women of color and two are Muslims, an accelerant to Trump’s racist ideology. I agree with President Caligula on one point: They need to fix the totally broken and crime-infested places, which perfectly describes Trump’s White House, his corrupt cabinet, and his extended family of shameless grifters.

The “love it or leave it” idiocy emerged during one of Trump’s Nazi rallies in Greenville, North Carolina. Broadening his message to include anyone who disagrees with him, Trump echoed Richard Nixon, and after he verbally assaulted Representative Omar by name, the crowd of “Good Germans” went wild, breaking into a chant of “Send her back!” After hearing from some of his party members, who informed him that this mantra wasn’t quite as acceptable as “Lock her up,” Trump disavowed the chant, then changed directions, calling his enraged, aggrieved audience of red-hat-wearing Caucasians “great patriots.”

Even some members of the misnamed “Freedom Caucus” thought he went too far. Now that Trump’s annoying repetition of “No Collusion! No Obstruction!” has been disproven by the halting, monosyllabic testimony of Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the bottomless well of prideful stupidity that occupies the Oval Office has ramped up his free-range racism to stoke the animosity and fear of his fellow travelers. Trump’s latest target for his vile abuse is another African-American congressman, Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland. 

After Cummings’ criticism of the inhumane treatment of immigrants at the border, Trump lashed out on another Twitter bender. Again, the bad grammar is Trump’s: “Rep. Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting & screaming … about conditions at the Southern Border…The Border is clean, efficient and well run … Cumming [sic] District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess … No human would ever want to live there.” Followed by: “The Democrats always play the Race Card, when … they have done so little for our Nation’s great African American people.”

Then Trump called Cummings, the son of a South Carolina sharecropper, “a racist.” A psychologist would refer to this sort of noxious ranting as “projection.” 

The Baltimore Sun editorial board responded in an editorial titled “Better to have a few rats than to be one.” It referred to Trump’s tweets as “undiluted racism and hate.” If there were any question before, there’s no doubt now that a very sick man is running the government, along with his lapdog “Moscow” Mitch McConnell and his legion of ass-kissers. Robert Mueller claimed the Office of Legal Council’s (OLC) opinion forbade him from indicting a sitting president. But the OLC’s opinions are just suggestions. As stated in their 1973 decision, the OLC reserves the right to “reconsider and modify or disavow that determination.” These are very perilous times. If no man is supposed to be above the law in this land, it’s time to disavow that archaic decision and show the proper justice to Trump that he so richly deserves.

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

It’s Not Easy Being Green

Have you heard about that crazy Green New Deal? Yeah, the socialists are gonna ban hamburgers and air travel, and we’ll all be forced to use wind power for our homes! How nuts is that? When the wind stops blowing, you won’t even be able to watch television. Har har. How dumb do these liberal idiots think we are? Global warming? Har. We could use some of that right about now. It’s colder’n hell out there.

Just wanted to get that out of the way. Sorry. The lunacy passing for policy debate these days has reached depths of stupidity unimaginable just a few years ago. And President Trump’s unhinged two-hour dark-comedy routine at CPAC last Saturday just amplified it to the next level. It’s difficult to have an intelligent discussion about the environment — or anything, really — when one side of the “debate” has decided the best way forward is uninformed, knuckle-dragging ridicule.

Coal ash ponds near TVA’s Allen Fossil power plant

But the environment isn’t a laughing matter. The Green New Deal probably over-reaches, but it’s a starting point for policy discussion, not an edict to be enforced by socialist overlords. It doesn’t ban hamburgers or air travel, no matter what the president says. And wind turbines are used all over the country, generating electricity that will last throughout even the longest Netflix binge. Oh, and solar power works, too, even when it’s cloudy, or dark, like at night.

The environment and this country’s energy policy deserve serious attention and a real back-and-forth over the best ways to move — however gradually — from a mostly fossil fuel-based economy to one that will sustain the nation and the planet in the coming decades. But, as with almost every issue these days, foreign or domestic, political maneuvering and ignorant posturing seems to have subsumed the possibility of any substantive interchange of ideas.

