Category Archives: Politics

Can’t Shoot Me Down Now

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Vegas Shooting

By GORDON GLANTZ

@Managing2Edit

GORDONVILLE – Nothing — outside of a Dallas Cowboys fan living in the Delaware Valley — is more annoying than a single-issue voter.

If that’s all you got, stay home. Please.

You need to have a lot of core issues, and be able to articulate the wherefores and whys – whether or not I concur – when asked to explain yourself.

As those who have waged war with me on Social Media know, I am not afraid to do so.

When it comes to issues, and prioritizing them, I’m an open book.

There is education, health care, environment, clear paths to citizenship for productive immigrants and a type of peace in the Middle East that means Israel isn’t obliterated in the process.

On most of those – and others (reforming the election system, from campaign finance reform to the way the primary/caucus schedule is laid out) – I am well left of center.

On others – like denying climate change equating to denying the earth is round – I am aligned with my man, Bernie Sanders, particularly on education and health care as human rights in a nation as plentiful as ours.

Only time I go astray is with the punishment fitting crimes like rape and child abuse (not to be confused with inherent injustices in the justice system with the “drug war”) and with supporting Israel (although those settlements are a bit unsettling when I consider long-range positive outcomes).

And on just about every issue, in general, I’ll meet you in the middle somewhat or be willing to agree to disagree and walk away on a handshake after a battle well-fought.

But not when it comes to my No. 1 issue.

And it’s No. 1 with a bullet.

There’s a hint even someone who thought Hillary Clinton was the lesser of two evils would get.

It’s gun Control.

You will never get me to agree to disagree.

And you will never get me to throw up my hands and say nothing more can be done about it.

And while we are sifting through the carnage from Sunday night’s mass killing (“mass shooting” is too tame), neither should you.

It has been said that if the horror at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary in December of 2012 didn’t do it, if didn’t change the stingiest of minds, nothing will.

It hit home for me because my prized possession — and .600 hitter in Fall Ball softball, Sofia — was roughly the same age at that time. I’ll never forget what it felt like dropping her off at school the next day and taking comfort in seeing police cars on the school lot.

This one at an a outdoor country concert hits home, too. I am a lifelong concert-goer, and the Tom Petty tragedy only reinforces my resolve to see all my heroes — and share them with Sofia — while we can.

The sad truth that the deaths of 20 first-graders and six adults at Sandy Hook only sent more people toward buying firearms, not less.

Probably of the same in the wake of Vegas.

Seems that what should make our hearts soft, turns them hard. What should make us find solutions, only leaves us creating more problems.

That’s kind of how and why we ended up with this slopstorm in the White House now, is it not?

But that doesn’t mean we give up trying.

Just sitting back and letting it all be is about as un-American as it gets, even for conditional patriots determined to make America “great again” (I’m still wondering when it was “great” to begin with).

How is that makey-greaty thing looking for you now?

If you still support America being the Wild West after all this, you are clearly a sub-human.

I don’t want to hear about banning cars because they kill, too. That’s just insanely inane.

Don’t tell me about the laws that are already on the books being sufficient, because they clearly are not.

We are as able to properly enforce them as I am of dunking a basketball (I’m 5-10 with a vertical leap of a half-inch) in the face of LeBron James.

Yes, some of the laws on the books, in theory, may give what equate to good lip service to generic concerns.

But we don’t need lips. We need teeth.

And doing the biting, with backing from our legislators, need to be the law enforcement personnel we are told we need to genuflect in front of with no questions asked.

I respect what they do, but they also knew what they were signing on for, which was to be soldiers on the home front.

And their country needs them.

Now more than ever, and just as much — if not more — than the troops in trouble spots like Afghanistan.

No one is going to convince anyone with opened eyes that our society is wired to be drug-obsessed because it helps lock up black and brown males at rates that dwarf those of freckled-faced kids named Biff in the frat house.

Therefore, we have drug task force teams – and their sting operations – from small municipalities to large cities.

It’s a noble effort, but don’t be deceived. I used to report on a lot of these in my newspaper days. There would be press conferences where the confiscated contraband would be laid out on a table, and most of it would be enough marijuana to have kept Bob Marley and the Wailers and Grateful Dead feeling mellow for several tours.

There might be a gun or two that were inadvertently gathered during the arrest of the largely “of-color” ring-leaders (who were usually just middle men taking the fall for someone else), but that’s it.

How about we legalize the marijuana – and include prostitution (another waste of law enforcement manpower) in that legislation – and focus all our efforts on undercover firearms stings?

Not saying they don’t happen, because they do.

Just not enough.

Needs to be a priority.

Priority No. 1.

And it’s dangerous work, going deep into the world of black market firearms wheeling and dealing, but it’s really the only way.

We can play verbal ping-pong over the validity of gun shows and how much closing loopholes would or would not do (my feeling is anything is worth a try). The truth is that the kind of firearms that most of these monsters acquire are done so through nefariously illegal means.

The Vegas shooter seemingly acquired most of his arsenal legally, and in the light of day, even while his mental state may have been visible to any arms dealer who gave a shit.

But we can find a way to regulate that a bit more going forward, while still letting hunters shoot Bambi, but the black market is still there.

Cut off the source, via undercover policing, and we may see a light at the end of the tunnel with a lot of these planned mass mayhem shootings – and gang violence on urban streets.

I’m not advocating disarming law-abiding gun owners, but I would like to define just what that means. It’s certainly not the gun owner with the gun loaded under their pillow.

Until he opened fire Sunday night, Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock, was likely a law-abiding gun owner – at least by the very loosey-goosey definition – and now he is the lone-nut triggerman in the worst mass killing by shooting in modern American history (probably a lot of Native Americans were wiped out in one horrific stampede of the white man in the now fabled days of yore that made our culture one tied to the gun, with Wounded Knee coming readily to mind).

