Due to a family tragedy, my father and his two sisters were separated. One sister was taken by Italian immigrants back to their home in Italy. Dad was 11 months old when the separation occurred. The sister in Italy used the Voice of America to assist her at the end of WWII. The VOA helped her reunite with her sister in Chicago and with my father in West Virginia. That is but one example of the importance of the VOA. Dad was 32 years old when the reunion took place.
Felt a great sadness when I learned that the Teddy Roosevelt statue in front of the Natural History Museum in NYC was being removed - UNTIL the events of the day made me take a hard look at it, not in terms of art, but in terms of its historic representation. Which was a real wake up call and made me think about what other symbols of white supremacy are scattered throughout our lives. Perhaps worse, was the virtual excision of blacks and women and native Americans and God-knows-who-else from history education. This all makes me disgusted to think about how terrible my history education was at a very young age - a virtual breeding ground for white supremacy. Although very, very interested in history now a more balanced, educated, approach at an early age would have made worlds of difference to me and our country as a whole.
You are an open minded person.....and this new understanding is important for us to share with friends and family. I know I've been saying this a lot lately " I thought that at one point too and I decided to look deeper and this us what I learned. (Sharing credible resources) What do you think?'
One of the problems that we have is that people refuse to be educated. Whether it is regarding the meaning of confederate statues, or the dangers of this pandemic, many have blinders on. This gets really dangerous when brave people get threatened with their lives. This article is frightening. https://tampabaytimes-fl.newsmemory.com/?publink=36836f952
I think they should either put another TR statue there (btw, I'm a huge TR fan ...) or remove the Black and Indian figures on either side. Second idea would bring howls from the art community - which I understand - but otherwise the piece is likely to be mothballed and entirely unseen.
The goal is to control information as evidenced by the changes at Global Media or removing reporters from the White House. Same tactic used by all dictators. What really disgusts me is the lack of response from any Republicans in the House and Senate. The silence is deafening. It is amazing how they have forgotten their oath of office. "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; ..."
The rub is in the oath...the constitution protects property and the declaration promotes equal opportunity! The GOP is protecting their own and their paymasters' property....which in the 19th century included the slaves.
Two questions that come to mind concerning the symbols of the Confederacy and a subject that is close to all our interests "how is the history of the last half of the19th century treated in history lessons in US schools?".and "How has such ignorance of what really happened been inculcated and perpetuated?"
"How is the history of the last half of the 19th century treated..." not well. I was raised in Virginia and our 4th grade and 7th grade history text books were very thick and filled with information about the Founders and about Robert E. Lee, etc. Next to no information about slavery. Fast forward to my own teaching career, and I can say that the textbook companies are huge corporations. They publish based on what Texas wants and what California wishes to have because those are the largest textbook accounts. By the time other states receive textbooks and curriculum, Texas and California have moved on to other trends or learning models. If TX and CA would demand balanced treatment of U.S. History with facts. We might begin to see the impact of a balanced education. Praying Betsy DeVoss is soon to be gone forever from the Dept. of Ed. So Stuart, I guess textbooks that are fact based and balanced would be a key place to begin to chip away at ignorance. Textbook publishing companies are behemoths and we must do something about "Citizens United."
I taught at one point International Management courses in Universities in Montreal and was appalled to find my Master's level students had stopped studying history and Geography at the age of 12. They had no real notion of where things were in the world nor of why they were as they were! Taking a plane at that point is an act of faith as they really don't know where and if it will land.
It seems to me that we are entering into a period where "passive" resistance needs to be organized, coordinated and massively increased within all federal agencies to slow any changes imposed by McConnell/Trump so that their implementation grinds to a halt. Bureaucratic obfuscation needs to accompany political action, public protest and investigative reporting in a drive to render the autocratic little elephants even crazier with frustration and limit the damage from now till January. The journalists at VOA must have everyone's active support.
If I understand you correctly, you are proposing some way of slowing down the destructive processes of the Trump/McConnell dismantling and corruption of federal agencies? That would be wonderful, and truly is needed. What can be done?
