Buy The Ticket-Take The Ride-The Trials And Tribulations Of Scoping The 2020 Democratic Party Nomination-Part  

By Allan Jackson

As long as I have been in politics, interested in politics which is a very long time now it never fails to hit me on the impeachment process (Fall 2019) of one Donald J. Trump, POSTUS who by any standard of decency or hygiene should have been shown the door a long time ago. But the rages against the night over that one are not what has me exercised today. Especially since once the process gets to the Senate floor it is given the actual political configuration dead on arrival, DOA, in every sense of that expression. No what has me exercised in light of the political reality of the day is how the issue of impeachment and acquittal will lay out to Trump’s unearned advantage. More pressingly how it will affect the configuration going into 2020. This after having recently spent an afternoon in the wiles of New Hampshire stirring up the pot for Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont who at this point (unlike a couple of months ago) has a track to the Democratic Party nomination if things work out for him early in places like Iowa and New Hampshire.  

From what I can gather after one afternoon (and some other time not in New Hampshire but courtesy of modern technology calling voters in the state from home) is that impeachment business among the somewhat culled working lists is more a spectacle for the pros than a living, breathing concern of those out in the hinterland. But that could cut both ways. As far as I know every Democratic presidential candidate has come out one way or another for impeachment, including Senator Sanders, so that will color politics going forward if not now then come fall general election time. That is probably all that subject is worth at this time but stay tuned.

What is really intriguing is the play in New Hampshire and nationally this fall as candidates jockey for position. I am the first to admit that in early October I thought Senator Sander’s chances due to health and a trend toward other candidates, particularly the rising star of Senator Elizabeth Warren as former Vice President Joseph Biden’s star was fading was at best stalled. Since then with his recovery and with a crucial endorsement and major rally in Queens with rising super-star AOC things have turned somewhat, turned for the better. Strangely, if thankfully, during that period the Senator Warren star has fallen somewhat. Fallen mainly over fudging the issues around Medicare for All but in general not convincing people that she will not, or would not, cave in to muddled maybe someday pie in the sky medical care issues favored by the Democratic Party establishment. Perhaps the biggest if most expensive political lesson she has had to learn in her short political career.     

It really comes down to the question of trust, and maybe time too. Senator Sanders has been touting his social and political agenda for the past forty years-and people have finally caught up to him. He did not cut corners when he was virtually alone out in the wilderness and he has not now when he has a whole freaking movement at his back to raise holy hell. Yeah, it comes down to trust, a commodity in short supply in the political universe these days. That and a certain amount of undefinable courage to fight the fight against the greed-heads, the con men, the ever present bag men and the corner cutters. That is the sense that I get talking to people in the hills of old New Hampshire about Senator Sanders whether they support him or not. You can hardly get anybody to disagree that he will not fight like seven dervishes once he hits the White House running. Forward to victory in the New Hampshire come February 11, 2020.

No Question Impeachment Is Not Enough, Not Nearly Enough For What One Donald J Trump Has Done But Where The Hell Do You Go With It

By Alan Jackson

Back in the early 1970s when we had a comparable problem with a POSTUS, then one Richard Milhous Nixon, petty thief and major criminal I remember reading a headline from some left-wing newspaper which heralded in big bold type “Impeachment Is Not Enough.” And it was not, could not be for all the violations of bourgeois political norms as loose as they were then to speak nothing of his role in keeping troops in Vietnam long past their due date. The political configurations were a bit different then, including that it had been a century since a sitting president was to head to the dunking stool. The gest of that headline was that Nixon should face an international tribunal composed of his war victims, or their representations (the dockets would have been overflowing in that case for he would not be alone in that housecleaning). That real justice never happened since the felon avoided the perp walk complete with orange jumpsuit by resigning before the gauntlet fell.

Now we have a situation which clearly admits to an impeachment proceeding for violations of bourgeois norms and conscious obstruction of justice staring with the boss, with the POSTUS, now one Donald J. Trump, petty thief and major criminal all the way down the slippery slope to who knows what end. But the configuration is all wrong this time although if there was a way to get a conviction in the Republican-dominated Senate  I would move mountains to see that small piece of justice done. But the times have no such look. A Democratic major in the House responding to their base, or their sense of what is right in American political discourse, has though myriad committees decided to draft and eventually vote on some articles of impeachment. That task done the ball is in the Senate’s court which I have already mentioned is stacked the other way. Once again the bad guys will draw a pass from a little social justice.   