If you need evidence that the environment needs attention, you have only to look to the TVA Allen Fossil power plant just south of Downtown, where we’ve got our own “green” issues to deal with. Thanks to some good reporting by Micaela Watts in The Commercial Appeal this week, we learned that the Memphis Sand Aquifer — the source of Memphis’ lauded drinking water — is in some peril. It is sitting beneath a coal ash landfill that contains ponds contaminated with 350 times the level of arsenic considered safe.

Though TVA closed its coal plant in 2018, replacing it with a more environmentally friendly gas-fired plant, tons of poisonous residue from decades of coal-burning remain at the site, separated from our aquifer by a thin layer of clay. But here’s the bad news: TVA reported this week that there is no clay barrier near the coal ash pond.

This would be a good time to point out the debt of gratitude all the residents of Memphis owe to a group of citizen activists who formed the group Protect Our Aquifer in 2016. They, along with the local chapter of the Sierra Club, have been relentless in their battle to keep TVA from doing what big corporations like to do: Find the cheapest way to do things, no matter the environmental consequences.

All those blue yard signs around town showed that people cared and were involved. The payoff was a big one. First, TVA was persuaded to back off its plans to drill new wells into the aquifer — near the site of the coal ash dump — in order to tap our water to cool its new gas-fired plant. The group was then influential in getting the county commission to re-examine and strengthen its permitting process for digging wells in the county.

That’s often what happens when a real debate is enjoined, when citizens stand up and make noise, and when issues get addressed and discussed in an adult, rational way by governmental bodies. Washington could learn something from what occurred here in Memphis.

Meanwhile, the somewhat good news is that TVA is assuring the public that it is quickly moving to address the problem and bring the coal ash site into alignment with federal guidelines — presuming the Trump administration won’t further weaken those guidelines in coming months in order to appease one of its corporate overlords.

We can only hope they’ll be distracted by trying to save our hamburgers.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Corker as Change Agent

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

As has been the case more often than not, Tennessee possesses political figures of great potential to influence national policy. A case in point is the state’s junior U.S. Senator, Bob Corker, who holds the pivotal position of chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Like many of his Senatorial colleagues, Corker often includes in his prepared remarks veritable rabbit-warrens of ambivalence that, in ordinary discourse, happily, he can discard in favor of plain talk.

A case of that occurred last week when the Senator was in Tennessee in the aftermath of President Trump‘s awkward rhetorical attempts to suggest a moral equivalence in the clash between white nationalists and counter-protestors in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In Knoxville on Wednesday, faced with a battery of reporters, Corker was asked about the president’s remarks and promptly began to equivocate.

He and the president had a “healthy relationship,” Corker said. “Each of us has our own style. We go about things in a different way.”

Pressed a little harder, he said, “I did not see them [Trump’s comments]. I don’t see a lot of television, I apologize … Look, I respond in my own way. My comments are the ones I focus on, and I think the media does a plenty good job and has plenty of panelists on and others giving editorial comment about other peoples’ comments and mine.”

Pressed still further later on, the senator said, “Look, I let the president’s comments speak for themselves. There are plenty of people who editorialize about those. I’m responsible for my comments and how I feel, and people editorialize about those, too … I mean I don’t know what ginned up the event in Charlottesville except that there was a lot of hate on display there. Again, certainly it needs to end.”

A final query came from a reporter in Knoxville who was still unsatisfied and asked Corker if it wasn’t time to take a stand rather than “walking in the middle of the line trying to make everybody happy.”

The senator’s response? “I just think everybody has to speak on these issues the way they feel best.”

Then came Thursday and another Q and A with reporters after Corker’s speech to the Rotary Club of home-town Chattanooga. Similar questions came the senator’s way, and he answered in slow, measured sentences that sounded less cautious than the product of serious overnight deliberation.