For a start, bureaucratic procedures usually have a built-in delay factor as they can multiply the necessary signing-off signatures for each and every act. Secondly most implementation processes or pre-evaluation processes require periods of consultation before they can either become "reality" or be fed upwards for consideration by politicians. Usually they also require some sort of detailed policy statement covering all aspects of future decision making on the subject at different levels otherwise there are no criteria by which decisions can be made. All of these delaying tactics can be pushed to the limit to freeze any initiative. The public sector unions/staff associations can also be brought into the guerilla campaign to foment silent revolt and coordinate resistance. If all else fails then there are the mass leakage of info to the media and eventually ...mass resignation of key staff. They will never have either the ressources or the time to chase down the "deep throats" or replace the departing! In resignation the chance to create chaos are pratically unlimited.
I saw a video online of Trump walking from his helicopter to the White House late at night, on his return from the Saturday night fiasco in Tulsa. The defeated, stunned, disheveled man who walked alone from the helicopter to the building was visible in stark detail. Trump will lash back because of the humiliation of the size of the Tulsa crowd, the report of the Covid-19 diagnoses in his advance team, and especially, the video of him in disarray and exhaustion.
Lisa, I sympathize with you...I’ve been wondering if perhaps Biden can simply sign one huge executive order that basically undoes everything the orange baboon has done!
While reading the part about turning VOA into Faux Noise, the word NewSpeak popped into my mind. I Googled it and this is the first blurb that popped up:
"In the world of 1984, Newspeak was created by the totalitarian overlords of Oceania, with its fictional leader known as Big Brother, in order to actually limit free thought and free speech. In totalitarian governments, those in charge try to control every aspect of citizens' lives, even down to personal habits."
Trump's "acquisition" of VOA is a desperate, but futile, move. He's desperate to have media outlets he can control. But then there's reality; he's shown his incompetence and lack of judgement on so many levels does he really think by broadcasting his garbage on VOA platforms he can change the hearts and minds of people around the globe? People worldwide who use VOA as a trusted source of information aren't going to sit still very long for Trump's self aggrandizing nonsense.
Stephen, it could be that. It could also be that someone suggested to him that he can "control" the message on VOA if he installs his own people there.
Sigh..... tRump is increasingly desperate, and so is the Republican Party. That all this goes unchallenged speaks to that desperation. And, if one uses the analogy of how animals react when cornered, then we can expect more and more chaos. Sigh....
I can tell you what the request that reporters leave the WH grounds was about. Protestors this afternoon camped out in the middle of H Street and refused to leave, in an apparent attempt to create a Seattle style autonomous zone. Later in the evening, some protestors attempted to pull down the statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square. (While I have no special love for Andrew Jackson, and would not be terribly unhappy if that statue were to be removed by official action, I think that to allow small groups of protestors to decide on their own which monuments are allowed to remain and which come down is undemocratic and dangerous.). Unfortunately, in preventing the destruction of the statue and clearing the street for traffic, pepper spray was used.
I get so depressed because the checks on the destruction of the government simply don’t exist! I have to watch two men destroy both our democratic offices and the DOJ, and nothing can be done! Have I been wrong all this time in believing in our systems and am just now finding out!
He is actively seeking to undermine the Constitution with his constant assaults on fair, factual, unbiased reporting of the news and the freedom of the press.
I watched 60 minutes on CBS's broadcast on Sunday. Immediately following the broadcast was a commercial from the DT campaign full of such lies and bullshit that I stopped mid stride from leaving the room to watch it. He's desperate in his attempts to change the narrative. We just can't let that happen, and forums like this are key.
You're right about his desperation and BS. But to be honest I feel like online discussions tend towards an echo chamber effect, and I have little faith in keyboard activism. They may be good breeding grounds for ideas, but the real trick is changing people's minds to agree with or at least understand you, and ultimately change policies, practices, laws etc.
Here is something that I hope you all can help with. We need the Millennials and “zoomers” to come out and vote. I reached out to my nephew (22 years old) and asked him what thoughts he might have so that perhaps my generation (boomers) and his could pair up and get out the vote. He said he couldn’t think of anything except spread the word. That’s not acceptable to me. So what ideas might you have?
When a Zoomer says "Spread the word," they are not talking about the way your generation or my generation (X) were "spreading the word." One thing we older folks keep forgetting about social media is that it is not just one-on-one...they have audiences. So a "spread" of the word to them is interacting with 100+ folks on TikTok or Whatsapp or Twitter, and then the other couple hundred that see it and say nothing but silently process the info. The audience is the part we keep forgetting about. Even in this forum, I know I'm responding to Annette, but there will be another dozen or so who consider this a new piece of info.