At present, authorities are stumped about his motivation. He was filthy rich, he was A-political, had no FBI file (although his father did) and not really a loser with the ladies.

My initial gut instinct was that he lost big at the casinos, but apparently he was winning, big-time, before going out in an inglorious blaze of infamy.

The argument about it being all about mental health goes out the window, too. Clearly, he was not in his right mind at the time, but he was not diagnosed as being criminally insane. He clearly had some internal bomb ticking inside, but he still had his wits enough to meticulously plan this out.

In a nation where you can get your hands on multiple military-style firearms and ammo as easily as a milkshake and a burger, we should be more worried – much more worried – about the guy who looks like an average Joe who can snap and go temporarily insane.

That is any of us. Just this past Saturday, I can into it a bit too much with the coach of the opposing softball team (although it was nothing YouTube viral-worthy). I have never fired a gun in my life (and only held one once), but who knows who I was dealing with, right?

The way our country is now, we simply can’t trust than we can will this ongoing horror show away.

We need to peel away at the onion, wiping away the tears it causes, and get to core of the issue. The Second Amendment is clearly so misinterpreted that it’s unfathomable to believe our elected misleaders – from both sides of the aisle – are more concerned with keeping the NRA placated than the health and well-being of their constituents.

Maybe because they are so much in a bubble, they don’t realize how easy it is to get a gun right now.

Heck, we had a garage sale this past weekend (before the softball game and aforementioned incident) and several older men – probably around the same age as this waste of human plasma – asked if we were selling any firearms or ammo.

Really?

Really.

And the fact that they asked tells me that they are able to circumvent a lot legalities by going to garage sales and flea markets.

They were so cavalier about it that they must find plenty while scavenging around on weekends.

And yeah, 999 out of 100,000 might just be collectors who get their jollies by diddling around with guns once their ED sets in, but what about the one – the one who snaps one day and sets up a sniper’s nest above a concert (or any larger gathering) and tries to top Paddock’s kill number.

Won’t happen?

Don’t kid yourself.

Not a question of if.

Just a question of when.

Not comfortable with that, either?

Maybe you need to check your priorities.

 

Dear Deity …

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Stan Horwitz

By STAN HORWITZ

PHILADELPHIA — This morning, I woke up to the horrible news about the mass shooting in Las Vegas. They’re saying that at least 50 people perished and at least 200 people were injured by the sniper while attending a country music festival at the Mandalay Bay.

My condolences to the victims and injured and their friends and family. Not enough thanks can be given to all the heroes who helped take out the shooter and stop him from doing even more harm. Bravery like that is a rare trait.

I saw that my state’s own senator Pat Toomey offered his prayers to the victims, their friends and families. Other politicians are no doubt doing the same. How nice of them to offer prayers at this tragic time in our history.

Maybe instead of Toomey and his fellow senators and President Trump just offering useless prayers to the dead and their survivors, they actually do something real to fix this problem of violence in our country. These mass shootings seem to be growing in frequency and body counts. Prayer isn’t helping. I doubt it hurts, but it obviously isn’t helpful either.

Here’s my prayer: Dear Deity who knows all blah, blah, blah and who presumably saw this tragedy blah blah blah coming yet did nothing blah blah blah to prevent it, blah, please blah blah let those shooting blah blah blah victims blah blah blah go to your blah blah Candy Land.

If I did believe in the power of prayer, I would pray every day to the God in which I believe to stop the violence from occurring in the first place.

But what do I know?

Tweet Home Alabama

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roy-moore

By GORDON GLANTZ

@Managing2Edit

GORDONVILLE – So what is it all really about, this kneel-or-not-to-kneel controversy stirred up by the “president” recently?

Was it really about what NFL players do before a game during the national anthem?

Given the fact that the players generally weren’t on sidelines for pre-game pomp until 2009, around the time the military and the NFL struck a mutually beneficially deal to exploit the new brand of conditional patriotism spawned after 9/11, not really.

Was it about this generation’s Curt Flood, Colin Kaepernick, who is not even playing this year – and is seemingly in hiding?

Nope, not really.

For the answer, peel away the layers and see what’s left.

With his make-believe empire crumbling around him, the “president” stirred his pot of diversion while in Mobile, Alabama.

He was campaigning for Luther Strange, who was about to engage in a runoff election against Judge Roy Moore in a special election to fill the senate vacated when former senator, Jeff Sessions, made the fateful choice to of going from deep-fryer into the fire and become the attorney general.

This is in Alabama, y’all, where “heritage” is a dollar-store disguise for hate.

The kind of place where baseless claims have hit a bull’s eye with his base, where “real” Americans fly flags of treason next to the Old Glory that is to be honored without dissent.

When the “president” tossed Crimson-colored meat to his ravenous followers and ranted about “firing” (there is no such term for NFL players, who are “cut” or “released,” usually with financial consequences for the team that signed them to contracts) those “son of bitch” (i.e. black) football players, it was to appeal to the lowest common denominator in the state that ranks 45th in education.

If they were a little quicker on the uptake, they might have known that a grand total of 10 players out of more than 1,000 took a knee during the previous week’s national anthem.

After he threw his stink bomb, an estimated 250 took a knee.

Seemingly, it lacked a spiral.

Playing his own “Trump” card, the far-right Moore, who was backed by former White House advisor scorned Steve Bannon and holds extreme views like wanting to ban homosexuality (always have to wonder about those who doth protest too much), waived around a gun at a rally a few nights later.

The message: You don’t out-Alabama an Alabama boy in Alabama.

He won by 10 points.

A sweet win for Moore and more Tweets from the “president.”

And that’s what this was all about.