What I worry about and you should too is the fallout from the failure to convict. Stacked or not this would be a tremendous propaganda victory for Trump and his minions. The only virtue is that perhaps it is far enough away from next November’s elections so that the factor is blunted, although it will not go away. The Democrats, including their current crop of presidential candidates ready to smite Mr. Trump, have generally supported the impeachment process. But they, despite some candidates’ significant poll edges over Trump NOW, will bear the burden of the hellfire and mud coming down on this one. You did not hear this bad tiding news here first but you have heard it here.     

       

Why Is Everybody Picking On Ellsworth Kelly Just Because He Figured Out He Liked Colors And Shapes

By Seth Garth

I don’t usually like to get into the mighty thicket of controversy in the art world not having paid all that much attention to trends over the past several years or more since Sam Lowell and then amateur (her designation) Laura Perkins took over the major assignments in that area. Except now I have been challenged on my defense of one Ellsworth Kelly who passed away a few years ago at an old age after have imbibed various art trends most notably color, the color school that formed at least in part to a reaction against the dominance of abstract expressionism and its going off the deep end.  

Here is how this played out since it is hardly a current controversy or even for that matter an ancient one at this point. A friend of mine and I were walking in the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco when we came upon a series of Ellsworth Kelly paintings, the usual interesting combination of colors and shapes that gave me a gathered collective effect after sitting and observing for a few minutes. That friend asked me point blank whether I liked the configuration or liked any particular piece. I said I liked most of it although I was far from being a color aficionado now, or then when it was serious trend. She responded that the work left her cold, left her somewhat disturbed by the hubris and hinted at the question of questions always hidden in the depths of the art world coterie whether this was really art when you came down to it.    

The match was on. Let’s start off with the true proposition that art is the highest expression of humankind’s capacity to wonder, and to act on that impulse to create some piece of simple beauty in a stark world. The question then becomes taking on the process of decision made throughout history by pros, by the people paying the freight for the productions or by the artist him or herself to create something beyond the mundane to determine what is what in any particular time-or fashion. That is when a million schools contend although more so since the post Renaissance period where fashion and taste have tended to move much faster in the world. Unlike said the period immediately before, medieval times when, the narrow contests were between those who created (and adored) say the Blessed Mother Mary, complete with baby Jesus on lap and putti asunder and the grizzly scenes around the various tortures of Jesus, the Christ before the nailed him to some tree.        

It is that edge, that sense of need to produce something different, to take art in a different direction that has been the most common and explosive development of the last few centuries. And hence to Ellsworth Kelly (and others like the latter Rothko) who having seen high style Impressionism give way to war-torn Surrealism and Dadaism then Abstract Expressionism take the art world by a storm after the latter carnage of World War II reacted in the one of two possible ways-back to some form of representational art which has sustained the profession forever or shift gears and move away from the hodge-podge of abstraction to a more stylized sense of color (and form always together in my book). Brilliant, if not always understandable choice especially with Rothko).       

It is entirely possible (and probable) that my argument will leave that friend who shuttered at colorist works still unconvinced, still shaking her head. But like they say about pornography or other seemingly offensive materials avert your eyes. In any case leave poor Ellsworth alone, please.

Holy-Holy -The Fourth Great Awakening Has Still Not Run Its Course-The End Times, The Fire In The Lake, The Book Of Revelations And Much More

By Seth Garth

One of the great political mysteries of the age, the age of Trump, is how faithfully those who call themselves evangelicals (white brethren portion) have supported the heathen city dweller and philanderer over the past four years. In the end they may be his last bulwark against the flood tide coming down on his head not so much from the impeachment process which is very iffy but his bid for reelection. Recently I was re-reading some articles by the late Gonzo journalist (the father of the genre) written a couple of years before the 1988 elections for the San Francisco Examiner.  In one article (maybe more than one) he noted that the previously fringe evangelicals hovelled up in their local churches had begun via tele-evangelists to break into the political sphere-and organize around that idea of political power, bringing it to bear. That factor got me wondering about when the latest “great awakening” will run its course since it already is and remains a major factor in American political life.  

These great awakenings have a certain cycle. The first one came as far as I know sometime in the 18^th century when the likes of Cotton Mather ruled the roost and some of the old-time pilgrim pioneers “got religion” after they had started the road to devastation of the continent. The second awakening came and “burned over” areas outside the East Coast citadels. Names like Grandison and Pike played to large tent crowds from Albany to South Bend. The third great awakening was more problematic since it edged considerable on politics although the evangelicals themselves were at the margins in campaigns like William Jennings Bryan and the ill-advised Prohibition Amendment which had to be revoked. And now the fourth awakening which seems to have started around the late 1970s in reaction to what some saw as the excesses of the 1960s to provide some space for the woe-begotten and lost.     