“I do think there needs to be some radical changes. The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability or the competence he needs to demonstrate. … He has not demonstrated that he understands what has made this nation great. … Without the things I just mentioned happening, the nation is going to go through great peril. … We should hope … that he does some self-reflection, does what is necessary to demonstrate some stability, to demonstrate some competence, to demonstrate that he understands the character of our nation. …”

Corker went on: “We’re at the point where there have to be radical changes at the White House itself. It has to happen. I think the president needs to take stock of the role he plays in our nation and move beyond himself.

“We need to speak to what’s good in our nation. Neo-Nazi groups, KKK groups … are not what’s good in our nation. I don’t think that the president has appropriately spoken to the nation on this issue, and sometimes he gets in a situation where he doubles down to try to make a wrong a right. I think he’s done that in this case. I would ask that he take stock of who he is as president of all the people in our nation.”

The world promptly took notice, with CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post in the van and all weighing in yuuge! History may demonstrate that it was Corker’s studied afterthought that stirred the pendulum of change into motion. Or not.

Just as history may yet demonstrate that it was the senator from Tennessee who, at some point in his tenure as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (or as ranking member if the Democrats are to take over the Senate after 2018) played a fundamental role in resolving the seemingly unending Afghanistan quagmire.

The senator issued a statement in a press release following Trump’s televised Monday night address in which the president vowed to keep on keeping on in Afghanistan.

Corker’s statement was as follows:

“I had the opportunity to talk with Secretary Tillerson in advance of this evening’s address, and while I look forward to receiving additional details, I support the direction President Trump laid out tonight for the U.S. role in Afghanistan.

“While there are certainly substantial questions about whether Afghanistan has the capacity over time to provide stable governance to its people, this more focused plan provides the U.S. military with the flexibility it needs to help the Afghan military regain momentum. It also utilizes a conditions-based approach for our military, which should lead to better diplomatic outcomes and ensures engagement with regional partners, especially Pakistan and India, giving us a better opportunity for success.”

I could not help but contrast that seemingly acquiescent statement with Senator Corker’s extended and thoughtful response on the Afghanistan — and Pakistan — matter when I talked with him about it in Washington in 2011. Here is a relevant portion of those remarks:

“I think we’ve known for a long time that Pakistan plays both sides. They’ve been able to get aid from America by being a bad actor. It’s a leverage they use. I just left a Foreign Relations Committee meeting where I talked about this. Whether they’re in cahoots or incompetent, this has been an embarrassment for their country, and it provides a relationship-changing opportunity.

“The fact is, if you travel through Afghanistan, as I’ve done many times, and you talk to our military leaders, they’re unbelievably frustrated, because they’re fighting a war in a country where our enemies are not. And on the other hand we’re providing aid to a country where our enemies are. To me, and this is what I really pressed hard in this last hearing on, this is where our focus needs to be.

“[Pakistan is] where all the Al Qaeda and Taliban leadership [is], their accounting network, they’re all there. … So to me this creates an opportunity for us to bear down on ridding that country of the enemies that we’re fighting in Afghanistan but happen to reside in Pakistan.

“I’ve been very skeptical about the efforts there for some time. … [O]ur men and women in uniform, I hold them in highest esteem in carrying out their mission, but much of what they’re fighting [in Afghanistan] is just criminality. … So much of what our soldiers are fighting there is criminality. Again, the head of the monster, if you will, exists in Pakistan. …”

Nothing said Monday night by Trump or by any of the many respondents to the president’s address, including Corker himself, equals the wisdom of perceptiveness of that 2011 analysis, and there is no reason to believe the senator’s views have changed appreciably.

Meanwhile, here is a fresh view of the matter from another Tennessean, 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen:

“… After 16 years of war, we have not made great progress because there have been issues of corruption in the Afghan government and the Afghan people are ambivalent toward their government and toward the eventual outcome of the war. … My thoughts are with the soldiers who were watching tonight’s speech and their fellow soldiers, some of whom will sacrifice their lives in what is a war without a likelihood of success. God bless our American troops.”

Rep. Cohen’s view is entirely consistent with what Senator Corker said lo, those six years ago, and may yet, in some way or another, have the opportunity to say again. Perhaps, it is often rumored, as a presidential candidate himself.

