Tag Archives: Ron DeSantis

Point of View Columns

The Wolf Who Cried Boy and Other Fables

Since the earliest humans gathered around the fire at night, fearing the famished saber-toothed tiger or the just clumsy mastodon, stories were told to distract from the darkness and things that were going bump in the night. Those stores have evolved into fables, fairy tales, legends and fantasy. And even in this age we find ourselves occasionally enthralled by stories, which may explain the fantasies that are woven into the daily news reports. Consider just a few:

The Wolf Who Cried Boy

There are times when the puerile nature of Donald Trump appears in its absolute self. Trump is like the mischievous little boy who discovers that if he blows his toy trumpet in a stable full of horses, the horses lose their equine minds and the horse trainers and stable hands have their hands full making sure that these very valuable animals don’t injure themselves while trying to stomp that stable to splinters.

Like that mischievous little boy, Trump discovered that if he used words like “Take Your Country Back” or “You’re Not Going to Have a Country” over and over to his adoring MAGA minions, said minions would actually try to take back the country (that has been nefariously taken from them) by storming the Capitol as the Electoral College votes was about to begin and doing a pretty good imitation of an angry lynch mob intent on killing the Vice President of the United States and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Fast forward two years later and Trump has now discovered that in all of his years of ducking and dodging and bobbing and weaving (with a spin move or two from time to time) with the American legal system, he is learning that Truth or Consequences is a real thing.

And for the first time in his chicanery-spattered life Trump is very close to having to address the consequences of some his many misdeeds that can result in public shaming, very real financial pain and even the possibility (however remote) of his wearing an orange jumpsuit (courtesy of the federal government, or the State of New York or the State of Georgia) to kind of match his signature orange hued hair.

And it appears that he is going back to his 1.6.21. play book and put out the siren call to his still adoring MAGA minions. He seems to believe by chanting the magic words “Take Your Country Back” and/or “You’re Not Going to Have a Country” his minions will once again charge the capitals of the Deep State and rescue him from the clutches of the unclean and unjust.

Except that this time the MAGA response seems to be lukewarm at best. There have been some well-armed demonstration ballets in front to government buildings but the heat of the rhetoric would live a Trump Burger medium rare on his rhetorical grill.

And it may be that Trump is turning into the Wolf Who Cried – and only a Boy answered.

DeSantis in MAGA Land

In tip toeing around the presidential race starting line, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis seems to have fallen down the MAGA rabbit hole and found himself in a world that is absolutely illogical and beyond any hope of comprehension. And as reprehensible a character as DeSantis is, it is hard to watch him negotiate the in MAGA Land no sense makes sense, and if he wants to become the Republican nominee for president, then he will have to learn to walk the walk in MAGA Land.

So, he tries to go for the Trump Deflect Move by criticizing New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg for not going after “rising crime” in New York (it is not) instead of persecuting St. Donald of Trump for minor “personal mistakes”.

Deciding to dance on the ice floes like Liza in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, DeSantis claims that the war between Ukraine and Russia is a “territorial dispute”, presumably just like the “territorial disputes” between Germany and Poland in 1939 and the “territorial dispute” between Germany and France in 1940 or the “territorial disputes” between the United States and the indigenous peoples of North America all through the 19th century.

Clearly DeSantis has some work to do before he can be an adept in MAGA Land.

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Point of View Columns

Exactly What is the Number?

If you live in the United States and care remotely what may happen to you or your family and friends, if you care about any or all of your fellow human being who live in this country, then you should be very concerned that, as of the end of February 2023 thousands American men, women and children were killed by gunfire.

Consider that the United States has the highest rate of death by gunfire of any country in the world except for Yemen – which just happens to be in the middle of a civil war. A half-way rational explanation might be that the United States is in the midst of an undeclared civil war except the only ideology that is seemingly worth dying for is the sanctity of owning a gun. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Despite the deluge of bloodshed that affects every city and every state in the nation, there remain an extremely powerful cohorts of adherents that gun ownership is a God given right embedded in the Constitution. And while no one should presume exclusive knowledge as to the will of God, literally nowhere can the absolute right to unlimited gun ownership be found in the Constitution.