It wasn’t about the NFL’s “son of a bitch” players at all.

It was about who was going to out-Alabama each other the most, in a race to the bottom in an appeal for the bottom-feeder vote.

In the end, it was Moore – hailing from Etowah County, which most known for a still-simmering 1906 lynching case after a white woman was killed – who was able to out-Alabama the slick-talkin’ billionaire Yankee from New York.

This is the Alabama where its “Black Belt Region,” where a large number of black voters live, are subjected to systematic voter suppression tactics (driver’s license centers closing before elections where photo IDs are required).

This is the Alabama where former governor and presidential candidate George Wallace was one of the last segregationist holdouts.

This is the Alabama where they are generally too dumb to realize that the Florida-based band Lynyrd Skynyrd was purportedly merely mocking the Wallace mindset in the state’s unofficial anthem, “Sweet Home Alabama.”

But the “president,” well, he “loves the uneducated.”

That’s probably why he doesn’t love the NFL, and its owners and players.

Turned out the “son of a bitch” players, and the owners who won’t “fire” them, are more sophisticated than he is on his last good day (if anyone can remember when that was).

What he learned – or should have – in his proxy battle with Bannon in the state that ranks fifth all-time in deaths by lynch mob is that more NFL players, and other pro athletes, are more educated than he would like.

Those interviewed – including NBA megastars Stephen Curry and LeBron James — after what will likely be the tip of the protest ice berg were they were as articulate about their reasons as the supposed leader of the free world was incapable of making sense of the issues.

It’s only going to get more intense when basketball season starts, and don’t be surprised if some of the NHL’s 25-30 players “of-color” players make a stand — or kneel — as well (despite being a league that includes many Europeans).

Being surrounded by sycophants afraid to tell him the truth, the “president” fails to realize that one is not a “son of bitch” for peacefully protesting while a White Nationalist/Neo-Nazi/Klansman – the “base” that Bannon told him to coddle – are not full of “many fine people.”

And when you ducked service in the military yourself with mythical bone spurs, you might be the last one to be preaching about disrespect to the flag and the military.

And for those who follow sports closely, who know that athletes with contracts are not at-will employees to be “fired” on a whim – you know, like on a reality TV show — his motives not only seems curious but were also exposed to a larger audience.

The “president” has his own axe to grind with the NFL, which rejected his bid to buy the Buffalo Bills in 2014. The antipathy goes back further, when he tried to force a merger with the USFL (he owned that league’s New Jersey Generals) and the NFL but saw his smirk turn to a frown when his awarded $1 in anti-trust lawsuit.

The result of the backfire?

The USFL, which was doing well in the spring, was dead – just like his many bankrupted companies – and a lot people were out of work, not just those on his team.

Was all this on his mind during the rant, which also included belligerence about the league attempted to catch up to itself on the concussion issue (one that also affects members of the military)?

Maybe.

But that’s not what this was all about.

This was about one thing.

It was about a state that proved not to be such a sweet home to his brand of bitter divisiveness.

It was about Alabama.

 

 

 

Everybody’s Talkin’

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Tom Hampton

By TOM HAMPTON

Antifa.

No, wait…ANTIFA! ANTIFA ANTIFA ANTIFA!!!

Is it more scary if I shout it over and over again? Try to make it sound intimidating?

In case you haven’t gotten the memo, ANTIFA is the new right-wing boogeyman…the new dog whistle that’s supposed to give them an easy label to slap on everyone who disagrees with them. It’s all over social media…I even had some nutjob try to tell me last night that Rachel Maddow was “Anti FA” (sic).

If you’re “of a certain age”, you’ve seen this movie before.
“ANTIFA” is the new “SOCIALIST”, which was the new “LIBERAL” – brought to you by that political genius Lee Atwater, who made Willie Horton famous almost thirty years ago.

The thing that ends up being lost on the folks for whom these false flag labels are such delicious fodder is that – well, yeah…the irony is almost comical.

“ANTIFA” is a chopped label for “Anti-Fascist”…I’ll leave it to you and Google to determine whether that’s a label someone should be ashamed of. As for me – I’m not gonna lose any sleep over being labelled “Antifa” by a social media troll.
Before that – remember how “Socialist” used to be the slur of choice? That one was especially delicious coming from folks who were on Medical Assistance, Food Stamps, Welfare or some other form of Government-provided aid…using the word “Socialist” as a term of derision for those with whom they had some form of political disagreement with, while benefitting from the very definition of the word.

And of course, there was “Liberal” – which came into fashion as a derogatory term for us softies on the left during the Bush-Dukakis race in 1988 and eventually subsided in the shadow of newer, less rationally explainable terms in its wake.

To wear the label of Liberalism as some form of shame was handed off to the media in the backfield at that point in time, and some of them are still running with that ball, all these years later. Somehow, a few suits in front of news cameras managed to spread the notion that “Liberals” were somehow inferior, and in the wake of the Reagan Fever that swept America in the eighties, a lot of basic notions were forgotten.

Somewhere along the way, folks managed to conflate “Liberal and Conservative” with “Democrat and Republican” – they forgot all about the tectonic shifts that took place during the Civil Rights era and Nixon’s subsequent Southern Strategy – and how Republicans inherited the Conservative mantle as the Dixiecrats of old died off or were replaced in Congress.

But “Liberal” and “Conservative”? Those have always been pretty accurate labels.

Now, I’m not ranting with the direct purpose of slandering Conservatives, because – where traditional Conservatism is concerned, anyway – on the surface, the two terms are nothing more than labels for differing political viewpoints. Blonde and Brunette. City Slicker and Country Boy. Punks and Mods. Jocks and Nerds. Liberals and Conservatives.
And it likely would’ve remained within that echelon until someone decided to try to weaponize the word “Liberal” and make it derogatory…and the world played along.