Categories
Art Exhibit M

Make Art Great Again

I hate Trump. We are less than a month into his presidency and I think I am going to have a heart attack at how enraged I get just listening to his voice. The press conference this week just about sent me to Regional One. My social media timelines can be summed up with three words, “What the fuck?” The art world is responding. The scene in Memphis is no exception.

Toni Roberts

Melissa Farris

At the beginning of February, Marshall Arts was host to an exhibition that I organized of protest signs that were used in Women’s Marches around the country. Through the weekend, the exhibition “Nasty Women,” is on view. Nasty Women is an exhibition curated locally by Chelle Ellis and Danielle Sumler as a response to the Trump presidency, “because sitting around and bitching was never an option for us,” according to Ellis. Some of the proceeds from sales of this politically charged exhibition are going to Planned Parenthood, over $1,700 thus far, another $600 coming just from a donation/tip jar collected at the opening reception. The work can be seen at the gallery Friday and Saturday, 6-9 pm and Sunday, 9 am-1 pm, and by visiting nastywomenmemphis.com. There will be a Q&A with the curators and artists during opening hours Saturday.

On view at the Orange Mound Gallery is “The Black Experience, a Rebirth of Black History Month.” The exhibition examines the notion that “although we’ve had a black president for 8 years…we still don’t celebrate Black History Month beyond the use of predictable image and icons.” The exhibition is to celebrate African American history old and new. The show includes the work of well-known Memphis artists Jamond Bullock, Lurlynn Franklin, Lawrence Matthews, Lester Merriweather, Carl Moore, et al. Started by Linda Steele, OMG is located in the Lamar Airways shopping strip, and has been the host of several important community events recently. They are currently only open by appointment, so be sure to follow their schedule of events.

Black Experience

Black Experience

Since I returned from Baltimore seven months ago, there has been no exhibition potentially more important than the Fidencio Fifield-Perez installation at the Memphis College of Art. An undocumented immigrant, his work is strong and impactful. He is an alum of MCA and returns for a lecture March 2nd at the very exact time of 12:15pm. The opening is scheduled for March 3rd, 6-8pm. He was profiled recently in the NY Times as part of the American Dreamers series, stories from young immigrants who were spared from deportations and permitted to work during the Obama administration. Do not miss this exhibition. It is currently on view now until April 18th.

One of the many disastrous things Trumps plans to do as our illegitimate president is to defund the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for Humanities (NEH). On Monday, February 20, 4-6 p.m., ArtsMemphis is combatting these threats with hosting a postcard writing event at Memphis Made Brewery, that includes beer!! The Art Center has donated supplies to create the postcards and ArtsMemphis will provide all necessary information needed to write the cards.

Image Credits:

Black Experience courtesy of Carl Moore.

Toni Roberts and Melissa Farris courtesy of Dwayne Butcher

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Tennessee Democrat and Republican Parties Both Facing Change

CREDIT: Nancy Chase

Even as the nation’s two major political parties, on the eve of their quadrennial confrontation, each struggle on a national scale with the task of redefinition, so do the same two parties in Tennessee.

In the nation at large, Democrats are still (technically) in the act of choosing between two would-be exemplars — one, Hillary Clinton, a seasoned and well-known figure touting the values of diversity and equal opportunity; the other, Bernie Sanders, a self-defined Democratic socialist focusing on the need for a “political revolution” to moderate the economic inequalities of a system rigged to benefit the wealthy.

Here and there, the differences between those two candidates (who, it should be said, have much in common) is seen clearly. In that sense, the Democrats are lucky. The Republicans have, in the course of primary races that were both numerous and confusing, found their choice ready-made — in Donald J. Trump, a wildly successful Manhattan real estate billionaire and a man whose views and attitudes toward most policy matters are, for better or for worse, vague and ever-fluctuating, clearly subordinate to the dictates of an undeniably unique personality.

The two state parties have, both within the last week, just concluded their annual banquets in Tennessee, events which are meant to define them to their respective constituencies. Paradoxically, each of the Tennessee parties veered in a rhetorical direction counter to that of the national parties they represent.