This is the Second Amendment exactly as it was written and ratified in 1791:

A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

One need not be a devoted student of history to understand that the militia were the first and last line of defense of the colonies prior to and during the revolution (as well as the first line of offense in decimating the indigenous population) and there were concerns that the new national government might accumulate too much power. Hence the militia were considered to be a bulwark against overreach by the national government. And, by the way, the National Guard in each state is the institutional descendant of the militias.

And, by the way, you can read the Second Amendment backwards and forwards and it simply does not refer to gun ownership as an individual right – like free speech, or freedom from self-incrimination. But the gun ownership will never let facts, even facts set forth in the Constitution itself, get in the way.

Nevertheless, one has to believe that there is a limit to the carnage that can be considered acceptable. Obviously, we have not reached that number yet. Last year 20,138 Americans were killed by guns (suicides were not included). Consider the fact that 20,138 dead mothers, babies, elderly citizens, teenagers, neighbors and strangers was not enough to move the defenders of so-called gun rights.

Consider the fact that in 2022 20 little children were literally shot to little pieces by yet another madman with a gun. In any sane country, there would be a real call to action.

We need look no further than New Zealand when another madman with an automatic rifle killed fifty men, women and children in two mosques. Within weeks there was not only a ban on the sale of automatic weapons, there was also a ban on the ownership of such weapons. Last year there were 48 gun-related deaths in New Zealand. Even considering the difference in population, there is no way that 20,138 American deaths can be deemed acceptable.

It is clear that 20,138 dead Americans in one year is not the number that can serve as the basis for change of American gun laws. It is also clear that thousands dead women, children and men are not enough dead Americans to serve as the motivation for change.

The question is, what is the number?

Perhaps we should ask Florida governor Ron DeSantis – so far 2,724 Floridians have died in his state. This number is not enough for him to break of his romance with the gun lobby? Governor DeSantis, what is the number? What is the number of dead Floridians that would be too much for you?

Would you feel differently if a member of your family was in that number? Or would that be a sacrifice that you would be willing to make on the altar of the Second Amendment.

Perhaps we should ask Texas governor Greg Abbott – so far this year 3,513 Texas children, women and men have died from gunfire. The state is on the way to having almost 40,000 dead Texans before the end of the year. This is a number close to the entire American military death toll during the Vietnam War. Governor Abbott, what is the number?

What is the number of dead Texans that would get you to turn your back on the gun lobby and begin to actually protect the men, women and children that you have so far falsely sworn to protect?

And again, if one of those dead Texans had the last name Abbott would that make a difference. Or are you comfortable being a member of the clergy of The Church of the National Rifle Association?

And to all those adherents to some mystical and unlimited right to own guns, are you prepared to answer the question, what is the number?

If their answer if that there is no number of dead Americans that should warrant limitations on gun ownership, we begin to understand that the gun lobby and their adherents have entered into a murder-suicide pact with the American people.

And if that is truly the case, then the worst of times are yet to come.

And we should all be afraid.

Very afraid.

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Point of View Columns

Lies at the Foot of the Statue of Liberty

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The next time that Ron DeSantis or Greg Abbott or Marjorie Taylor Greene take an Anti-Immigrant Demagogue Holiday in New York, they might want to take a ferry ride to the Statue of Liberty and read the plaque at the base of the statue. While someone might have to help them with some of the words with which they are unfamiliar like “poor”, “wretched”, and “homeless”, one would have to wonder if the full meaning of the Statue of Liberty would seep into their consciousness.

If they took the time to think about it (“thinking” being a herculean effort for these three) they might realize that when it the statue was assembled and unveiled on October 28, 1886, New York City had already been the point of arrival for millions of immigrants from all over the world for over two hundred years. And while there has always been an anti-immigrant virus in the American bloodstream, the sheer number of immigrants who have become Americans should have eliminated that virus from the American bloodstream.