I have always held left of center political views, and joined many protest marches and rallies over the decades. It took many years to understand that the systems I spent all this time railing against are in large part held in place by the police. In that when push literally comes to shove, it is the police you are shoving against. Not that I am a bomb throwing radical. I have a family, a job, and a home in the suburbs. I value the police. But I've definitely had an awakening of sorts by realizing the police are just doing their job, which is to enforce laws. If you want change, you have to change the laws (unless you're the revolutionary type). To do that you have to elect people who understand the large problems we need to tackle, not those who pretend they're not there, and continue the status quo. Which is a roundabout way of saying, we need to impress upon the younger generations, in this particular moment of agitation and ferment, that if they want to change the system, and change policing, and change the world, they have to educate themselves and their peers, and VOTE, every one of them. I can't really think of any other way.
Or run for office. I remember being surprised when the activists of the 60's got elected and wondering if they were traitors to the cause. Tom Hayden is the name that came to mind.
The way to change the laws are to get elected to a position and do so. However, my observation is that once someone is elected (local government anyway), they frequently find it's more complicated & takes more time.
Portland, Oregon elected JoAnn Hardesty, a human rights activist to the city council who is now pushing for laws that reduce the power of the police. She's been advocating for this for over a decade in different ways. It took her getting elected AND all the BLM protests for the changes to be enacted. I think we need to believe that everyone has a role here, and politicians can't do anything without the support of voices or money. We don't have all the money, but we do have lots of voices.
Due to a family tragedy, my father and his two sisters were separated. One sister was taken by Italian immigrants back to their home in Italy. Dad was 11 months old when the separation occurred. The sister in Italy used the Voice of America to assist her at the end of WWII. The VOA helped her reunite with her sister in Chicago and with my father in West Virginia. That is but one example of the importance of the VOA. Dad was 32 years old when the reunion took place.
Felt a great sadness when I learned that the Teddy Roosevelt statue in front of the Natural History Museum in NYC was being removed - UNTIL the events of the day made me take a hard look at it, not in terms of art, but in terms of its historic representation. Which was a real wake up call and made me think about what other symbols of white supremacy are scattered throughout our lives. Perhaps worse, was the virtual excision of blacks and women and native Americans and God-knows-who-else from history education. This all makes me disgusted to think about how terrible my history education was at a very young age - a virtual breeding ground for white supremacy. Although very, very interested in history now a more balanced, educated, approach at an early age would have made worlds of difference to me and our country as a whole.
You are an open minded person.....and this new understanding is important for us to share with friends and family. I know I've been saying this a lot lately " I thought that at one point too and I decided to look deeper and this us what I learned. (Sharing credible resources) What do you think?'
One of the problems that we have is that people refuse to be educated. Whether it is regarding the meaning of confederate statues, or the dangers of this pandemic, many have blinders on. This gets really dangerous when brave people get threatened with their lives. This article is frightening. https://tampabaytimes-fl.newsmemory.com/?publink=36836f952
I'm torn on the TR statue. I think it's an impressive piece, so I guess my bias is showing(!). Is there no way to salvage it by providing context?
I think they should either put another TR statue there (btw, I'm a huge TR fan ...) or remove the Black and Indian figures on either side. Second idea would bring howls from the art community - which I understand - but otherwise the piece is likely to be mothballed and entirely unseen.
Let's take this symbolism a step further. "The White House"
The goal is to control information as evidenced by the changes at Global Media or removing reporters from the White House. Same tactic used by all dictators. What really disgusts me is the lack of response from any Republicans in the House and Senate. The silence is deafening. It is amazing how they have forgotten their oath of office. "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; ..."
The rub is in the oath...the constitution protects property and the declaration promotes equal opportunity! The GOP is protecting their own and their paymasters' property....which in the 19th century included the slaves.
Two questions that come to mind concerning the symbols of the Confederacy and a subject that is close to all our interests "how is the history of the last half of the19th century treated in history lessons in US schools?".and "How has such ignorance of what really happened been inculcated and perpetuated?"