But, y’know – I’m sorry, but I ain’t playin’ that shit.

Call me a Liberal all day, every day. I’m happy to wear that label.

It’s tempting to rehash the laundry list of instances where Liberals fought for, bled for, and – in some cases, DIED for many of the things we take for granted nowadays…from voting and civil rights to the 40 hour work week. But if you care about that at all, you know that already – and if you don’t, you won’t care now, either.

So call me Liberal. Or “Socialist”. Or “Antifa” if you want.

Because all you’re doing is publicly telling the world that you’re declaring yourself to be on the wrong side of history.

Again.

 

 

Reality Bites for We Democrats

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Hillary

By GORDON GLANTZ

@Managing2Edit

GORDONVILLE – Put away your wallets.

No need for an annual triple crown here in my Soul Town of Gordonville.

It’s always the same coming down the homestretch. Sports and music are neck-and-neck in a photo finish.

Third? Politics.

For the purposes of this drill, we will go with a sports analogy to put a political issue to rest.

If you have watched as many football games as I have – high school, college and pro – you come to learn that a loss can’t be laid on the doorstep of any one player.

Sure, the kicker may shank the chip-shot field goal at games end or the receiver who is “paid millions to catch the ball” drops the go-ahead pass in the end zone, but the hard facts remain. If team X (usually a Philadelphia team) was at the point where it came down to a missed field goal by a soccer player dressed up in football gear for Halloween or a receiver who caught everything else thrown his way all game, there is a laundry list of reasons why they were trailing in the first place.

Cut and paste this analogy, and apply to politics.

And let’s use it to put one falsehood to bed, if only for the sake of breathing life back into a moribund Democratic party.

Hillary Clinton did not lose the 2016 election because of Russia.

And I’m not saying Putin’s long reach didn’t allow his fingers to dip into our Fourth of July apple pies, because he clearly did.

It didn’t help, and it probably hurt.

A fatal blow?

Nyet (“no” in Russian).

Russia was guilty the same way our nation committed nefarious acts to influence elections elsewhere, particularly since two World Wars left us as a world power.

But Clinton didn’t lose because of Russia.

Clinton lost because of Clinton.

And the sooner we cross that bridge into the land of reality, however bitter the taste, the better.

Why? Because we have issues that affect all of us that are simply more important.

And if you make yourself sick over this, you may wake up to learn you do not have the health care to get well.

Catch my drift?

We have critical mid-term elections coming up, and taking back the House and Senate will be the first step in rendering President Twitter-thumbs as powerless as possible.

Yes, I understand that Clinton had a tough task, trying to extend a run of one party in the White House beyond two terms.

Beginning with Dwight D. Eisenhower, it has only happened once – when George H.W. Bush went from Ronald Reagan’s second banana to first for a four-year stint (before falling after one term to Hillary’s husband, Bill) – and not at all with a non-VP (let alone someone daring to be the first female president).

But her path to the Promised Land was strewn with penalty flags (see what I did there, sneaking in another sports reference?).

Many, myself included, resented the RFS (Royal Family Syndrome) that was being quietly perpetrated. We had two Bushes, and now the Democratic leadership was trying to prematurely send a queen to the throne while pushing all challengers to the fringes.

And here comes Bernie Sanders – for the record, my candidate – blowing up their early touchdown dance (Why stop with the analogies now?).

He was supposed to go away – with the likes of Jim Webb, Lincoln Chaffee and Martin O’Malley – after being humored for one debate and a few primaries.

But if it were not for O’Malley, and his phony-baloney grin, Sanders would have won Iowa instead of finishing a close second. Come New Hampshire, Sanders crushed Hillary – and her team seemed curiously stunned, even though it was a neighboring state to Sanders’ own Vermont.

Sanders’ progressive message appealed to the under-30 crowd and he was filling college arenas (not that you would ever see it on CNN) while cameras had to pan it tight to make crowds at Clinton’s appearances seems larger than they were.

She was being out-flanked on the left, and badly, so she played her Obama card in debates and on the stump for the swath of Southern (i.e. Red State) primaries for the sole purpose of drumming up the black vote.

It was a smart short-term strategy that hurt her in the long-term. Attaching herself to Obama’s hip, and with Obamacare, was a Scarlett letter she then had to wear as she needed PAC money and party backing to barely edge Sanders’ campaign of $27 dollar donations (I gave several) at the finish line.

Sanders exposed her weaknesses, especially in states like Wisconsin and Michigan, but her campaign arrogantly felt they need not campaign hard there – or in Pennsylvania, since the coronation was held in Philadelphia.

Did Russia seize the weaknesses in these swing states? Yes, more than likely.

Could and should she have still won them? Uh, yes.

Just pick Bernie Sanders as the running mate.

Too much eating crow, with a side dish of bad blood?

Fine.

How about Cory Booker, the standout star of the convention?

How about Elizabeth Warren?

How about anyone but Tim Caine, who not only added nothing to the campaign but detracted from it?

When I say anyone, I mean anyone.

Or anything — up to and including a Cigar Store Native American.

I see Cain now and I immediately think of Mike Michel, the Eagles’ emergency “kicker” who missed not only game-winning field goal in a 14-13 playoff loss to the Falcons in 1978, but also an extra point (hence, 13 points instead of 14) and a field goal that would have made it 16-0 before Atlanta scored two fourth-quarter touchdowns.

I don’t know how to say that all in Spanish – the way Caine would – but you get the point.

Michel was not qualified to be a NFL kicker. He was, by trade, a marginal punter. Coach Dick Vermeil figured he was “good enough” but he wasn’t.

Maybe someone should have read this parable from the Philadelphia Fan Book of Horrors to Clinton before tabbing Caine.