This Less Than Tremendous Trio might have given some thought to the fact that the only non-immigrant descendants in the United States are what’s left of the descendants of the indigenous peoples of North America, indigenous peoples who were the victims of calculated racial and cultural genocide until they were almost extinct – like the buffalo and the passenger pigeon.

It is clear that when Greene and Abbott and DeSantis are talking about stopping the flow of immigrants to this country they are not particularly concerned about the negative economic impact of immigration. Indeed, in states like Florida and Georgia and Texas, the homes of DeSantis, Greene and Abbott the agricultural sectors rely heavily on immigrant labor. Indeed, the history of the American economy reflects a hug reliance on immigrant labor – whether voluntary, enslaved or involuntary (e.g. the Chinese labor on the transcontinental railroad construction).

And while anti-immigration advocates don’t seem to have a problem with Ukrainian men, women and children coming to the United States by the thousands, there is a problem with Haitian, Venezuelan and Mexican men, women and children. Clearly the concern is not American sovereignty – many immigrants become citizens who are fulling committed to the American Way. Clearly the problem is not that immigrants will somehow drain this country of various public service resources – immigrants give as good as they get.

So, what exactly is the problem? Clearly blond and blue-eyed Ukrainians are welcomed with open arms provided with housing, healthcare and employment. Dark skinned Haitians are beaten with batons and trampled with horses at the U.S.-Mexican border, given one hundred dollars and flown back to the hellhole that is now Haiti – a hellhole for which America carries a heavy historical burden of culpability.

It would appear that the issue is about race – which is the case in America since before the United States even existed. And it can be no coincidence that the opponents of non-white immigration are also against reparations for the descendants of Black enslaved people, and they are also against the teaching of racial truths in American schools, colleges and universities.

Donald Trump was on to something when he revived Ronald Reagan’s Make America Great Again slogan (without attribution – but what else could we expect from a true grifter like Trump). The MAGA chant was not meant for Black Americans or Latinos or Asian Americans or the descendants of the indigenous peoples, all of us wondering exactly hen was America great for us?

But the not so subtle, barely subliminal message in Make America Great Again harks back to a time when “minority” concerns were not a priority for white America. There was a time when racial segregated communities and internment camps and reservations were part of the American Way, and it was a time when very few white Americans found any of this to anything more than regrettable, but necessary, ways to keep America great for its white majority.

Today Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Donald Trump are blowing dog whistles that all of us can hear.

We know now that when America is Great Again it will not be Great for indigenous people. Asian Americans, Latinos or Black Americans.

Maya Angelou once said, “when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time”.

It is time for women and men of goodwill to believe and unite, while there is still time to Make America Great for the First Time.

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Point of View Columns

History Belongs to No One

          It would seem that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis believes that history is an item that is subject to possession and favorable revision. DeSantis seems to believe that history belongs to whomever gets to decide on what is history and what is not. He clearly believes that history is a flexible narrative that relies solely on the narrator.

          That this is not true should be obvious. That DeSantis is lying should be apparent. Because history is a collection of facts regarding what has already happened. And just because someone wishes to be selective regarding which facts are presented, does not change the reality of history – and that reality can be obscured for only so long.

          Every country and every culture has its idealized version of itself – it has its myths and aspirational images of what should be. Of course, that is not history – here we are talking about myths and aspirational images.

          Every country and every culture also has an idealized vision of itself so it is understandable that uncomfortable truths are many times overlooked in the name of patriotism and the belief in ideals that have yet to be attained.

          Following up on that point of view we begin to understand how the myth of America collides with the reality of America. The myth of America begins with intrepid pioneers and “explorers” who “discovered” land on which millions of people had been living for thousands of years. Indeed their “discovery” must have been quite a surprise to the indigenous people on this continent – just as the ensuing mass genocide that almost wiped out the indigenous people within the span of a few hundred years was a surprise.

The myth of America also portrays rugged and sturdy white citizens who, with their labor and superior knowledge and technology were able to build a sturdy agrarian based economy which in turn served as the foundation of an industrial economy that became a wonder for the world to behold.

