“Well who will you believe, me or your own eyes?”
– Chico Marx, “Duck Soup”
Hello downriver
What if?
When you study history, the “what if” is always fun to read and discuss.
Where “fun” is a relative term.
For example, what if Adolf Hitler hadn’t survived the First World War?
What if the south had won the civil war?
What if women always had the right to vote?
What if the Japanese sank our aircraft carriers in the attack on Pearl Harbor?
What if JFK rode in the limo in Dallas with his bulletproof bubble top?
The list is endless, but I’ll add one more thing: what if a lawmaker was killed during the January 6 riot?
In the first few examples we can only hypothesize, armed with the logic of historians who spend their lives examining events, looking for parallels and clues to alternative outcomes.
But that last “what if” isn’t a big challenge; When we watched events unfold in real time on television, we saw vividly the possibility of an alternate, violent ending.
Of course, this is not intended to belittle the shooting of a woman who tries to break into the chamber of the US House of Representatives with the violent mob: Ashli Babbitt was shot by a police officer from the Capitol.
Or the death of officers as a result of the actions of the mob – not to mention the hundreds of officers injured.
But how close did we get to the insurgents actually fulfilling their dream of “hanging” then Vice-President Mike Pence and who knows what to do with spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi – or a legislature who could not get to safety?
Well, if you can believe your eyes it got really tight.
Only the heroism of these Capitol police forces may have prevented the insurgents from reaching those whom they considered “enemies”.
As a result, the January 6th “what if” falls outside the imagination of other historical moments – with the exception of the murder of JFK.
For me, then an 11-year-old who later watched those moments in the Zapruder home film, I still wish and hope that the recordings missed, that the bubble top was there.
But it wasn’t supposed to be, so we stuck with “what if” JFK survived?
How could Vietnam have been any different?
What about the civil rights records in the mid-1960s; most historians agreed that Lyndon Johnson used Kennedy’s martyrdom as a driving force to get civil rights laws through Congress.
That and LBJ’s own arm twisting skills.
But January 6th is different.
First, it’s not an old story; it’s not even 20th century history.
It’s been five months.
More importantly, it’s part of an ongoing narrative that has not yet peaked.
In contrast to my other examples, January 6th is still not completely over: hundreds of people who have stormed our nation’s Capitol have been charged – and there may be more.
We still do not know the full background of what led to the uprising, even though we witnessed (or later) the encouragement of then-President Trump to go to the Capitol and “stop the count”.
What remains to be learned is whether and how many Republican lawmakers supported the insurgents.
Though they ran for their own lives when the time came.
So, unlike my other examples, we still don’t know all about January 6th – and Republicans prefer it that way.
How else can one explain their refusal to investigate the insurrection by an independent commission?
(Of course, there are those who will always believe in nefarious conspiracies in these other examples: the impending attack on Pearl Harbor was allowed to go to war with the US; JFK was created by a Mafia-CIA-Cuba military coalition.)
Unfortunately, thanks to GOP obstructionism, the truths (plural) of January 6th may never be known – but is this no longer the party’s playbook?
We are for nothing; we are against everything.
Just ask Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, who has never come up with an idea he likes – unless it’s his own.
Of course, I want to exclude most of the Republicans out there from this narrow-minded idleness attitude; that they are actually more sensible than the far right wing of the party.
But the polls tell a different story.
So no advantage of the doubt.
In fact, I’ve seen little or no condemnation of the January 6 insurgents – even if those Republicans claim primacy in the defense of law enforcement.
Yes, the same law enforcement agencies that were attacked on the steps and in the halls of the Capitol by a mob who grabbed anything they could get their hands on to beat up cops.
Including masts under the American flag.
I’m sorry, but you can’t defend the police if your proxies beat them to a pulp on your behalf.
No, I don’t know where this January 6th story will end, but I hope it won’t be just another historical “what if?”
•
I’m sorry, but I can’t miss it: I read a comment over the weekend where the author blamed the additional $ 300 in unemployment benefits for the current labor shortage.
“The real culprit for the shortage is no secret: Generous federal unemployment benefits create incentives to stay at home.
“Michigan,” the comment continued, “has 231,000 unemployed while the state has 378,926 jobs.”
This typically simplistic argument always resonates with those on the right who view those who collect unemployment benefits as – let’s put together: lazy.
But instead of trying to deal with the complexity of the subject – which the right never wants to argue about because it doesn’t make a superficial campaign slogan – let’s just look at these numbers.
“231,000 people are unemployed, while 378,926 jobs are advertised across the state.”
This simple phrase is meant to mean one thing, but it actually means something else: it underscores too many (especially too many business owners) the belief that workers are nothing but a nuisance, an unfortunate cost of doing business.
For, as the sentence suggests, the American worker is an interchangeable pawn on a larger game board; a “plug and play” machine that can fill any opening.
This means that according to this logic, someone who has lost their job as a computer programmer should just suck it up and cook in reserve at Applebee.
What about the mother who had to stay home to take care of her school-age children in virtual lessons?
She should have accepted this job as a mechanic; their children are doomed to find out for themselves.
I mean, it’s just a numbers game, right?
Not correct.
Each of these 231,000 people is an individual with unique and personal needs, desires, wishes and dreams.
That they should be punished for not simply filling one hole – every hole – reinforces the theory that workers should be used up and thrown away when they are no longer needed.
Do not believe me?
Then explain how American companies were allowed to cut American jobs by moving overseas – and then avoid paying corporate taxes.
Disapproving of the unemployed – who lost their jobs through no fault of their own – for services that might actually help them stay ahead is just another example of elitism.
From the owner class vs. the working class.
Craig Farrand is the former editor-in-chief of The News-Herald Newspapers. He can be reached at cfarrandudm@yahoo.com.