And yet, while a key reason for the loss, he was not the only.

There was Hillary herself. While her opponent gained steam all summer – in the full glare of the cameras from the networks he now loathes for not giving unconditional adoration due only Greek Gods and rock stars – leading “lock her up” chants, Hillary locked herself up by not finding a way to counter punch.

Personally, I don’t believe one needs to be inspiring — or likeable — to be qualified for most jobs, including president. In a prior life, I interviewed people for jobs and often went with the most qualified person, even if they were neither likeable nor inspiring.

But the reality is that, in today’s political world, you need to be both. And she was neither.

Maybe a fiery running mate would have helped to offset that issue, but she went the milquetoast route with Caine.

Maybe it was her campaign more than Clinton. Whatever it was, she went into the general election sounding a little disingenuous by touting more of Sanders’ issues than the disjointed talking points she started off with out of the gate.

And this well-oiled Clinton political machine, the one Sanders himself seemed to blame his noble second-place finish on, was a bit of a mirage.

At the least, it was overdue for an oil and lube change and never got one.

Deferring to the better half, a Clinton backer who punched me in the arm a lot during the primary season, we went to the closest office for a lawn sign 2-3 weeks before the election. The overwhelmed twentysomethings there couldn’t help us.

We eventually got one from a few towns over by calling in a favor from a politically connected friend.

Meanwhile, the opponent had phallic symbol messages all over. And yes, considering she lost the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania, it seems that signs matter. They matter so much that we still see them – erections lasting more than four months – often next to Confederate flags (just from finished a 10-day Pennsylvania road trip, and I know what my eyes saw).

And then there were the debates. While SNL had a grand time mocking the other guy, the satire only skirted the deeper concern that had me screaming at the television as much as when my beloved Eagles or Flyers or Sixers are locked in mortal combat.

She missed chance after chance after chance to land the knockout punches he was leaving himself open to receiving, perhaps figuring she didn’t want to come across as a bully.

Instead, the guy on the bully pulpit bullied her out of making history and shattering the glass ceiling.

He may have had some help, and the thought of being a foreign government is abhorent, but she likely had some tools up her sleeve, too. It is how the game is played.

And she still lost.

Some say she should come back and try again.

I say stay away. Please.

You don’t move ahead by looking back.

The next time Hillary Clinton smiles and waves, let’s hope it is goodbye.

 

March Was About Human Rights

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dani

By Danielle Niemuth

I’ve seen quite a few women using the hash tag #notmymarch and proclaiming that they don’t need feminism. First of all, let’s clear up some definitions.

1. misogyny: dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women
2. misandry: dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against men
3. feminism: the advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.

People often equate feminism with misandry and “bra-burning”. By definition, feminism is for the promotion of equality in the sexes (this would mean it’s against “man hating”, BTW). Now, I think we can all agree that there are physical and mental differences between men and women. So this is when we need to remember that “equal” doesn’t mean “the same”.

A lot of folks want to simplify the Women’s March down to abortion and birth control, but that’s not what it’s about. You can agree or disagree with either of those topics until you’re blue in the face. Are there women and men at the March who support keeping birth control and abortions legal? Yes. Do you need to agree with that in order for this to be your March? Absolutely not.

The March is about human rights. And guess what? #womensrightsarehumanrights. The rights of the LGBT community are human rights. The rights of the disabled, both physically and mentally, are human rights.

Maybe you’ve never felt personally victimized by “the patriarchy” or society as a whole, and I hope that you never do. I hope you’re never the victim of sexual assault, much less one that results in a pregnancy you don’t want. I hope neither you nor your loved ones become disabled and need to rely on government assistance just to get by. I hope that you can continue to live in a blissful world where all of your rights are legally still your rights.

A lot of the posts about #notmymarch use their current rights as reasons for not needing feminism. We have the right to birth control, the right to own a gun, the right to work, the right to an education, the right to vote. But do you know how we, as women, got those rights? We didn’t get them because the government just one day decided to gift them to us. We got them because of women who marched. Maybe those rights will never be taken away, but maybe they will. So I hate to break it to you, but whether or not you agree with topics like abortion or think you don’t need feminism, #thisISyourmarch.

In the Worst of Times

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spockette

By GORDON GLANTZ

Gordonglantz50@gmail.com

@Managing2Edit

GORDONVILLE — Like many American families, we were watching the Election Night results in shock and increasing dismay into the early morning hours.

We flipped channels – from CNN to MSNBC to ABC to PBS – and watched each, hoping to hear some alternative spin to make us feel better, and turned away when we found their faces and voices too irksome.

Optimism turned to pessimism and pessimism into despair.

Meanwhile, our 9-year-old daughter, Sofia, had fallen asleep on the family room love seat before the ominous news became harsh reality.

A day that began with her going into the voting both with her mommy, who let her press the button to vote for what we all thought would be the first woman president of our internally wounded nation, ended with me carry her up the steps.

It used to be a common occurrence, me carrying Sofia to bed. I know it sounds strange, but it was always one of those small joys of parenthood that I not only enjoyed but where I made a small “note to self” to appreciate.

This time, it was different.

It had been a while. She was a lot heavier than she was a few years back, and I have developed more middle-aged aches and pains. Plus, I was more than tired. I was weary. Not only from the results but from the grind.

And from knowing my daughter would awaken to a different America.

I like to say I wear my heart on my sleeve. I wouldn’t call it a fatal flaw. It’s just the way I am. If I’m passionate about something, I can’t suppress it.  And I was passionate about this election cycle, perhaps more than any other in a lifetime of always being interested in politics.

My heart was heavier than Sofia’s body.

Even though her seeing a woman president so early in her formative years was an exciting prospect, I was more somber about who won than who lost.