The uncomfortable truth is that without horrific race-based slavery that agrarian based economy would not have been so sturdy. And if race-based slavery was not such an incredibly important asset to the American economy in the 18th and 19th centuries, it is doubtful that New York City would have been the capital of finance which not only financed slavery and the slave trade, but also created the great wealth which financed the transcontinental American “expansion”.

It would appear that DeSantis and his supporters believe that if we believe, and more important teach, as though genocide and slavery were not inescapably crucial elements of the America that we know today, then that reality will evanesce. Which, of course, it will not.

And therein lies the problem for the DeSantis’ across America. Not telling the true story of America does not make the true story go away. Prioritizing the study of “Western Civilization” while minimizing the value and importance of Black history in America is a fool’s errand at best. And most importantly, history does not belong to DeSantis or anyone else. History is a set of facts to be discovered, studies and understood, but history belongs to no one.

And again, it is a fool’s errand to believe that white boys and girls who learn the truth about the history of this country will become ashamed to the point of debilitation, when in fact they will be inspired to aspire to a better America.

Finally, how sad it must be that, at the beginning of Black History Month we have someone like DeSantis trying to proclaim that he owns history and that he will determine what aspect of history should be taught.

Some please tell DeSantis that history belongs to no one…it never has and never will.

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Point of View Columns

A Shame and a Damn Shame

Much has been written, and will be written about what happened on 1.6.21. It is truly a day of infamy in American history that will be remembered in the same category as 12.7.41 (Pearl Harbor), 11.22.63 (the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy), 4.7.68 (the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.) and 9.11.01 (the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon).

Of course, 1.6.21 is that it was a historically unique event – it was the first time since the Civil War that armed Americans attacked the American government with the intent to overthrow the existing government. It was also unique because it was inspired and led by a sitting President of the United States.

That is why the report of the January 6th Committee has revealed the shame of 1.6.21 as well as the damn shame of what has happened since that fateful day. The fact that the Committee referred four charges against Donald Trump to the United States Department of Justice for criminal prosecution is without precedent in American history.

One hundred years from now, if there is a United States, Donald J. Trump will be a name of a president that remembered with shame along with the likes of Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, Woodrow Wilson and Richard Nixon. He will have a permanent place in the Presidential Rogues Gallery where his memory will always reside.

The fact that he is now reduced to selling NFT cards of himself along with renting out his faded Mar a Lago estate for Iranian weddings is only the beginning of his slipping down the slimy ladder of infamy. Even if he never is indicted or convicted of his many crimes, his name will be synonymous with shame and that is well-deserved.

We can be sure that he will be wailing and moaning about “witch hunts” and “lynch mobs” which will only energize his dwindling base, some of whom will follow him to the bitter end. And while we will probably never see him in an orange jumpsuit, we will see him diminished to the point of being a living synonym for words like “traitor”, “buffoon” and “failure”.

What is a damn shame is something far worse than Trump. What is a damn shame is the thousands upon thousands of Republicans who are following what they believe the successful Trump playbook, employing bombast and insult and total disregard for the Constitution, equal rights and the rule of law. One can make the argument that Trump is a morally diminished individual who cannot help but dive into the deep abyss of hate and immorality. But the likes of Ron DeSantis and Josh Hawley and Mike Pompeo would never drink the authoritarian and undemocratic Kool-Aid that they will gladly serve to the American public in a quest for power.

It is a damn shame that the Republicans in the House of Representatives who cowered in fear in the Capitol while the hordes unleashed by Trump warmed the building still support Trump and his message. They refuse to even censure him much less demand that justice be meted out the armed insurrectionist and quasi-fascist hordes that worship Trump to this very day.

It is a damn shame that the Republican Party will, in the wake of the Trump Tsunami, support Trump wannabe’s like Dr. Oz and Trump sock puppets like Herschel Walker, all in the name of “Making America Great Again” when in reality they really want a return to a mythical America where Christian white male supremacy was the American Way of Life.

And finally, it is a damn shame that this may be the new normal when the opportunity for progress and true equity could be so close to being real.