This fourth awakening is of its own kind since along with the dramatic increase of numbers the cash started rolling in once the major tele-evangelists found out that their message played well out in the heartland to those with televisions and credit cards. The rise of big mega-churches, conventions, sale of merchandise, etc. got some of those preachers like Jerry Farwell and Pat Robinson to dream bigger dreams especially when what they were advocating socially fit in nicely with what the Republican Party was espousing. In tried and true political ABCs fashion they began to fill the branches of the Republican bureaucracy, state and local. And there we have it except to say that for the look of things even after the heathen Trump finds the door these evangelical will play a part in public life.    

In the headline I mention “end times,” the “fire in the lake” and the dreaded Book of Revelation. The reason for that is once you buy into these concepts (and the search for the lost tribes of Israel) then whether the POSTUS is a heathen, a philanderer, a habitual liar, so crooked that he needs a phalanx of valets to put on his pants and a little crazy does not matter. Judgement day is coming and everybody should be ecstatic.     

The Fate Of The Wanting Habits-The Eternal Search For El Dorado  

By Ronan Saint John

When we were kids, when I was a kid, at a time when we had not had a sense of wonder beaten out of us by life, by the damn wanting habits that plagued that childhood we were fascinated by stories of legends, especially legends that had a pot of gold at the end of them. None caught my fancy more than the tales about the lost treasures of El Dorado, the main vein coming out of ancient times. Of course as a project kid, as a kid strung out a mile on the idea of having something more than the meager stuff we had and the endless “noes” of mother some such secret treasure loomed larger than that in the imagination.

The idea of treasure, of something you could just grab and win the prize got me crazy sometimes. I remember once in the spirt of that quest that I took some coins, maybe a couple of dollars’ worth and buried them in the yard. When playmates came over I told them I had heard from some old sailor at the nearby Sailors’ Home that there was treasure buried all over the place in the area from the days when harbor the projects were built next to was a contact point for privateers and others gaining their wares in an ill-gotten manner. With that spark I was able to lead those playmates to the so-called treasure and for the next few months you would find little molehills of dirt in various yards and fields based on that simple “discovery.” All for a couple of dollars’ worth of coin. Imagine finding El Dorado.       

But that was then and this is now. Recently I read an article that down in South America some explorers, maybe archeologists, had found a map or markings I am not sure which since this is all new that appears to be on the trail to El Dorado somewhere in the lower Andes where the indigenous peoples there held sacred ceremonies. These ceremonies, essentially rites of passage to manhood of the young bravos were long rumored to have been occasions when each received gold and silver to be thrown by them into a pile in a designated cave. That cave, the repository of the whole tribal experience was considered sacred, meaning leave it alone-or else. Of course when the Spaniards and later Europeans came to grab their shares of gold and silver and whatever else was not nailed to the ground they would hear of this pot of gold just waiting to be found like money on the ground.

Some of the stories of those who actually tried to find the trail, tried to follow the markings is one of the sad tales of history. More than a few were killed once the by the locals found out what they were looking for, others never came back to the small village where the trail was allegedly to start. Some came back with wild tales of huge monsters and other oddities guarding the cave. Then once the silver ran out, the gold and explorers looked elsewhere the story was left behind. These latter-day explorers are the first known adventurers to go looking again. Good luck, but maybe I should give a cautionary tale while I am on the subject. Maybe I was not the first guy to “seed” other dreams as I did when I was a kid back in the projects. Maybe some young indigenous kid back then played the same game by conveniently leaving a map or markings for some unsuspecting people with severe wanting habits to happen upon.                   

Of The Big Fix, The Bagman Cometh And The American Political Scene Circa 2019

By Allan Jackson

Ever since the Supreme Court handed down Citizens United several years ago which has essentially allowed unfettered political contributions from who knows where there has been a steady stream of complaints about the role of money in politics. Some Democratic presidential campaign like the Warren and Sanders efforts have highlighted the overwhelming weight corporations and billionaires have over the political process. And something must be done about it, at least to curb the flow for now. Today though I want to deal with the rise of that money flow well before that Supreme Court decision opened the floodgates since it can be traced back at least to the 1980s if not before.

