"Indigenous People Appreciation Day"

Welcome to Indigenous People Appreciation Day. Let's recognize it that way in spirit. My calendar informs me it's Columbus Day. Many people will still go out to their mailbox and make a check. That's because they got no heads-up regarding the fact it's Columbus Day. It has always been an obscure holiday. 

In my Sun Tribune days I'd probably have to be reminded that today is in fact a holiday. We worked with the U.S. Mail a lot, and as van driver through a large portion of my tenure, I had to be aware of all holidays. I'd say "oh, is today a holiday?" With some mock surprise. I was really hinting that holidays such as Columbus Day and Presidents Day weren't worth the trouble. 

Most of us who worked in private business weren't affected much if at all. Government jobs can get you some time off, at least for some of them. 

Barry Goldwater commented skeptically about the proposed MLK holiday, that "it's just another day when the mail won't get delivered." Goldwater toward the end of his life became a charming if cynical figure. Oh wait a minute, his cynicism led to his charm! At his height he was a most serious political force, even if in November of 1964 it was obvious he'd be toast against LBJ. 

Goldwater nevertheless kept the GOP on the side of ideological conservatism, tilting it away from the Nelson Rockefeller element. I remember watching TV the day Rockefeller proposed his "lottery" for military conscription (the draft). So instead of a draft coming down hard on all young men, maybe you'd get a chance through pure luck to have your life spared. My generation collectively said "nuts!" to his idea and any other that assumed the war was worth furthering at all. 

Rockefeller was what might be described as a "progressive" Republican. Maybe I'd prefer "establishment Republican" at least by the standards of the time. "The establishment" was what prolonged the Vietnam war. Against all painfully obvious logic, the war dragged on. Even the fiasco of the fall of Saigon did not teach us all a long-term lesson, one to file, hence our current humiliation by leaving Afghanistan and doing so in a means that had echoes of the fall of Saigon. 

Any Republican who tells you our current retreat is any more humiliating than the end of Vietnam has been smoking something. No, I'd be happy if "smoking something" was the real explanation - to get serious, the situation now is that the Republican Party must lay blame for everything bad at the Democratic Party's doorstep. The crescendo of Trump support is growing again. Unless some sort of indictment actually falls on the guy, watch him inspire the huge throngs at his Nuremberg-like rallies. 

These are people who'd support a person who caused agonizing worry among top generals about the possibility of deploying nuclear weapons. Against China? I remember Chris Matthews' consternation, when Trump was moving up toward the nomination, about Trump saying re. nuclear weapons: "We have them so why don't we use them?" Matthews clarified that the reason we have them is so we don't have to use them, a rather elementary assertion to make. 

But maybe it's too much trouble to expect an aspiring presidential hopeful to grasp this? Even though most elementary-age kids could grasp it? 

It does no good for me to remind that cult leaders take their followers down with them. It does no good because I cannot score points with the Trump faithful who I observe in Stevens County, the guys with Trump's profile on the side of their pickups etc. If only we could just be amused by this. 

So Trump holds a rally in Iowa and 88-year-old Senator Grassley gets up there and pledges total support for Trump, based, he said, on polls showing the overwhelming majority of Iowa Republicans continue to support Trump. So if 90 percent of the party's faithful are fools or lemmings, Sen. Grassley said he's obligated to be a fool or a lemming himself. 

Eighty-eight years old? What's with these people? Can't they slow down and enjoy a comfortable retirement, let the next generation (or actually the one after them) move in and deal with the hard thinking? But instead of hard thinking, we see Republicans like Grassley just get up there and tout Trump. Absolutely no critical thinking required at all. Hey, maybe that's easier for an 88-year-old. Or maybe I could trot out some of my old "Iowa" jokes. 

I don't have TV now but my media sources have not mentioned it's Columbus Day, October 11. I only know because my calendar has a notation. In Canada it's their Thanksgiving. They can be thankful that Trump is our problem. 

We see a stream of expose-style books coming out about Trump in the White House, a cottage industry I predicted with no doubt. All these media people pull hair out with consternation about the disgrace of the Trump presidency, from endless angles, but the irony is this: Trump from the start has been nothing but a gold mine for the news media industry, and by extension book publishing. 

Look how low our nation sank under Trump. The Joe Scarborough TV program every morning, which I can still watch online, has become something like a three-hour daily rant about it all, led by Scarborough who was a long-time Republican (no more). 

If in 2016 we had had the expected race between Clinton and Jeb Bush, the media would have panicked because of the boredom and predictability of it all. Horrors! However, we should not look for entertainment or shock value from our nation's leaders. 

Am I making too much sense? We should want leaders who will make us "eat our peas" sometimes, like to follow some stringent rules after a pandemic breaks out. Leaders would require some sacrifices be made. It would be a long-term strategy. 

It has been said of the most successful people, that the key to their success is to be able to "defer gratification." The Trump crowd kept shouting "individual freedom" and it continues up through today, never mind the pandemic is going to linger. Our economy has survived up to this point, albeit with the Federal Reserve creating new free money all the time. Can this succeed long-term? Rhetorical question. 

So let's call today "Indigenous People Appreciation Day." I once suggested this to our Morris library director who had connections with city officials, but I doubt any such proclamation was signed, to put aside Columbus Day for "Indigenous People's Day." It's still a worthy objective in my mind. 

We fondly remember the late Mike Miller, UMM administrator. 

I'm Norwegian and we beat Columbus to the North American continent anyway.

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com