And that is why the aftermath of 1.6.21 is both a shame and a damn shame.

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Point of View Columns

How Putin Got Something Right and Other Thoughts

The past week, like so many weeks these days, has been so full of news stories that trying to keep track of all of them is like drinking from a fire hose. Here a few of the many items that warrant some attention:

How Putin Got Some Things Right

One need not be a mental health specialist to observe that Vladimir Putin is dealing with some kind of mental health abnormality that has been manifested in his taking Russia on a race to the precipice that resembles the end of the motion picture “Thelma and Louise”.

Last week he announced his imaginary annexation of 15% of Ukraine and magically made all the residents citizens of Russia “forever”. He also threatened nuclear war just to make sure the world is paying attention. But somehow all of the press commentary has made no mention of the facts that were hidden in plain view during his rant.

But Putin did get a few things right:

  1. The United States engaged in widespread genocide and land theft against the indigenous people of North America – there simply cannot be any argument that the brutal attempt to exterminate the indigenous people while taking ownership of virtually all of the land on which they lived is simply a matter of fact.
  2. The United States engaged in the enslavement of Black Americans as a matter of law (and the original version of the Constitution) – the truth is the truth.
  3. European powers engaged in the disruption of virtually all of the lives of all of the people of Africa, looting its wealth and subjugating its residents (those were not enslaved) to colonial rule – again, the truth is the truth.
  4. The United Kingdom engaged in plundering the wealth of China and India, colonizing the people of India in the process – again the truth is the truth.

There is no doubt that Putin is a madman, but it is fascinating that nowhere on any of the Western news channels was there any mention of what Putin got right. Perhaps these uncomfortable truths were just……too uncomfortable.

Did the World Just Forget Pakistan

Less than a month ago Pakistan was hit with cataclysmic flooding that left one third of the country underwater, killed well over one thousand people and left much of the infrastructure in shambles.

What made this flood even more tragic is that this flooding was not due to the weather, it was due primarily to glacial melting. As it turns out, Pakistan is one of eight countries that are most susceptible to glacial melting and that melting is absolutely due to global warming. And, the cruel irony is that while Pakistan contributes to no more than 1% of the world’s carbon emissions, carbon ovens like China and the United States and Europe are most responsible for carbon emissions. Yet Pakistan is paying this awful price for the neglect of this climate abuse.

To make matters worse, after the first outpouring of global concern that concern seems to have evanesced. Ukraine remains the headline story and now the goldfish-like attention span of the United States has been diverted to hurricanes lashing and devastating Puerto Rico and Florida.

Meanwhile most of the flooding in Pakistan has not receded. Meanwhile millions of Pakistani citizens are without proper food and shelter. Meanwhile the rest of the so-called developed world feels no responsibility to provide anything but a relatively perfunctory early expression of concern followed by the so-called developed world moving on.

One can only hope that the Pakistani government, the Pakistani people and the Pakistani diaspora would be more strident in making sure that the story of the suffering of this nation does not simply fade away.

After all, a closed mouth does not get fed.

Watching Ron DeSantis as Janus

The Romans had many gods. One of them was Janus – indeed the month of January is named after him as he was the god with two faces, one looking back at the old year and looking forward to the new year. In 2013, after Super Storm Sandy lashed the New York City metropolitan area along with a good portion of the Northeast, then Congressman Ron DeSantis voted against federal aid to New York City. His rationale was that state and local governments should rely on their own resources and not count on federal aid every time and anytime that they need help.

Just last week, nine short years later, Ron DeSantis is the governor of Florida. Of course Florida is suffering from the catastrophic damage from a once in a century Hurricane Ian which has caused billions of dollars of damage to a wide swath of Florida.

And just last week, Governor DeSantis wrote a formal letter to President Joe Biden requesting a massive amount of federal assistance. Joe Biden being Joe Biden did not comment on the irony, but it can be mentioned here.

It appears that Ron DeSantis is channeling his inner Janus. Clearly in politics according to DeSantis, two faces are better than one.

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