Tag Archives: politics

137. We Reserve the Right

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we reserveIt’s Sunday morning, April 10, 2016. I’ve been watching the news, and that always stirs me up. I refuse to get sidetracked into politics again, but I am a science fiction writer, after all, so I’m going to give you a time travel story. Let’s go a year into the future, on a timeline where Ted Cruz wins the presidency, a grandson of Oral Roberts becomes a Supreme Court Justice, and the North Carolina Religious Liberty law is not found unconstitutional.

A few news reports from
Sunday, April 9, 2017
timeline HAB38766J.

Protesters spent a tenth day in front of a bakery in mid-town today. The proprietor, a devout Muslim, continues to refuse service to women who try to enter his shop with their heads uncovered, citing his religious liberty to refuse service to those who do not follow appropriate behavior. “They are scandalous, and I will not allow them in my establishment,” Mr. Hamid said. Sign carrying members of the local Christian Interfaith community said that they would continue to march in protest indefinitely.

***

Anderson’s Pharmacy on the west side continues its controversial policy of requiring all patrons to have proof of their religious affiliation on file. Mrs. Anderson, the owner, said, “I don’t care who buys opiates, or bandaids, or foot powder, but I won’t fill prescriptions for contraceptives intended for Catholics. All the other religions can go to Hell however they please, but I won’t help Catholics defy the Pope.”

***

Owens, Jennings, and Philbrick Bank on the south side defied Federal authorities again today over their lending policies. “The Bible is very clear,” said Enos Philbrick, “that a woman should be subservient to a man. Federal regulators have been giving us trouble, trying to deny us our God-given constitutional rights, by saying we won’t lend to women. That is utter nonsense. Any woman who wants a loan is welcome in our bank, as long as her husband is willing to co-sign the loan.

Of course we don’t think divorced women are a good risk. It’s simple logic; if they ran out on their husbands, they would probably default on a loan.

Unmarried women? They need to get married, not get a bank loan.”

***

On a recent radio interview, Harvey Carter said, “Of course I’m not a racist. Any black man, or woman, or family can come and sit down in my restaurant any time they want. They’re all welcome. And any white man, or white woman, or white family – they’re equally welcome. There’s no prejudice here. But if a black man wants to sit down with a white woman, well that’s just wrong. God said stay with your own kind, and I’m not going to serve any mixed race couple. It’s my God-given right!”

A follow-up caller asked the radio station if the restaurant owner was white or black, but they had to admit that they did not know.

***

Okay, I think I’ve heard enough from that timeline. How about you?

132. Emancipation

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Saturday, April 16 is Emancipation Day, a holiday which is actually celebrated on different days throughout the South, depending on when emancipation came to different regions. In Texas it is celebrated on June 19th, called Juneteenth. This name and date have gained popularity beyond Texas. It would not be surprising if June 19th eventually supplants April 16 as the day we celebrate the end of slavery.

Emancipation timeline.

On April 16, 1862, slaves were freed in Washington, D. C.

On September 22, 1862, Lincoln issued a preliminary proclamation, stating that he would free slaves in states which did not return from rebellion. None returned.

On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Since it was issued as a war act, slaves were only freed in those areas which were then in active rebellion. It became a practical reality only as those areas were conquered by Union forces.

On December 18, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment, banning slavery everywhere in the United States, was proclaimed. 

By the President of the United States of America:
A Proclamation.

“That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

“That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States.”

Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief, of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion, do, on this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and in accordance with my purpose so to do publicly proclaimed for the full period of one hundred days, from the day first above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit: (a list follows)

And by virtue of the power, and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free; and that the Executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known, that such persons of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.

               By the President: ABRAHAM LINCOLN
               WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

106. Super Tuesday

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Super Tuesday, March first. By the time this hits the ‘net many of you will already have voted, because I am on a west coast schedule.

You surely know more about this day than I do, since I am writing this in late January. Today, Trump is ahead of everybody on one side, and the other side is up for grabs.

I have no intention of suggesting whom you should vote for, but I do have something to say. Politics is about now and tomorrow and the next day. Politics is about making the best of a bad situation, and the situation is always bad. Politicians shouldn’t outright lie, but any politician who answers every question with the full truth, will never be elected.