Truth be told, I was never real high on Hillary Clinton – at least not at this point in time. She was facing a tall order, looking to push eight years of a Democrat in the White House into 12 or 16, and she really was not overly inspiring. That should not necessarily be a qualification for the job, but fact is that is a humungous one. And she picked a milquetoast running mate, which didn’t help her cause.

So, while I was “with her,” since her opponent was non-option for what seemed to obvious reasons, I was not the cheerleader that, say, my wife was during the campaign.

Manning my Facebook battle station, I spent way more time pointing out the infinite flaws of Clinton’s opponent and rarely touting her beyond the obvious, which was that she was so much more qualified that it was both a comedy and tragedy at the same time.

And despite some accusations to the contrary, it had zero to do with Clinton’s gender. I supported her, vigorously, during 2007-2008 primary season. I felt she was better prepared to lead us out the darkness of the Bush years than the new kid in town, Barrack Obama, who seemed to me more like someone who was more a future president than one ready to take the reins.

Once she was edged out by Obama, and once John McCain exercised horrendous judgment by tabbing Sarah Palin as his running mate, I supported Obama in the general election and remained a voice of support – whether in newsprint, here on my blog or in social media battles – throughout his two terms.

When these so-called media experts tried to frame the 2016 election as a foregone conclusion, saying it was going to be a showdown between Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton, it rubbed me raw.

Is this the best we could do, going back to same two families, I wondered? And was America not founded, theoretically, on the notion of breaking from the concept of royalty?

Turns out, I would have taken that as a choice – even after being one of the few and proud Bernie Sanders backers of my age demographic in the country.

Yes, that’s how bad the end result turned out to be.

I could have lived with another Bush.

We are left with the person, whose name I can’t even bare to write this morning, as he is also part of American royalty but who lacks any political acumen whatsoever.

He was the flashpoint of the “birther movement” that actually had a high number of registered Republicans – people who actually wake up, dress and fed themselves each morning and operate a vehicle to go out into their small bubbled worlds – believing Obama was born in Kenya and a Muslim.

After Obama produced his birth certificate, something no Caucasian president would never have to do, Bill Maher did a bit on his political talk show saying the current president elect should produce a birth certificate saying he was not an orangutan.

And the thin-skinned mogul behind the “birther” push did what he usually does. He lawyered-up, and filed a lawsuit.

What will he do as president? He will be sworn in with multiple court cases and lawsuits – from the serious, to the benign and ridiculous – pending for and against him.

Will he react like a baby to every critique and lampooning sent his way? Will he be able to handle one-tenth of the venom spewed at Obama to last eight years? Are we headed toward a police state?

This, and so many other scary questions, overloaded my brain as I trudged up the steps with Sofia in my arms and as I laid her to sleep and placed a gentle and sorrowful kiss on her cheek.

Before waking her up, I had already received messages from other devastated friends wondering about we tell our kids this morning and what kind of world we are creating for them now.

I got up early and drove our dog, Rex, to his weekly visit to daycare. I tried to lose myself in the music on the radio. As I pulled into the lot, Don Henley’s “End of the Innocence” came on. I sat in my parking spot – with tears welling in my eyes — and pondered the question about ours, and about Sofia.

My innocence has long since been gone, but I already mourn the day when it happens to our princess with a heart of gold.

She is very much her daddy’s daughter, in terms of her emotions. I knew telling her wouldn’t be easy. I was not sure if her mommy would have broken the news by the time I got back home, or if she would be stealing a few extra minutes of sleep before school.

Part of me didn’t want to be there, part of me did.

All of me knew I had to be.

We have woken her up to bad news before – up to and including deaths of pets and family members – and she would immediately burst into tears.

Turned out, she was still in a deep sleep Wednesday morning.

When I whispered the horrifying result to her, she just looked sad and stunned.

“Oh,” she said after a few seconds, “really?”

When I drove to school about 30 minutes later, she was quiet. I asked if she was OK, and she admitted to being a bit sad about it. My gut is that she was more upset for her mommy than anything, but I didn’t push it. Instead, I thought I would lighten the mood. I told her that maybe she would be the first female president.

“Not interested,” she said, flatly.

The thing is, Sofia is a pretty cool kid. She will be OK.

The same TV where we watched the end of the world as we knew it is also one of these newfangled Smart TVs that I was too dumb to figure out for three months before an angel of mercy from XFinity took pity on me and went above and beyond just fixing a phone issue.

Together, on that TV, she has willing been indoctrinated into watching Gordonville classics like “The Wonder Years” and her clear favorite – “Star Trek.”

Sofia has quickly become such a Trekkie already that she has Googled how to make Vulcan Plomeek Soup and announced that we are going to Las Vegas this summer for the next convention.

She was a Vulcan – “Spockette” – for Halloween, and made me wear a yellow Captain Kirk shirt that was so friggin’ tight, even as an XXL, that I could barely breathe.

So I just told her this morning that the election was like a Star Trek episode where they land on a primitive planet and that we will have to think logically to get ourselves to resolution.

Problem is that this is four years – if he lasts that long – not one-hour.

She understood and accepted my logical explanation.

Problem is that we are not in the future, and present-day logic is on life support.

We could use a timely beam-up from Scotty, but all communication has been cut off.

Instead, I’ll have to carry her up the steps.

And even as she ages and grows to the point when I can’t physically do it anymore, I’ll continue to hold her close and carry her anyway.

Even in the worst of times – and it doesn’t get much worse than this – it is all I can do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Cut Is The Deepest

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Pence

By GORDON GLANTZ

Gordonglantz50@gmail.com

@Managing2Edit

GORDONVILLE – A vice presidential candidate walks into a barbershop …

If this sounds like the start of a bad joke, you are picking up on the right scent.