"How is the history of the last half of the 19th century treated..." not well. I was raised in Virginia and our 4th grade and 7th grade history text books were very thick and filled with information about the Founders and about Robert E. Lee, etc. Next to no information about slavery. Fast forward to my own teaching career, and I can say that the textbook companies are huge corporations. They publish based on what Texas wants and what California wishes to have because those are the largest textbook accounts. By the time other states receive textbooks and curriculum, Texas and California have moved on to other trends or learning models. If TX and CA would demand balanced treatment of U.S. History with facts. We might begin to see the impact of a balanced education. Praying Betsy DeVoss is soon to be gone forever from the Dept. of Ed. So Stuart, I guess textbooks that are fact based and balanced would be a key place to begin to chip away at ignorance. Textbook publishing companies are behemoths and we must do something about "Citizens United."
Citizens United was an egregious decision. Egregious.
I taught at one point International Management courses in Universities in Montreal and was appalled to find my Master's level students had stopped studying history and Geography at the age of 12. They had no real notion of where things were in the world nor of why they were as they were! Taking a plane at that point is an act of faith as they really don't know where and if it will land.
Two mandatory texts should be Heather Cox Richardson's To Make Men Free and How the South Won the Civil War
Not to mention her book on the politics surrounding Wounded Knee. That way kids would grow up with a more complete view of a foundation period.
Actually, we're deep in discussions of a graphic history of the period from 1865-1904, with the hope that it will go into classrooms.
That would be brilliant.
It seems to me that we are entering into a period where "passive" resistance needs to be organized, coordinated and massively increased within all federal agencies to slow any changes imposed by McConnell/Trump so that their implementation grinds to a halt. Bureaucratic obfuscation needs to accompany political action, public protest and investigative reporting in a drive to render the autocratic little elephants even crazier with frustration and limit the damage from now till January. The journalists at VOA must have everyone's active support.
If I understand you correctly, you are proposing some way of slowing down the destructive processes of the Trump/McConnell dismantling and corruption of federal agencies? That would be wonderful, and truly is needed. What can be done?
For a start, bureaucratic procedures usually have a built-in delay factor as they can multiply the necessary signing-off signatures for each and every act. Secondly most implementation processes or pre-evaluation processes require periods of consultation before they can either become "reality" or be fed upwards for consideration by politicians. Usually they also require some sort of detailed policy statement covering all aspects of future decision making on the subject at different levels otherwise there are no criteria by which decisions can be made. All of these delaying tactics can be pushed to the limit to freeze any initiative. The public sector unions/staff associations can also be brought into the guerilla campaign to foment silent revolt and coordinate resistance. If all else fails then there are the mass leakage of info to the media and eventually ...mass resignation of key staff. They will never have either the ressources or the time to chase down the "deep throats" or replace the departing! In resignation the chance to create chaos are pratically unlimited.
True, but the backlash will be more fodder for their anti-bureaucratic deep state ravings.
I saw a video online of Trump walking from his helicopter to the White House late at night, on his return from the Saturday night fiasco in Tulsa. The defeated, stunned, disheveled man who walked alone from the helicopter to the building was visible in stark detail. Trump will lash back because of the humiliation of the size of the Tulsa crowd, the report of the Covid-19 diagnoses in his advance team, and especially, the video of him in disarray and exhaustion.
Sigh.... How many more days until election day?
Is it possible Biden can fire the entire government the second he takes office and restaff with non-Trump people?
Lisa, I sympathize with you...I’ve been wondering if perhaps Biden can simply sign one huge executive order that basically undoes everything the orange baboon has done!
While reading the part about turning VOA into Faux Noise, the word NewSpeak popped into my mind. I Googled it and this is the first blurb that popped up:
"In the world of 1984, Newspeak was created by the totalitarian overlords of Oceania, with its fictional leader known as Big Brother, in order to actually limit free thought and free speech. In totalitarian governments, those in charge try to control every aspect of citizens' lives, even down to personal habits."
"Fictional leader?" Looks like the new reality.
Trump's "acquisition" of VOA is a desperate, but futile, move. He's desperate to have media outlets he can control. But then there's reality; he's shown his incompetence and lack of judgement on so many levels does he really think by broadcasting his garbage on VOA platforms he can change the hearts and minds of people around the globe? People worldwide who use VOA as a trusted source of information aren't going to sit still very long for Trump's self aggrandizing nonsense.
Why is he taking over VOA this late in the game? Did he just now think of it?