One standby that never fails to get a vote is:

They are coming to get us, to smother us, to bury us, to kill us, but I can stop them if you will help me build a wall.

American has been building walls since before it was America. They never work.

*****

In September, when this website was only three weeks old and no one was listening yet, I posted a poem. Here it is again, for your consideration.

Poetry should stand without explanation, but, like anything else, it can be misused. So, be notified! This is not a right wing call to man the barricades to keep the enemy out, but a cautionary tale about what it will cost us if we don’t find real solutions.

Hungry

We who horde the common wealth
Upon this crowded planet,
Must look to see what lies beyond
Our barricaded borders.

The world stares back,
Unblinking eyes — prepared
To eat us all alive, and still be hungry.

                              It’s happened all before.

Once, seven in a cave drove out the eighth
With stones and fire-sharpened sticks,
Because the antlered carcass on the ground
Was not enough to feed them all.

And then in ancient days when kings and priests
Invented both religion and the law,
To fill their coffers so that they could eat
While those who raised the food went hungry.

Or yet again, when men of white
Despised the black, and black despised the gray.
And those whose colors ran together were disowned.
Color was enough to make them hate
But hunger taught them how and why
A thousand years ago.

Yet still we breed and laugh,
And play at deafness, though an angry sound
Declares the world is poised to seize its bread.

They will march like locusts through the earth,
And eat us all alive, and still be hungry.

This world is troubled. We are surrounded by people hungry for bread and freedom. Pointing a finger at them and saying, “It’s your fault!’ won’t solve our problems.

And a wall won’t do it. Never has; never will.

105. Leap Boy For President

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After a month and a half of seriousness, it’s time to celebrate with a bit of total nonsense, and what better time for it than a day that only comes every fourth year.

Once upon a time – 1952, I think it was – there was a kid who was born on Leap Day.

His Dad was named Alan Hed, and he wanted to give his son the same name, but his wife had a quirky sense of humor. She told the nurse to call the boy Leap, as in Leap Alan Hed. When he was really young, his dad called him Alan and his mother called him Leap, but when he got old enough for school, his kindergarten teacher – who was a mean bastard, anyway  – called him Leap A. Hed. That brought about a sudden parent conference and after that the dad got his way, and the boy tried to forget that his first name was Leap.

People wouldn’t let him forget, and finally he gave in and refused to answer to a Alan any more. He went further. He decided that if he was going to be the boy with all those nicknames:

Leap Boy
Leap Frog
Leap for Cover
Leap Forward
Leap Back
.  .  .  and of course, still, interminably, Leap Ahead  .  .  .

.  .  .  if he was going to have to put up with all those stupid names, he was going to go all the way. I refused to celebrate his birthday on the twenty-eighth of February or the first of March. He only celebrated it on February twenty-ninth.

Worse, he counted his age by birthdays. When he was sixteen, he started putting his age down as four. He spent a lot of time talking to the principal about that, but they finally got tired of the whole business. You might say he out-stubborned them.

He couldn’t out-stubborn the draft board. When they said he was eighteen and he said he was four, they didn’t buy it. He claimed discrimination under the Civil Rights Act. He might have made it all the way to the Supreme Court, but when the 1969 draft lottery was held, February twenty-ninth drew number 285, so the draft board dropped the case.

After that his life calmed down. He never married (he claimed he was too young) and the IRS was indulgent. They figured he would regret his claims when he wasn’t eligible for Social Security until he was 260 years old.

Unfortunately for Leap – or Leap Boy, as the media started calling him – some joker heard about his claims and put him up for President in 2016. It caught fire. Saturday Night Live had a field day with the notion. Blogs sprang up all over the country in his name. The Leap Boy Theme Song (set to the tune of the old cowboy song Take Me Back to Texas, I’m Too Young to Marry) had eight million plays on U-tube.

Donald Trump denounced him. He said that if Leap claimed to be sixteen years old, that made him ineligible to be President.

Unfortunately some jokes get out of hand. On November eighth, after a massive write-in campaign by people who surely didn’t really expect to succeed, Leap Alan Hed was voted in as the forty-fifth president of the United States.

Oh, well. Could he be any worse?

I guess we’ll never know. At last report, he has fled to Canada, where he is seeking asylum under an assumed name.