The Democrats held their annual Jackson Day Dinner in Nashville, Saturday before last, and their keynoter, the well-known consultant James Carville, made no mystery about who was likely to emerge from the ongoing Clinton-Sanders contest.

Nancy Chase

Carville at Nashville

Recounting for the party faithful at the state capital’s impressive new Music City Center a public encounter he had just had with a GOP opposite number of sorts, Karl Rove, Carville related how he teased Rove with the statement, “I believe the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party has the experience, the temperament, and the judgment to be president of the United States from Day One” (clearly a description of former First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State Clinton) and followed that up with a challenge: “Karl, tell us about the Republican nominee.” In Carville’s telling, anyhow, Rove could not respond in kind, but merely sputtered out the familiar attack phrases which Republicans habitually aim at candidate Clinton — FBI investigation, emails, Benghazi, etc.

The Republicans had gotten themselves “stuck” with Trump, a political anomaly, as a direct consequence of their having misled their basic constituency for a generation, Carville said, mentioning such notions as that President Obama was born in Kenya, that the planet Earth dated back only 5,000 years, that there was no such thing as global warming, that there had been weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and that giving millionaires tax cuts would balance the budget.

“When people rise up and start believing all this nuttiness, why are you surprised? Let them believe whatever they want to. And anything Trump says, they believe it because they’ve been conditioned to believe it.”

Carville proclaimed that “our diversity is our strength.” He expressed pride that “my party nominated the first African-American candidate for president and will nominate the first woman.” He followed that with another dig at the GOP: “And no, you don’t get credit for Sarah Palin. Sorry.”

Carville’s de facto celebration of Clinton, his party’s still unchosen but likely nominee, contrasted with the Tennessee Republicans’ mum’s-the-word approach, at their annual Statesman’s Dinner at the selfsame Music City Center, this past Friday, toward Trump, a candidate whose nomination is virtually signed, sealed, and delivered already.  

Tellingly, in view of Carville’s apotheosis of Clinton, the Republicans’ choice of a keynoter was another woman, Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina, an unmistakably conservative office-holder but one who, in her own way, as the daughter of Indian immigrants, also stands for diversity, and who, in the past year, has made headlines by a) removing the Confederate flag from its former place of honor at her state Capitol building, and b) refusing, so far, to endorse Trump.

And, though he was the elephant in that room as in the nation’s media, Trump was roundly ignored in the evening’s rhetoric. The late U.S. Senator Fred Thompson was honored with due praise, as were the two living GOP Senators, Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker, as was Governor Bill Haslam and the retiring Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey, and as were numerous exemplars of the party’s legislative super-majority and command of the state’s congressional delegation.

Though he surely had support here and there in the room, Trump remained at best an X factor, an unknown on the other side of whom, chronologically, were such future-tense bench hopes as Haley.

Though she did not refer to the fact, keynoter Haley was the avowed target, outside the arena, of protesters, garbed in Confederate gray and waving rebel battle flags to demonstrate their outrage at her apostasy. The Republican brass inside surely had to be pleased by this semiotic hint that — on this matter, anyhow — they were on the right side of history.

Whatever its fate in the nation at large (“We’re looking at a 162-year-old political party literally cracking up right in front of us,” Carville said), the GOP seems destined to remain the ruling force in Tennessee for some time to come, though the Democrats had scored a coup of sorts by giving one of their major honors, the Anne Dallas Dudley Political Courage Award, to a couple who had distinguished themselves by fighting hard on behalf of Insure Tennessee, a Medicaid expansion plan proposed by Republican Governor Haslam but so far rejected by his party mates in the General Assembly.

For all their different directions — the Tennessee GOP still hewing to its historic distrust of social programs and ameliorist government in general, their Democratic counterparts continuing to see themselves as tribunes of the powerless — there are points of contact in the political middle. If the GOP members of the Tennessee General Assembly should, post-presidential-election, see fit finally to humor Haslam on the health-care matter, it will be through the medium of a task force appointed by Republican House Speaker Beth Harwell, whose power moves will doubtless fill some of the vacuum left by Ramsey’s departure.

