DEFEAT FASCISM

 Journal of a Left-Wing Radical

Remember reading once (can’t verify the veracity)  that Archibald Alec Leach, a young performer, fashioned a persona for himself by mimicking a number of famous personages, one for voice, one for accent, one for bearing, and so forth. Whatever, it worked for the result known as Cary Grant.

I’ve been thinking. These increasingly seem to be the “end times” for the American Experiment. How would I like to be perceived as the final curtain falls? Let’s amalgamate the personages, real and fictional:

• -          The Andy Devine character of the “Happy Soldier” in the 1951 film version of “The Red Badge of Courage.”
• -          The unidentified character in the 1958 film “A Night To Remember” who, as the Titanic sinks, retires to the smoking room and calmly reads on a tilting deck.
• -          Joseph Campbell, the American scholar who once sought refuge at Woodstock, NY and read for five years.
• -          Bill Moyers, who produced the marvelous documentaries on Josehp Campbell and then on the song, “Amazing Grace.”
• -          The actor Keanu Reeves who appears, from all accounts, to be one hell of a great person.
• -          Liberace: A person highly skilled in his profession who never denied who he was and never took himself too seriously.
• -          Any journalist who saw early on that Donald J. Trump was a total fraud and grifter who had the magaligarch backing and degenerate moxie to destroy our country.
• -          Oh, best of all: Mr. Rogers, from one who will pass from this mortal coil wondering how the same country produced him and Cadet Bone Spurs.

Certified as Non-AI Generated and not ICE approved.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 It appears that the planned trip to Gettysburg and Antietam stands in jeopardy because our government has ceased to function. It presents a personal loss but a minor one in the great scheme of things.

 Still, I reread this book in anticipation, this time with an eye focused on General George McClellan. There have been some attempts in recent years to defend his timidity and define it as justified caution. We’ll see. He faced obstacles, no doubt. The fact remains that his opponents faced the same obstacles.

To this untrained, uneducated, and unqualified mind, one of the apparent factors in this battle was speed. One army had it. One didn’t. Even though the discovery of the Confederate Special Order 191 gave “Little Napolean” the disposition of the insurrectionist forces, he delayed any major attack for 18 hours and then deployed his forces in piecemeal fashion.

At countless times during the battle, delays by the United States forces gave General Lee time to assemble his smaller army for maximum deployment. A.P. Hill’s Division rushed from Harper’s Ferry in hours. The typical federal unit would have taken days, arriving just in time to form burial details.

 The final result? Some call it a stalemate. Some credit the federal forces with repulsing an invasion into the northern states. Some point out that it was enough of a victory to convince Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation which pretty much eliminated the possibility of foreign involvement in our tragic war.

Today’s emphasis is about speed. We see it in the current invasion into all that was ever good and decent about America. One side is unleashing havoc upon the poor, the different, the least of those among us and the ones who believe in the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount. The other side says we must wait, in the manner of General McClellan, until we decide what pronouns define us ere we set our defenses.

As in any battle, the side weaker in numbers and moral basis must move faster and with the most force.

Why is that so important now? Anyone who can read knew what might happen. Hell, it was published and available, much like Special Order 191. No one, however, seems to have believed it would happen so quickly.

It must. It gives the forces of darkness time to weaken the American resolve with what we might call their “political artillery.”

At the proper moment, then, with resolve in shamble, “I declare martial law and declare that elections are no longer useful” will sound simply like another day in the park.

DEFEAT FASCISM

 Journal of a Left-Wing Radical

No contacts yesterday. The imaginary basement of HC's pizza parlor is empty once again.

Mostly I spent the day in rapt confusion. See … I'm not the least bit confused about Donald J. Trump. Anyone who pays attention at least 30 minutes a week knew, by the end of 2020, that he was an unprincipled, depraved, opportunistic, greedy and gloated grifter unfit for any role of responsibility.

Enough for his good points.

The thing that troubles me is that I could name without wrinkling a brow at least 20 about whom I once trusted to be kind, generous, loving people who now fully support the machinations of the MAGA Cabal.

Most of these people claim Christianity as their cultural and moral base. Oh, they are not the Galilean Christians of years gone by. Lumped largely as "evangelicals," they are what I call "ABC" cult members, as in "Anti-Beatitude Christians."

They belong, mostly, to that lemming-like cohort of devotees who will follow the MAGA leaders over any cliff proposed. They now claim allegiance to the doctrine whereby 10,000 children may starve or die from polio if it would prevent a single same-sex couple who love one another from enjoying the legal sanctity of marriage.

Inexplicable ain't the word for it. But I miss our friendship.