Such was the scene recently in Norristown, when GOP vice presidential candidate Mike Pence, was paired up on an awkward blind date in the inner sanctum of any black community – the barbershop.

Followed by CNN cameras – not like there were any surreal floods or forest fires going on, so why not? – the barber in question had to quell chuckles from the cheap seats as he had to fight through the layers of Brylcreem to kinda sorta cut and style hair that was, literally and figuratively, as white as you could get.

When the dog-and-pony haircut came to its merciful end, the CNN crew accidentally stumbled upon actually “news.”

Turned out the barber was not quite sure who Pence even was, having to ask his name, and then being somewhat taken aback when he learned he was on the same ticket with a candidate who secured his nomination by stoking racial prejudice in what we hope is a vocal minority of mostly angry white males who started demanding their country back a split-second after Barack Obama was elected the first president of color in 2008.

Spin Central tried to sell us that Pence was chosen for the bottom half the GOP ticket to make it look respectable.

Good luck with that.

The choice of Pence as VP wannabe, as exhibited by his track record, was merely an act of doubling down on the Make America Great (i.e. White) Again platform that bullied its away to the nomination.

Pence’s addition to the ticket only underscores the Molotov cocktail of ignorance and arrogance that is a self-imploding campaign that is sagging in the polls against a flawed, and beatable, candidate in Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

The barber is not alone in not really knowing Pence.

Criticize him for that if you must, but why should he bother?

The nation has become so turned off by partisan politics that exist and subsist by and for the special interests and big corporations, that it is not too hard to tune it all out.

Fortunately, the information still exists for any who seek it. We may not know what goes on behind closed doors in Mike Pence’s world, but we know the basics from his actions.

For all those like the barber, who don’t really know who he is, considering the following a PSA (public service announcement) from GNN (Gordonville News Network).

Pence is the governor of Indiana. Nothing wrong with that, at least at face value. For those of us who have been there, the people are quite nice – well, up to a point.

John Mellencamp is a native son, as is Larry Bird.

But Indiana is also home to some of the most ridiculously soft gun laws in the country. When they talk about loopholes, put the Hoosier state’s logo on the poster (believe it or not, blind people can even own guns there).

The GOP presidential nominee is touting himself as a “law and order” candidate who will end violence – mostly in America’s urban kill zones (conservative code for where non-whites run amok) – about 12.2 seconds after stepping into office. The city often cited in these disjointed diatribes is Chicago, and it always mentioned how the Windy City has some of the toughest gun laws in the country but still has a mounting body count.

What isn’t mentioned? An estimated twenty percent of the guns used on the streets of Chicago are purchased in nearby Indiana, where Pence is the governor and vice presidential candidate on ticket vowing to save Chicago from its evil ways.

For that many guns — one in five –to come from just one outside state is downright obnoxious.

The blind shooters is only the tip of the gun-nut iceberg that is the Hoosier state. In 2014, Pence spurned state school organizations and signed a bill to allow guns to be allowed in cars on school property. He recruited the NRA to train the National Guard on concealed carry techniques (even when the National Guard questioned why they were being trained by a private agency, as if they couldn’t connect the dots there).

He also signed a bill in which lawsuits against gun manufacturers in Indiana – and sellers of ammunition and firearms – became almost impossible. It also retroactively terminated a lawsuit from the mostly-black city of Gary, Ind., where one would guess he would not be welcomed in many barbershops.

But what did he care? It was designed for the gun industry to view Indiana as gun-dealer friendly. He surely got his cut.

Now, while we know more about this guy with an A grade from the NRA, let’s look at how he came into our orbit in the county seat.

After losing bids for Congress in 1988 and 1990, the historically homophobic Pence built his brand with one of those slanted talk-conservative radio shows — the creatively named “Mike Pence Show” – where pro-gun rhetoric is like a stretching exercise before yoga class.

He billed himself as “Rush Limbaugh on decaf,” which is kind of like being a Dead Head on hashish.

Pence was elected to the House in 2000, sweeping in on the coattails of George W. Bush’s stolen win over Al Gore in the presidential election and the fact that his perpetually gerrymandered district was vacated when the incumbent ran for governor.

Pence stayed in the House until 2012, earning a battlefield promotion to Republican Conference Chairman (a thrown bone after losing to John Boehner by a country mile for Republican minority leader).

Pence then ran for governor of Indiana in 2012 (the outgoing GOP governor was “term-limited,” so it was not that much of a bold move to walk away from his Tea Party friends in D.C.).

To be fair, Pence made himself fairly visible as a “values” Republican while in the House.

As such, his views are out there. You need not be a political junkie to shoot his poison into your veins.

And these “values” would likely not make him welcome in too many black barbershops — let alone Mexican restaurants (opposed birthright citizenship) or places where women dare think to do anything but cook and clean and bring their husbands martinis (strongly advocated defunding planned parenthood).

If the Tea Party had the guts to set the rest of the GOP free from bondage and form their own party, Pence would be right there with Sarah Palin as a leader.

Consider the following:

-Pence declared that “freedom won today” when the Supreme Court took the people out of the political process with its Citizen’s United ruling in 2010.

-He voted against raising the minimum wage in 2007 because a hike from $5.15 to $7.25 would “hurt the working poor.”

-He was all in, from the jump, on Bush’s war of folly in Iraq that created thousands of American casualties, with a disproportionate number being black or Hispanic, and opposed withdrawal.

-As the GOP stance on immigration mysteriously softens, consider that Pence – as far back as 2006 – proudly put forward an immigration policy he dubbed “No Amnesty Immigration Reform.” Right on cue, he didn’t need more than a split-second to vote down the DREAM act to give children of undocumented workers non-immigration status.