Harwell, who is rumored to have gubernatorial ambitions, may, in fact, become the face of the Tennessee Republican Party in much the way that Tennessee Democratic Party chair Mary Mancini (whose GOP opposite number is Ryan Haynes, a male genotype) has become that of her party.

The Tennessee GOP boasts a fair number of women in office, although, truth is, it is miles behind the Tennessee Democratic Party in forms of diversity having to do with race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Still, there is a political middle, and, with any luck at all, it may get filled up at some point in the respective reconstructions just now beginning to occur in the two major political parties. 

There are signs of changes in both, locally as well as nationally. The GOP’s dominant business-minded faction is under challenge from the very uprooted populists it has seduced away from the Democrats, while the Clinton/Sanders yin-yang will play out for years — a difficult wrangle but, in the end, a necessary one.

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

What They Said…

CREDIT: Greg Cravens

Greg Cravens

About the Flyer editorial, “Tubman vs. Jackson: The Change Will Do Us Good” …

You could probably start a good business by withdrawing a load of the current $20 bills that you plan to turn around and sell for $25 a pop to the rednecks and racists of the world that don’t want to spend Tubman $20 bills.

GroveReb84

I dunno, my confederate dollars have gotten pretty dusty. But it’s worth a try.

Nick R.

I hope they use the photo of her smiling.

Smitty1961

About Toby Sells’ story, “Council Readies for Greensward Mediation Deadline” …

Life isn’t going back to normal for the Memphis Zoo after this. They have really pissed off people enough this time that they are going to have to actually solve the problem. Because, regardless of what the council does, there are people who are going to go after the zoo with legal action and boycotts of their donors. This isn’t going to get better if the council fails to do its job. It will get worse.

OakTree

About Sam Cicci’s story “Goal!” …

It’s a pity that no one remembers the very successful Memphis-based soccer teams: Memphis Express and Memphis Mercury. Both teams won their divisions, both played in the very competive PDL leagues, and both drew very large crowds when they played at Mike Rose Soccer Complex.

The Memphis City FC owners didn’t bother to consult with any of those former players, coaches and owners … some of whom still live here in Memphis. Food for thought!

Mark Franklin

About Jackson Baker’s story, “Can a Wild Card Trump the Opposition?” …

I was surprised to read Terry Roland’s claim that Steve Mulroy voted in 2011 to support the CCHC contract because Roland “called his priest,” who “came down in smoke” on the issue. This is not accurate.  Neither Commissioner Roland, nor anyone acting on his behalf, ever called me about that or any other issue. Steve made his decision independent of any pressure from me. And, as anyone who knows me can tell you, “coming down in smoke” is not my style. 

Fr. Jim Martell, Holy Rosary Catholic Church

About Old Navy’s ad …

I read where an ad run by Old Navy which featured an interracial family caused the company to see an explosion of racist trolls in their Twitter mentions. Old Navy was accused of promoting miscegenation, of ramming interracial marriages down people’s throats, of running a disgusting ad, and so forth. There was also calls for a boycott of Old Navy stores.

I cannot understand the hate of people who would condemn an ad that shows that love knows no color. Racism is clearly not dead, but I pray that the racists who made their hate-filled comments about a beautiful ad are from a group of citizens that is shrinking and that will one day disappear.

I will be shopping at Old Navy soon.

Philip Williams

Time for “Madam President?” …

America has had over 200 years of “Mr. President.” Isn’t it about time for “Madam President,” seeing that the population of America is 50 percent female? Let’s put biases and partisanship aside and look at what the country needs. 

First, Hillary Clinton is simply a better choice for president than Donald Trump. Clinton has experience and leadership skills developed over her years in federal and state positions. Making Trump president of the United States of America would be the same as giving him a powerful race car and saying he is competent to drive in a NASCAR contest.

This is not the time for divisive politics-as-usual; the economy is thriving, and returning to Republican supply-side economics would put a serious damper on the next four years. Not to mention, Trump would be leading the same gridlock-driven GOP legislators that have caused such havoc for the past seven years.

Chip Green