A Tweet from Mid-January
A mob of MAGA persuasion
Conducted a statehouse invasion
Though heavily armed
They parted unharmed
And that’s how you know they’re Caucasian
Tulsa: The Beginning of his End
After the coronavirus pandemic had closed down almost all public events and when more people in a century had lost their jobs, Donald Trump and his reelection campaign decided he needed to do what he did best: hold a big public Make America Great Again rally.
It was set for June 20, less than five months before the election and three months into the pandemic. Tulsa, Oklahoma was the place. The campaign told the press that it had more than one million ticket requests. It turned out that less than half of the 19,000 seat arena in Tulsa was filled.
According to the New York Times and public election records, the event cost $2.2 million. It was $500,000 to rent the facility including constructing seating for thousands for an expected overflow crowd. The campaign reported spending $1 million in “event staging fees.” The MAGA hats, refreshments and parking were all free to the Trump supporters at the rally.
The Tulsa event was designed to unveil the direction and rhetoric he was to use for the rest of the campaign both in style and content. Trump spoke for about 90 minutes and it became the first super-spreader event of 2020, perhaps the largest ever. His campaign manager, Brad Parscale, was demoted after the Tulsa disaster.
In light of what happened in the seven months that followed, his speech that June night in Tulsa takes on major significance. This is part of what he said:
“Do you want to bow before the left-wing mob, or do you want to stand up tall and proud Americans?
The unhinged left-wing mob is trying to vandalize our history, desecrate our monuments, our beautiful monuments. Tear down our statues and punish, cancel and persecute anyone who does not conform to their demands for absolute and total control!
They want to demolish our heritage so they can impose their new progressive regime in its place.”
History won’t be kind to Citizen Trump. We now know how awful and frighteningly inept he and his government were for four years.
Enough Is Enough
One thing we learned conclusively in January 2021 is the depth of destructive and toxic power of Mitch McConnell—not that we didn’t know it before he was elected to his seventh 6-year term in the Senate. It will be 42 years. He’ll be 84.
Mitch is the poster child for term limits. No way he or any other Senator should be there any more than two terms. (Three might be acceptable). After 12 years, if that person is still committed to working for the public interest and his or her state, then s/he can change jobs and become a Congressperson, get a cabinet appointment, become an ambassador or governor or mayor.
My point is that nobody should ever again have a 42-year reign to single-handedly control the movement of legislation for the whole country.
The obvious problem is how can term limits become law when it’s the Congress that makes the laws? Maybe a constitutional amendment? My role is not how to implement good ideas, but to tell it the way I see it.
That reminds me of James Carville, who managed his first national election campaign in 1992. When we sat down with him for a PBS Election Special during the presidential debate that year, we asked him what job he’d want if his candidate (Governor Bill Clinton) won. He gave one of his characteristic Carville smirks and said, “I know how to win elections. I don’t know how to govern.”
Capitol Punishment Meme
“We spend $750 billion annually for ‘defense’ and the center of American government fell in two hours to the duck dynasty and the guy in the Chewbacca bikini.”
Basketball — a Running Theme for Me
It’s a big part of who many of us have been. As kids, we played 3-6 hours outside every day it was over 45 degrees for years. I played on the Highwood, IL under 12 years-old “Little Guys” (under five feet) and “Biddy Basketball,” (under 5’6”) teams that went to national tournaments in the 1950s.
I played mostly second-string on the high school freshman B-team but never made the varsity. One reason was that I was still under 5”6” until after my sophomore year. But, watching basketball has been a constant for more than 60 years. It started with going to what was called the “Sweet Sixteen” Illinois high school tournament in Champaign with my father all four years I was in high school—fifteen games in three days.
In college, I was just in time for the birth of the University of Michigan as a basketball power on the shoulders of Cazzie Russell. They made it to the NCAA Final Four twice and in the round of 16 during my senior year in Ann Arbor. I wrote stories and columns in the Michigan Daily and traveled with the team in all of those years.