Had enough?

We’ll send you away with these fun facts:

-He denies climate change, as he is still waiting on the facts not presented by 99 percent of scientists (whisper: he also claims that the full effects of tobacco use are not yet known).

-He opposes embryonic stem cell research, claiming those breakthroughs are “obsolete.”

-He believes in evolution.

Impressed when he showed up for a photo opp recently in Louisiana after horrific flooding, were we? Consider that he wanted to limit funding for Hurricane Katrina relief in 2005.

So, people, that’s Mike Pence.

And the first time he ever went against his own party’s playbook may have been when he walked into a black barbershop in Norristown.

And the barber didn’t know his name.

That was a well-deserved slap in the face.

 

Double Vision and Head Games

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Split Screen

By GORDON GLANTZ

Gordonglantz50@gmail.com

@managing2edit

GORDONVILLE – Go ahead, look up at that picture. Study it closely. It will tell you a lot about who you are and which side you are on in this country strewn by an endless and vicious cycle of subdivisions.

The picture has been making the rounds on Facebook a lot lately. What makes it intriguing in Meme World is that is a missile deployed by both supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders and those diametrically opposed – supporters of Donald Trump.

Sanders is on the left — naturally (wink) — getting arrested during a Civil Rights protest in Chicago, where he attended college. Trump is on the right, donning a military-style uniform that has medals attached to the chest (and it is not from his “college years,” as the labeling suggests).

Sanders people will say that their man was standing up for others, instead of attending a folk hootenanny and calling it a college experience. Trump backers will say that Sander was a malcontent while their man must have been in the military – perhaps serving in Vietnam – while hippies hid behind their fake morals and causes.

Well, every picture tells a story, and these two pictures – melded into one – tell a story as well.

And here it is.

While Democratic rival Hillary Clinton was campaigning for segregationist Barry Goldwater at the time, Sanders was fighting for Civil Rights and rightfully wears that past proudly. The picture is real. And the arrest – for disorderly conduct and a $25 fine — is listed in newspaper clippings.

The picture was snapped during a 1963 rally against segregation in Chicago, which was in line with Sanders leading a rally against draconian segregating campus housing policies. Sanders, a student organizer for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), was passionate enough about this cause to be on the front lines on the home front.

Trump, contrary to what a lot of people would like to believe, never came close to a battlefield – whether in Vietnam or on the streets of a nation as divided by black and white as he has helped make it again with his presidential run.

The son of a wealthy Nazi sympathizer and closet Klansman, Trump was so misbehaved that he was shipped off to military school – the New York Military Academy (NYMA) – for eighth grade and kept there in high school.

At NYMA, he played dress up and marched around enough to be called a “captain.” Hence, the above picture – and “punch-me, please” smirk.

While he has arrogantly claimed to have emerged from this glorified reform school for rich kids more prepared for war than “most in the military,” he curiously avoided Vietnam with Houdini-like prowess.

Declared medically eligible in 1966, Trump received four student deferments while attending Fordham. In 1968, when the time came to show off his soldiering skills, he suddenly developed “bone spurs” in one – or both – feet (he can’t seem to remember).

“I actually got lucky because I got a high draft number,” he has since been quoted as saying.

No doubt he did. Money buys a lot in this country. It even buys you the ability to magically “get lucky” – which those who served, or who lost loved ones, should be deeply offended — but then have the gall to turn around and pander to veterans for support with a empty “Make American Great Again” slogan.

The thing is this, though. Who cares?

Our culture tends to judge the man by what war he fought and deduct testosterone points if he didn’t (even if, like Barack Obama, there was no war in which to serve during the “man-up” years).

In case you haven’t guessed, I am supporting Sanders for president. And while his past of being on the right side of history at almost every turn makes for a nice back story, it is more about what he is standing for in the present – with visions of a less dismal future for coming generations — that has made more passionate about a presidential candidate as I ever been in my five decades on the planet.

I believe Trump has appealed to the lowest common denominator among the American populace, ripping some pages out of Adolph Hitler’s shameful playbook, and that’s just unacceptable (Plus, I developed a strong dislike for the guy when he ruined the USFL back in the 1980s.).

I would rather see former Eagles’ coach Rich Kotite elected president over Trump, but it has little to do with what did or didn’t do during the war.

Anyone who served in Vietnam was a pawn in a game, poor kids offering themselves up as sacrificial lambs at the behest of their rich masters. It was not the World War of their fathers and uncles. It was an ugly and needless war.

But in that place and time, in that moment, there was not much choice for some but to go when called. And we have no choice but to thank them for their service and try and comprehend what they endured.

Anyone who didn’t serve was being just as brave, just in a different way. Sanders was a conscientious objector, and does not pull a Fred Astaire – like Trump, with the rotating bone spurs — when asked. He didn’t believe in the war, but does not disrespect those who served. He has a long history in government of standing up for the rights of veterans – often working across the aisle with Republicans – to back that up.

How veterans support Trump but not Sanders amazes me as much as how blacks, especially in the South, can support Clinton over a man like Sanders, who attended the 1963 march on Washington and was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech.

Trump? Well, as outlined above, it’s a little murky what he was all about back then. While it should not change to much in the present, we are in some serious perception and reality terrain and we could use a GPS to find our way out of Meme Hell. It should be cause for pause for anyone looking at the picture above with an objective eye.

I admit I don’t have one, but I will tell you what I see.

I see Sanders as the hero here, not Trump. I will choose wisely.

If Trump went to war, and served admirably, different story. He seemingly hid behind daddy’s checkbook and got deferments. If you think that’s OK, what you are really saying is that Civil Rights – Sanders’ war at home — was not a just cause.

And that is why America was not great then, or now, and won’t be until we face that reality and deal with it.