Stephen, it could be that. It could also be that someone suggested to him that he can "control" the message on VOA if he installs his own people there.
Sigh..... tRump is increasingly desperate, and so is the Republican Party. That all this goes unchallenged speaks to that desperation. And, if one uses the analogy of how animals react when cornered, then we can expect more and more chaos. Sigh....
I can tell you what the request that reporters leave the WH grounds was about. Protestors this afternoon camped out in the middle of H Street and refused to leave, in an apparent attempt to create a Seattle style autonomous zone. Later in the evening, some protestors attempted to pull down the statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square. (While I have no special love for Andrew Jackson, and would not be terribly unhappy if that statue were to be removed by official action, I think that to allow small groups of protestors to decide on their own which monuments are allowed to remain and which come down is undemocratic and dangerous.). Unfortunately, in preventing the destruction of the statue and clearing the street for traffic, pepper spray was used.
I'd love your thoughts on this article:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/06/supreme-court-bill-barr-unstoppable.html
I get so depressed because the checks on the destruction of the government simply don’t exist! I have to watch two men destroy both our democratic offices and the DOJ, and nothing can be done! Have I been wrong all this time in believing in our systems and am just now finding out!
Trump = Treason
He is actively seeking to undermine the Constitution with his constant assaults on fair, factual, unbiased reporting of the news and the freedom of the press.
I watched 60 minutes on CBS's broadcast on Sunday. Immediately following the broadcast was a commercial from the DT campaign full of such lies and bullshit that I stopped mid stride from leaving the room to watch it. He's desperate in his attempts to change the narrative. We just can't let that happen, and forums like this are key.
You're right about his desperation and BS. But to be honest I feel like online discussions tend towards an echo chamber effect, and I have little faith in keyboard activism. They may be good breeding grounds for ideas, but the real trick is changing people's minds to agree with or at least understand you, and ultimately change policies, practices, laws etc.
Here is something that I hope you all can help with. We need the Millennials and “zoomers” to come out and vote. I reached out to my nephew (22 years old) and asked him what thoughts he might have so that perhaps my generation (boomers) and his could pair up and get out the vote. He said he couldn’t think of anything except spread the word. That’s not acceptable to me. So what ideas might you have?
When a Zoomer says "Spread the word," they are not talking about the way your generation or my generation (X) were "spreading the word." One thing we older folks keep forgetting about social media is that it is not just one-on-one...they have audiences. So a "spread" of the word to them is interacting with 100+ folks on TikTok or Whatsapp or Twitter, and then the other couple hundred that see it and say nothing but silently process the info. The audience is the part we keep forgetting about. Even in this forum, I know I'm responding to Annette, but there will be another dozen or so who consider this a new piece of info.
I have always held left of center political views, and joined many protest marches and rallies over the decades. It took many years to understand that the systems I spent all this time railing against are in large part held in place by the police. In that when push literally comes to shove, it is the police you are shoving against. Not that I am a bomb throwing radical. I have a family, a job, and a home in the suburbs. I value the police. But I've definitely had an awakening of sorts by realizing the police are just doing their job, which is to enforce laws. If you want change, you have to change the laws (unless you're the revolutionary type). To do that you have to elect people who understand the large problems we need to tackle, not those who pretend they're not there, and continue the status quo. Which is a roundabout way of saying, we need to impress upon the younger generations, in this particular moment of agitation and ferment, that if they want to change the system, and change policing, and change the world, they have to educate themselves and their peers, and VOTE, every one of them. I can't really think of any other way.
Or run for office. I remember being surprised when the activists of the 60's got elected and wondering if they were traitors to the cause. Tom Hayden is the name that came to mind.
The way to change the laws are to get elected to a position and do so. However, my observation is that once someone is elected (local government anyway), they frequently find it's more complicated & takes more time.
Yes.
Portland, Oregon elected JoAnn Hardesty, a human rights activist to the city council who is now pushing for laws that reduce the power of the police. She's been advocating for this for over a decade in different ways. It took her getting elected AND all the BLM protests for the changes to be enacted. I think we need to believe that everyone has a role here, and politicians can't do anything without the support of voices or money. We don't have all the money, but we do have lots of voices.
Trump's government style has always reminded me of a dimly-remembered maybe-quote from an English pre-Magna Carta king, "The law is in my mouth."