In the 1980s, I had season tickets and went to most games during the Michael Jordan years, 1984-1998. First at the Chicago Stadium, then at the United Center where I produced a weekly local sports show during Jordan’s first incredible year. He was like a ballet star and we did some of the first sports music videos showing his athletic beauty:
Playing as a team on offense and defense is what I have always loved to see, more than scoring. In his highest-scoring season, Jordan averaged 37 points a game, but the Bulls finished fourth in their division. Winning is about first having the talent than everyone playing as a team. Coach Phil Jackson knew it and proved it more than anyone by winning 11 NBA championships.
Nowadays, basketball is more of a passing interest (pun intended). I still watch some (and play never). The best seats went from $15 to $150. It’s all big money and corporate domination, both in college and the pros. Sponsorships of various kinds even show up in the high school game. Corporate commercialism has always turned me off and now that I see how it affects every part of our lives, I reject it even more just about everywhere, in sports, on TV, online, and on every highway.
Bill Bradley was a guard on the New York Knicks championship team in 1970. He became a US Senator for 18 years and an unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate in 2000. I can relate to his remark about what he learned from his Hall of Fame Coach Red Holzman:
“To be very clear as to what your expectations are. Red had three rules:
–Help out on defense.
–Hit the open man on offense, and
–The hotel bar belongs to me.”
Video Takes You There
When you’ve been part of an event that you know will have lots of books and movies written about it, you get a distinct feeling. It’s kind of like a Forrest Gump vibe or a Zelig thing.
I felt that way about the Chicago Conspiracy Trial and the events of the Democratic National convention of 1968.
In December, long-time pal and co-conspirator Starr Sutherland checked in from San Francisco saying he had a video that was recorded in 1970 and all seven of the Chicago Conspiracy defendants (minus Bobby Seale who was no longer on trial then) that had been seen by almost nobody in the last 50 years. R.G. (Ron) Harris, now 87, was friends with the defendants and was able to corral them into a Chicago TV studio for an hour of discussion with him. I took on restoring the video and making it available on mediaburn.org: https://mediaburn.org/blog/chicago-conspiracy-8/
That hour was more revealing and real than the smash-hit scripted reality version by Aaron Sorkin on Netflix or any of the other movies done about the landmark trial. Why? It was a genuine discussion among active, bright people and the moderator had the brains to mostly let them talk among themselves, rather than having it be his TV show. That it was uninterrupted for just about an hour (raw tape, as we say) gave it more impact that if it had been cut up into short pieces.
Because I had been present and involved in the events, having been at the 1968 convention and most days in the 1969-70 trial, it was especially fulfilling to preserve and bring this obscure video (link: https://vimeo.com/492877984/552aeda281) to the world. Because it is on Media Burn, it is slotted “permanently” for everyone to actually experience the times with the people who were directly involved.
One bonus is that I had a 20-ish collaborator, Teis Jayaswal, who ate up the history and I suspect learned more about events and people of that moment in history in a couple weeks of working on the video than anyone would in a course in college or grad school.
A week after we sent it out on Media Burn, an article by long-time chronicler of the left Jonah Raskin appeared on CounterPunch. It was welcome delayed recognition for RG Davis, 50 years later, and for Media Burn as well.
Family Update
The Bozeman Daily Chronicle spotted the Palms, Mireille, Matthew, Eliza, and Oliver at an ice sculpture event, snapped this pic and put it in the paper. You can see why.
And introducing the newest family member…
Eleanor and I have saluted the joyful future with an adorable puppy, Poodella at 12 weeks.
She’s a Moyen poodle and will grow to about 25 pounds and a dual citizen of Kentucky and Chicago. She’s a joy and nearly a full-time job at the moment.
I hope that the relief so many of us felt on January 20 will evolve into a period when decency and positive values take over for the darkness of the last few years. And that most certainly includes common sense prevailing so the pandemic which this country has taken to extremes, will be stopped in its tracks in the months ahead.
Seeya in March when this snowy and cold winter will be almost over.
PY-O-MY 
For Tom…
I’ll never forget going to a December basketball game in those years when Merv Sharfman (remember him?) brought a huge long and narrow sign that he unfurled across many people in the stands that read “CAZZIE, BILL AND OLLIE…TIS THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY!”
of course I remember and cherish Merv. A one-of-a-kind guy. Still around? In Toledo?