Today's post ends a little hiatus in online writing for me. The cause? Breakdown of a laptop. These devices have a lifespan. I did not scramble immediately to replace.
A few days of "offline" is instructive. Reminded me of a truism about TV soap operas. They draw you in and make you interested in the characters, no doubt. However, it is oft commented that when you go a couple weeks without watching, you can resume and get the feeling you missed very little if anything.
The headlines on "Drudge" and other such sites ring of such drama. Earthshaking things might seem to be happening on any given day. History in the making? It can be an illusion. The Russia investigation had a dramatic air at so many junctures. History in the making? But as it staggered toward its conclusion, one couldn't help but think we were sort of led along.
You could sense anticlimax coming with the "first" impeachment. OK I use quotes because we don't know to what extent we'll have a second impeachment. Technically the outgoing president is impeached, I guess. But the process seems in suspension.
The "new" impeachment story is buried under the hoopla of inauguration. We made it to inauguration day without the right wingers literally blocking the transition of power. There's the real drama: the fact we'll have a really truly new president.
The Democrats have only a narrow majority in the House. The Democrats barely clawed out a majority in the Senate and had to rely on, of all states, Georgia of the U.S. South, a pretty red-oriented region.
Today I called up Drudge for the first time in several days. The tenor is predictable. "Trump leaves as he came: isolated and unpredictable." We should all be whistling past the graveyard as we wonder what the Trump-ists all over the country might do.
I congratulate Drudge on never having been taken in by Trump.
Look at what MAGA did at the U.S. capitol. Are you ready for the stream of books and movies? Can't you envision the capitol invasion on the big screen? The "shaman" and others? The crowd literally charged. What does that remind you of? Think of the raw passions of all those people. They felt so emboldened, so righteous, and on the surface they actually had a sheen of triumph.
Yes, seemed a bit like Pickett's charge of the U.S. Civil War. The Confederates made it to the "stone wall." It seemed like an accomplishment, albeit at horrific cost, but what the heck were the battered souls going to accomplish there? It was a lot of sound and fury.
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| Rebel flag at capitol (Reuters) |
History can definitely get things out of proportion. Did Pickett and George Armstrong Custer really have an impact that made them household words in U.S. history studies? In truth, the widows of these icons - bless them for their devotion - worked hard to build their husbands' profiles. Errol Flynn played Custer in "They Died With Their Boots On." Remember Olivia de Havilland in that flick? Olivia died only in the recent past, age 104.
So the MAGA mob did their procession toward the capitol just like the doomed Confederates. I have always wondered why the rebs didn't fight more like Native Americans. Get behind trees and shoot, forget massed formations. Actually there was a Southern general who did fight like that: Nathan Bedford Forrest. You hear the name and probably instantly think of the KKK. The KKK of the U.S. past is in the dustbin with the German Nazis.
At the start, the KKK supposedly had the purpose of protecting former Confederates from harassment. General Forrest didn't have as much formal military training as many of his peers. That explains his more, well, intuitive feel. A footnote about General Longstreet: History has portrayed him as sullen at Gettysburg.
The fools at our U.S. capitol made a spectacle much like the Confederates who assembled on the third and final day at Gettysburg. The gray-clad rebs chanted, they adopted a marching cadence set by drums. And yet the spectacle had no chance.
The Union artillery commander felt he could have destroyed the whole advance with his asset. Maybe that was true. Just as it was true that the Union could have employed "Gatling guns" more, i.e. crude machine guns. The problem in the Civil War was there were understood limits to the barbarity of combat. You might say "gentlemen's standards."
What if Drudge had been around for the battle of Gettysburg?
A sense of "happening"
Did the MAGA goons at the U.S. capitol think they were going to taste "victory" of any kind? Truth be told, I think there was a gawker's sense accompanying it all. Bored people, people who knew they'd be on TV. It really can be a powerful impulse.
Yours truly enjoys settings like this, like when I ran the Twin Cities Marathon three times in the 1980s and felt a rush hearing the TV helicopters above us at the start. A happening! A departure from the mundane and boring normal life. Was this behind the St. Cloud State University Homecoming riots? I have been teased about whether I might have taken part. It was my school. (I didn't take part.)
I can see the MAGA event gaining momentum in the same way as the clowns who showed up for St. Cloud State homecoming. It's a "rush." You might look for Forrest Gump or Rosey Grier!
We can't be amused by the MAGA incident because people died. I can just imagine the whole chaotic scene showing up on the movie screen someday, maybe soon. But will we still be going to standard movie theaters? Or will the "streaming" thing have taken over?
My podcast for Jan. 20
Nice to resume my "Morris Mojo" podcast after the little hiatus. It's good for my voice to do the podcast. So the inspiration for today - no surprise - is the start of Biden's presidency. It is day 1 as we strive for optimism. The permalink:
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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