I was reading, or rather re-reading the late Hunter Thompson’s Generation of Swine mainly articles compiled from work he did for the San Francisco Examiner during that period and noted that in more than one piece he was hollering against the role of money in politics back then. His thesis is that sometime after Richard Nixon’s reelection in 1972 which cost in total, if you can believe this, 20-million dollar chicken feed today for maybe a small town mayor’s race, a new generation of politicians figured out that it was well-placed money targeted to particular audiences that won the day not some programmatic or ideological scheme. That would make a certain amount of sense since the role of parties, the hold of parties over the electorate has been severely eroded and it is essentially each candidate for him or herself.         

The funny thing about all this is that money has always played some role in politics but in the old days, the days of party machines when they controlled votes and patronage it was small time stuff. I remember Biff Walsh the old reporter at the State House in Boston for years telling me when I was starting out that when somebody wanted something, maybe a city contract they would have their courier, their bag man deliver the dough in small bills in a bag, a freaking lunch bag. Biff told a couple of memorable stories, one about how somebody’s bag man delivered the bag to the wrong John Kelly. Put twenty thousand right on the desk. Right or wrong Kelly that was the last that bag was seen and what was anybody to do about it since everybody was “on the take,” right door or wrong. The other story was how a member of the State Senate leadership took a fit when Bernie Walsh’s bagman delivered the cold hard cash in hand. Seems the guy was sentimental and refused to take the donation unless it was in the classic bag. Small time stuff but there you have it.

Of course now everything is done with mirrors and computers with every known organizational trick in the books. Super-Pacs and “interest” groups abound. Now for the upcoming 2020 elections well over a billion dollars will flow, mainly for media. And that is the rub. That is the point old Hunter Thomson was trying to make when he interviewed some bright young K Street lobbyists and dealmakers. Everything in a divided country is now targeted to a small portion of the population that might change its mind and the rest is so much wasted money and time. Sad but maybe Bernie or Elizabeth can turn things around if they get into the Oval Office.  

Something From The Ancient Archives When This Site Spent Plenty Of Space Predicting A Major College Nation Champion

By Ronan Saint John

In a sports-crazed nation it is hard to get worked up about the doings of one Joe Jordan, average sports guy maybe ten, fifteen years ago and then he went cold turkey. Almost. He just couldn’t give up following the major college teams that had gotten him started down that road when he was a kid. In those days, unlike now, the major colleges did not have a play-off style tournament to determine who was king of the hill but got the “mythical” national championship settled by various coaches and sports-writers’ polls with number one and two in the ratings fighting it out for the prize. (That polling system is still in use today to determine who the final four will be in the playoffs). In short the college associations have met the demand half-way for some kind of definitive play-off system to determine the champion. Fair enough.        

What has Joe Jordan continuing to plug away is that polling business, the rating of teams by various standards to see who has a say top five, ten or nowadays twenty-five team. That intrigued him as a kid interested in numbers but also interested him in how he would rate his own selections. So minus the selection of the final four he is still in business. Of course probably the main initial impetus for Joe getting involved at all was that he was the son of a “subway fan” of the famous Notre Dame football teams, the Fighting Irish, a natural choice in a mostly Irish Catholic neighborhood where the adults, including that father would have drinks and bet on the games come Saturday afternoon at the local Dublin Grille. (And spent the weekly paycheck, including Joe’s father on more than one occasion, on a misplaced wrong bet but that is a story for another time when we are speaking about wanting habits down at the base of society.) That “subway fan” by the way has its own tradition since the working-class guys who followed the Irish had no relationship to the college or anything else except they all took the Redline subway to work in Boston and hence the name.         

The rating system, systems really, Joe used in his own calculations consisted of predicting the weekly match-ups (for money) and then on Sunday grabbing the newspaper and see what had happened to the various teams. Then, at least in the old times, he would wait for say the AP or Coaches poll to come out Monday morning during the fall. That was the fun part particularly when you got down to the selections for say the last five or ten spots on the now standard twenty-five spot roster. Should a good 9-2-Navy team get the number twenty spot over an 8-3 Rutgers team. Even further up the food chain controversies would abound when Joe and friends did their friendly wagering at the self-same Dublin Grille.      

Which brings us to today (2019) and the latest rankings for the coveted final four spots which are still up for grabs-this just before the various league championships which factor heavily at the end. Clemson, undefeated, looks like a lock against Virginia, Ohio State, undefeated, ditto, LSU though may have all it can handle against a fired-up Georgia team that has a flunk loss earlier in the season. Which might let say Oklahoma or Oregon in. We shall see. What we shall not see is our Joe Jordan worrying over the actual playoff picture or results. That part is boring he says.